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I've been working on the bodice, which is coming along nicely.  Usually, I finish the neckline first, but I can't decide how exactly I want to finish it.  Piping, facing, or piped facing. Each has their own problems to overcome for this particular project.  Piping is always good, but to get around the corners of the neckline I would need to add a separate facing, so the piped facing is out.  The facing alone would need to be cut to the shape of the neck, which has bias edges on the sides of the neck, which would leave the neckline susceptible to stretching.  Adding the piping between the facing would be best, but would be a lot of work for a neckline covered with trim. I am being lazy, so feel that overkill is too much. In the end I decided to leave the shoulder seams unsewn, so as not to stretch the neckline out while working on the rest, until I come up with a plan for the neckline.

So, up first is to put in the boning. I am going to bone the curved back seams with spiral boning, the rest with white spring steel in casings at the center front and side seams. At the darts, I am using the darts themselves as the casings. I am using actual bone casing, so will sew them onto the selvedges along both edges. If I make my own casing I usually just sew one side. I am not planning on using a full or bag lining, so the casings will look better sewn on both edges.

Here is the boning all sewn in and finished.

I wanted to pipe the waistline with a piped facing so did that next. I needed to layer the yellow organdy over the white saxophone to keep it matching. I cut several strips of each and was able to cobble together some piping. Once the piping was made up and pressed in to a facing, it sewed on very easily. Here is the piping turned and ready to hand hem into place.

I have put off the neckline as long as possible, I have to come up with a plan. Then suddenly it hits me; I can use a straight strip of fabric as the facing because the the neckline is square, no curves. I can miter the corners and all is great. If I fold the strip in half, I can use the fold as the outer edge of the facing and keep all the raw edges together. I've never done this before, so was a but unsure how it would work. But it was amazingly easy,and worked great. I just pinned the raw edges to the neckline, and folded the miter in the corners as I went. I had a 45" long strip and of course, I came out 2" short at the other end. Ugh, why does that always happen. Oh, well, laid a tiny scrap over the remaining bit and I sewed it on.

When I went to flip it to the wrong side, I found out the way I had folded the center back edge over the facing doesn't actually work. For piping, you put the piping on the bodice, then fold the facing over the piping. But apparently, for a facing, you have to fold the back edge over first and then put the facing over all of it. Lesson learned. But this is good, because, I think I might add this into the instructions. Here is the strip as I sewed it on to the bodice.

And here is the inside once it was turned, and ready to sew.