A bridesmaid dress

Here is my little sister, in her unhemmed bridesmaid dress:





The fabric is navy blue dupoini silk underlined in cotton voile so it's a bit, well, not "stiff" but it has some body to it. My mom and I had a little back and forth with her about how body hugging it should be. She's used to lycra & spandex in her dresses, and dresses that hug your curves. However, well, this is a 1960s pattern, and they really didn't design dresses to do that back in a day. Especially with this material, you can't really make it stretch closely over your curves without it looking a bit weird. You can see in the pattern that it skims:



So. She thinks it's "boxy" and "too loose" and we think it's fitting just fine. I am not much of a bridezilla but I've said "it fits like this for the wedding" and she can get my mom to take it in further after the ceremony. (I'm also getting into sewing silk dresses overload. I've got a nice cotton sundress for Kate lined up to do soon as a couture palate cleanser!!)

I do love me a nice stretch knit dress (see this GORGEOUS one that robin just made), but if I was making one like that, I'd use a pattern designed for a close fit and a stretch fabric. What do you think?

And one last shot... two flower girl dresses and a wedding dress all lined up:

More life in pictures

Making my sister's bridesmaid dress. Navy blue dupuoni silk, underlined in cotton voile. Lined just on top in silk habatoi.








My neighborhood in Jersey City





Remember how I accidently made three back left bodice pieces to my dress? Here is how I recycled the extra pieces- into a ring pillow.



And a sneak peek... Kate in her flower girl dress and a rose tiara! We took pictures with the kids early so that we don't worry about them being, well, kids on The Big Day. Smartest part of the wedding planning I think we've done so far! ;) It was also a nice dry run for getting everyone dressed and to the park, we figured out who needed what and how to get everything organized.

buttons

Picture post! Because my brain has turned into a wedding stress marshmellow. We have 20 days to go....


18 buttons covered in taffeta


A sample of my wedding day bouquet from my florist... the pink is tissue paper she wrapped it in to protect it. Yellow roses for military wives mean "always faithful to your soldier" - I think related to the old tradition of "tie a yellow ribbon" when they would deploy. So I asked my florist to come up with something modern, but using yellow roses, and she did a *gorgeous* job.




My dad. Learning how to use his new iphone. Welcome to the modern age dad! He is so excited about learning how to text from his new phone. ;)



My sister's new kitten! Her name is Sophie.

turquoise

One flower girl dress is nearly done!



Here were are, sans hem, and with the silk flowers just pinned in place. This is the Oliver + S school photo dress, in size 7. The material is silk taffeta, from Mood. I know that the girls love this pattern with the adorable hidden pocket, so they will be pretty comfortable. They have white cardigans, white lacy ankle socks, and black maryjanes to wear with them.

Ana's is up next, and I think I'll make hers in a navy blue silk with more of the white flowers on the yoke.

And finally, some lilacs from our dinner table. They smell so nice! I wish they were in bloom longer. These are from the Union Square farmer's market early early this morning.

holy cow

I think I may have made a wedding dress.



Much still left to finish up, but there you have it. I ended up pinning the pleats in the silk shantung and realizing that they really had no "there" there. So I went just with the taffeta which is rustly and kind of neat. I need a floor length slip so I may turn the shantung into that.



(without heels, so the skirt is laying a bit funny)

Still left to do:

• proper zipper insertion. What you see here is basted, and also not closed the whole way up. I can generally zipper myself into any dress, but this one is a little too tricky to do when it's only basted, since I didn't want to tear the lace. I am thinking of doing a zipper underlay as shown in the Couture Sewing Techniques book.
  
  
• Make the sash
  
  
• Hemming! My mom has volunteered for this. thank you mom!!
  
