THAT Dress

Mine and Joe's first wedding anniversary is in two weeks, as weird as that is to say. So, in honor of that milestone, I should probably post my wedding dress. There was a lot of blogging that happened during the making of said dress (I even documented it in my M.Arch portfolio), but after the wedding, our honeymoon took us right to the start of grad school for me, which just about shut down my life outside of studio until....May? So here it is. The grand reveal, unless you were there, or saw the many, many photos uploaded to my flickr.



Honestly, this was the most frightening thing I've made in my life. And the most expensive. It was my first time working with silk charmeuse and real silk chiffon. This lady, minus the invisible zipper and spiral steel boning (but including the thread!) is 100% silk. Charmeuse for the bodice and skirt, organza interlining, chiffon overskirt, and silk crepe lining. It felt ahhhh-mazing on my body.





Which brings us to the fit. Overall, I'm quite happy with the fit of the dress. But in the last couple months before the wedding, after this monster was finally under construction after over a year of muslins and small tweaks to my-drafted pattern, I had lost a tiny bit of weight. Mostly out of my waist and my boobs (which is bullshit, btw), so there is a bit of unplanned ease in the bodice. In some of the photos, you can see it rippling. I cannot even explain the emotional experience that was the final fitting. But this is a close approximation: a) "holy shit! This is my wedding dress!" b) "omg! I made this!" b) "wah! I can see EVERY SINGLE MISTAKE and it is NOT PERFECT!" But I'm pretty sure on the day of, I didn't care. I just wanted to get my nuptials on and go the hell on vacation. Also, it was totally gratifying to see everyone's brain explode when they found out I made my dress.



Oh, P.S. I made all those bridesmaid dresses too.

Dainties

I, like much of the sewing blogosphere it seems, have been very much preoccupied with the thought of hand-sewn lingerie. I've been dwelling on the idea a bit because, hello, honeymoon. But what really did it for me was the tutorial series on the Colette blog (along with the lovely Valentines shoot). And so, I came up with this little number: a vintage lace bralette.



Normally, the prospect of a bralette, a garment with little to no support structure, would not have crossed my mind (holla, sizeably-chested ladies). But since I've been working a lot on bust fit with my wedding dress and its many mockups, I decided to go for it.

The pattern didn't take long to draft. Just using measurements for bust, underbust, and bp to bp, plus a some well-placed curved seams and darts, I came up with a pretty fantastic fit.

I'm pretty happy with it (and I'm not the only one). I just wish I had enough fabric to make some bottoms. Some cute little tap pants, perhaps. I pretty much just threw this together with scraps of vintage rayon, with just that tiny piece of old lace.

I'm also pretty happy with the back closure. The loops came out nicely, I just wish I hadn't made the prick-stitching on the placket so tight.

I wish I could say that there is more lingerie-sewing in my immediate future, but sadly, there is not. For now, I'll be working on finishing bridesmaid dresses and hopefully starting THE Dress. Wish me luck!

The Mockup Saga: Completion?

So I've been working on and off with this beast (mostly on), and I am happy to say, we have a dress. And not only that, and incredibly well-fitted dress. For reals, I am so excited about how this dress looks and feels on my body. It's like buttah.

Without further ado, my wearable mockup:







I have yet to hem it and add a hook and eye at the back zip, but she's "done" for now.
I'm thinking I might toss it in a dye bath, too. The print is a little too much for me. I'm a grays and blacks sort of lady, so I might have to gloom up the red and yellow floral with a more muted wash. I just need to test out some swatches because the sheer self fabric is some kind of synthetic blend and the lining is cotton. Hmm.

Also, here's a bonus "insides" shot just because I am so pleased with my work:



Final thoughts before the actual dress?
- I'm toying with the idea of an underwire.
- I need to figure out a plan of attack for a lapped zipper or loop/button placket.

That's all for now. I'll probably post on the outcome of possible dye adventures.

Wedding Dress: Mockup 4.0

Between work and life and other projects, I've been working semi-diligently on my wedding dress. After three or so muslins, I've got my fit just right.
So now I've been thinking quite a bit about construction. With my sister's performance dress, I've had experience making a formal fitted dress with some internal structure, but I think my sewing OCD is really going to kick in on this project. Particularly with this mockup, which I hope will turn out to be a wearable run-through of the final dress construction. I have a sheer floral print in my stash - a similar weight to the silk I'll be using for the dress - for the self. Then I'll be using an underlining and lining, which for this version will just be muslin.





Right now I've got the lining and underlining pieces basted together, and mostly sewn up. Boning channels are sewn in, and now I'm working on hand-stitching down all of my seams to the underlining.





I've taken a lot of inspiration from Melissa, who has been posting on the process of making her own wedding dress, as well as this book she recommended (the chapter on bodice construction is available as part of a limited preview on Google Books!).

I'll be back with another update (hopefully with some less crappy photos) once I get the bodice sewn together.

For the 'Maids

Hello little neglected blog.

Most of my update-mojo has been absorbed by the wedding blog and flickr... but I wanted to post a little something I've been working on. Okay, I totally rolled my eyes at myself typing the words "little something." In actuality, I have been designing, drafting, grading and sewing up dresses for my three beloved bridesmaids (i.e., not a small endeavor).

Anyway, here are some visual anecdotes of this process.











The bust darts are a little pointy. I think I'm going to open them up and steam them flat, as recommended in Gertie's post on French darts.






You can see more of my wedding inspiration in this post on the weddingblog (wedlog?) and more sewing goodness in this flickr set.