  
• hand sew down the bias binding on the armholes
  
  
• hand sew down the silk habatoi bodice lining to the waist
  
  
• make a ton of teensy covered buttons for the bodice center front and attach them. you might be able to see the loops sitting there... these are purely decorative, since it really closes with the back zipper
  
  
• steam and press. again, my mom has volunteered for this one ;o)
  
  

The general overview of the dress construction is that the skirt is silk taffeta (from Mood) underlined with silk organza (from Susan Khalje). I marked the pleat lines on the organza and hand basted it to the taffeta. The selvedge of both the organza and the taffeta is at the hem so it will be very easy to just turn up and stitch the hem in place. The bodice is three layers - lace (from Mood) basted to silk organza and a silk habatoi lining. Then the neckline border lace was hand stitched over the dress's neckline and the excess cut away beneath. The cap sleeves were attached to the armholes, and then I used bias strips cut from the habatoi to finish them. Viola! Sounds so simple written up like that. ;) If only! In any event, I am loving the fit. I can wear a simple bra underneath, and I don't need to squeeze myself into spanx. I can move my arms freely, the pockets are in just the right spot, and it feels very comfortable! The pockets are going to hold my cellphone (for picture taking (; ) and my great-great grandmother's lace handkerchief that all the women in my family have held at their weddings. My sister pinned it to her slip, but I plan to fold it up into the pocket to keep it safe. It's been a continuing "something old" for a few generations now, so I'm very happy to carry on the tradition. My something blue will be the slip- I bought some ivory colored lace with a baby blue ribbon woven through that I'll attach. Something borrowed will be my mom's fancy white evening purse that I'm borrowing that day. Something new are the bangles (choora) that my friend bought me from Kerela. You're supposed to wear them for 40 days after the wedding- I may only make it until I go to sleep that night. ;)

Finally, Carolyn asked a few posts back how much muslin I'd gone through on this epic pattern selection and fitting trip. The answer is two bolts of about 10 yards each. Yikes, that's a small amount of muslin sacrificed to this dress!

Couture Books

I got home from looooooong day in the office today to find a package waiting from my best friend and his wife. They sent me just the perfect birthday present - the newly re-issued classic "Couture Sewing Techniques"! It's now sitting on my sofa with 5 different post-it notes poking out from various pages on lace seams, zipper underlays, etc. I love the original and this new one seems to have way more gorgeous photos in it & lots of excellent couture content.



One of the interesting things in this book is a two page chart at the front of book on "couture" vs "high end ready to wear". Aka, clients can choose to customize fabrics, garments are made to fit the customer exactly, seam allowances are vary on different pieces, vs RTW's smaller, precision cut pattern pieces that are put together with edges matching.

I was thinking of the comparison as I flipped through the rest of the book, because it really does cover "couture" aka hand-sewing intensive techniques, garment underpinnings, things like that. I happen to also own two other recently published books that purport to be "couture techniques" but really seem more like "high end RTW techniques".




The Dressmaker's handbook is very beautiful to look through, and has some extensive coverage of how to bind necklines, nice photos of how various underlinings (flannel vs cotton voile for example) affect the drape of skirts, and some other really good information. It is largely oriented to machine sewing, though. I found the diagrams and instructions to be not as clear as your average sewing book, which frustrated me because some of them, especially the neckline bindings, looked interesting but were very unclear.



The Couture Techniques book is one of three garment sewing books recently released in the US by Peg Couch. I bought her Illustrated Guide to Sewing: Tailoringbook first, and its strength led me to purchase the other two. This one has wonderful directions on how to assemble dresses, make blouses, and so forth, but they are very high-end Ready to Wear oriented. I wouldn't call any of the sewing covered here "couture" - not to say it's not valuable information. Just that it's the type of information I'll use when sewing myself a new blouse for work, not sewing up a lace bodice for a wedding dress. ;)

There is a definite time & place for the garment sewing guides of the latter two books, and they have been nice additions to my sewing library. But there's nothing like feeling adrift with a pile of lace and silk organza in your hands, attempting to create something that looks like a lace bodice, to make you realize how valuable the Godmother of couture sewing books is. ;) The "Applying Couture Techniques" chapter of Claire Shaeffer's book is amazing, and I'll be referring back to it often.

So, I hope this helps folks looking to add to their sewing libraries. If I had to pick the most useful day-to-day reference book I might well go with Peg Couch's Couture Techniques,but if you plan to do any kind of evening or bridal sewing, or want to try taking your sewing to next skill level, I'd go with Claire Shaeffer's Couture Sewing Techniques.

with taffeta

Here we are with the skirt in taffeta. VERY unpressed and very unfinished etc etc




This weekend I:
* made three back left bodice pieces before I managed to make a right
* had a complete meltdown when my (very $$$ and not old at all rowenta) iron burped up brown gunk on white silk
* literally burst into tears over the music being played in our sewing room/office... this is when you know you have a guy who is a keeper, when he looks at you like you are NUTS as you stand there crying and then comforts you anyway
* ate a wonderful hazelnut cupcake from my sister (today is my birthday. sshh! spent it sewing (; )
* hand stitched and hand stitched and hand stitched and decided that I need sharper needles
* ended up with something that is starting to resemble a wedding dress instead of just a white silk organza explosion

lace!

I am doing my own crazy method of marking the seamlines. I pinned the muslin pattern pieces (with no seam allowances) onto organza, and then machine basted right at the edge of the muslin. Viola, marked seamlines.



After that, I lay the muslin pattern piece under the lace, cut out well around it, and then hand baste that to the organza in the seam allowances. Here is a bodice front, with the lace basted to organza



Here is the taffeta I'm thinking of using for the skirt:



I also have some lovely white shantung, but I feel like the taffeta will work better with the pleats. I'm planning to underline whichever one I choose with silk organza, so the shantung would pick up some body although it would be a soft body as opposed to the very crisp body of the taffeta. Anyone want to chime in with thoughts on the two? I am thinking I might almost just make a skirt from each and see how they feel.

And finally, turquoise taffeta... I'm thinking of doing one of the flower girl dresses in turquoise. So maybe one niece in navy and one in turquoise? One in white and one in turquoise?
We don't really have wedding "colors" as such, beyond doing many things in either white or navy, so a bright blue could be really pretty. I'm planning on holding a bouquet of yellow roses, and I keep thinking how those two colors would look together. Hmmm...

side seams

You might recall from way back in January, when I first made the muslin of this pattern, that I was going to have to solve the Pocket Problem. Aka, this skirt pattern had no side seams... just a front panel, and a combined side/back panel. I'm happy to report that I have inserted a side seam now, which means I can have POCKETS. The skirt line did look lovely without a side seam, but no pockets is a dealbreaker for me, so our wedding guests will just have to suffer the horror of seeing seams down the side of my skirt. ;)

And here is a quick shot of what will be the lace top attached to the pleated skirt from the vintage Simplicity pattern. My right side, which is the left side of the photo here, has all the adjustments I've made so far. The dart is running a bit too high here, so I'll lower that, and make a few more small tweaks.



When this project was started, all the modifications were being transferred to the paper pattern. At this stage I've been tweaking directly on the muslin, and so it is now my pattern. After I took this photo, I took a seam ripper to it and extracted the right side. Then I cut on my last seam line to cut off the seam allowances, and this will be the pattern for the lace top.



This is Vogue 2979 on the top, with the cap sleeves. The bodice will be lace underlined in silk organza, lined in silk except for the sleeves.


To sew the top, I'll cut front and back bodice pieces out of silk organza and the lining. Then the organza pieces will be laid under the lace and I'll cut out the lace, probably cutting around the motifs to do applique seams on the side. Here's my lace again- the rose motif is pretty large, so a regular side seam might look a bit weird.

muslin muslin muslin

Hello wedding dress saga followers! ;)

Today has been bodice fit day. Tweak the neck, take in the shoulders, tweak the neck, take in the sides, re-draw neckline, tweak the armhole, etc. My original plan was to use the original dress bodice of the vintage simplicity and have the vogue lace overlay be removable... but that doesn't work, since it won't stay in place even with a sash over it. Also, the shape of the simplicity tank-top style bodice under the high neckline of the vogue looks a bit wonky. So now I'm planning to attach the vogue dress bodice directly to the skirt of the Simplicity, and line the bodice front and back with light white silk habatoi, instead of just underlining in organza. This is why you do practice runs, I suppose!



I made all the adjustments just to one side, and it really looks SO much nicer on that side now, which is a very gratifying return for the hours with a seam ripper.

And the pleats. Once they're sewn, the pleats do give a gorgeous tulip shape to the dress. But marking them, and sewing them, is.... aRgH! They are three deep, sewn at angles, and all kinds of fun. Here's a little peak at the instruction sheet for them:



Yeah. going to be fun marking these on white silk- I think that tailor's tacks in various colored threads (white, ivory, light tan, etc) is going to have to be the way to differentiate the A,B,C, and so forth pleat lines. Do you feel my joy thinking about marking and sewing these? ;)

You can see the deep pleats (in the orignal version with the simplicity bodice) here:

Wedding dresses!

Did you all wake up at the crack of dawn to watch the royal wedding? I LOVED her dress. It's such a pretty, updated variation on Grace Kelley's classic dress.


from the Globe & Mail

Here is Grace Kelly's dress:



Of course I LOVE that she chose this style since I'm kind of echoing Grace Kelly's bodice style in my dress as well. ;) It's a really flattering look for a lot of body shapes, I think, since you get some coverage but it still looks very elegant and fancy.

thread basting

This is only a practice dress, not the real thing.





I've cut the bodice pieces out of lace and silk organza, thread traced the darts, and basted the layers together. Next up, assembly.


The munchkins wore their easter outfits today, although they were so wiggly I didn't get great shots of the dresses. Here's my sister with her family:




Kate's dress is from Sewn with Love book and Ana's dress is the Oliver + S playdate dress. Both are made with Lisette for Joann fabric.



And here is Tommy in his cute little overalls. These are the Oliver + S tea party overalls.


and the girls in their dresses:


Happy easter everyone!

Ottobre!

Well, I received three sewing magazines this week in my mailbox, which was SO wonderful given that wedding + work + life in general have been crazy. I was not super impressed with this month's BWOF. That deeply saddens me, because circa 2008 I was head over heels in love with tons of outfits in every issue. However, I also received issues of Ottobre- one womens and one kids. I've just flipped through so far, but it seems pretty nice. Hmm... my BWOF is up for renewal this summer, and I may change to Ottobre or Knipmode instead. I know they are more expensive, but if I'm not making anything from BWOF, it's not worth saving money on patterns I won't really use.

In other news, our wedding invites are *mailed*. Finally. I had a whole adventure creating and shipping them. I ended up letterpressing the invite and RSVP card by myself at a letterpress studio over in Williamsburg. They came out SO beautiful. Here's a sneak peek at the card, with the amazing texture inbetween the ship's rigging in the ship in the bottle.



Was I crazy for letterpressing them? Yes. Was I crazy for chosing a square shape, which meant we paid extra postage? Yes. Did I end up at Staples at 9 AM on Sunday morning, buying a paper cutter to trim 1/8" inch off the invites because they wouldn't quite fit in the envelopes? Yes. Did I stamp all my rsvp postcards, only to find out that the postage rate was going up 1 cent on Monday? Yes. So. They are mailed though, and guests are beginning to tell us that they're appearing in their mailboxes, which is the important part!

For the curious, our paper was Crane Lettra 110, and I printed my plates at Boxcar Press. I wrote about my letterpress class back in November in a quiet weekend.

I was at my doctor's office the other day, and he gave me some advice I'm going to be taking to heart in the coming weeks. I haven't talked much about it, but I've suffered from migraines since I was in first grade. They kind of come and go, and the last three years have been particularly bad. I try to stay grounded, but dealing with severe migraines, with a fiance who is away on his ship most of the time, and wedding planning, plus my job has been... interesting. I've been cycling through various medications over the last year, and my current doctor has been godsend because he agrees with me that medication should not be your front line preventive care.

He was just married last year and so at this visit we were again talking about avoiding migraines on the big day. He said, "You have to ration out your emotional reaction and your glucose intake that week." Which cracked me up, but it's so true. (Yes, as you can tell from that, plummeting blood sugar is a big trigger for me). But especially when you get invested in projects like "Let's letterpress the invites!" or "Let's sew a wedding dress!" it can be hard not to let the projects ups and downs keep you from an even keel.

What do you think, when you put a lot of effort into a huge handmade project, do you feel that setbacks effect you deeply? Is the awesome result in the end worth putting weeks into one complicated project, or do you like smaller ones?

So how is that wedding dress sewing going here? I'm coming along on fitting, and I hope I'll have some great trial version photos to show here this weekend. As a reminder, this what the lace top will look like:



and here is the skirt & under-the-lace-top bodice: