Project Wedding Dress: Finale

Would you like to get a good look at the final project?

I went from this muslin . . .

Image is my own

. . . to this dress.  What do you think?

Image by Love Joleen Photography

The dress is made from 100% dupioni silk ordered from Fabric.com.  If you remember, I really wanted a peach shade and this color turned out to be perfect.  You also can't beat the texture of dupioni silk.

The fabric was pricey so I skimped a little on the yardage.  That meant I had to cobble together the cumberbund waist overlay and I was not able to make the effect as pronounced as I wanted without sacrificing length.

Image by Love Joleen Photography

Here is what I have learned about sewing my own wedding dress:

• Muslining is essential--if for no other reason than that it will make you less nervous to cut into the pricey fabric.
• If you want silk, go for silk dupioni and make peace with texture.  That way you can throw that sucker in the washer and dryer.  Which I totally did.  Twice.
• It might be worth it to shell out the cash for a half yard more than you think you will need.
• Petticoats are a pain in the ass.  I made what I guess is called a can-can slip for this dress which was a lot less involved than your traditional petticoat style . . . but still.  PITA.
• Don't skip the horsehair braid hem.  I did and it made walking way more difficult than it had to be.
• Plan for more sewing time than you think you will need.

Image by Love Joleen Photography

The wedding is long since over and at this very moment my wedding dress, that I slaved over, is draped unceremoniously over some shelves in our bedroom.  It's too long to hang in the closet and the attached petticoat means it really can't be folded.

I have plans though . . . and those plans include taking it apart.

Stay tuned . . .  Project Wedding Dress is about to become Project Something Else.

Project Wedding Progress Report

How about a picture less progress report?  I can't find my camera cord and I'm too lazy to figure out an alternative.

Let's get to it!

• I finally finished my wedding dress muslin.  I'm still futzing with details and decorations but I am probably 90 percent there.  This is only my second muslin but I want to be confident before I slice into the expensive stuff.  I have probably 20-30 hours in this muslin version at this point.  In addition to fitting and style details I've also been experimenting with ways to make the actual sewing easier.  To hell with rules!  I'm going Rogue!
• Wes found an excellent 100% wool grey suit for . . . get this . . . $5.00.  This is completely awesome but I swear it also kind of singes my grits.  First, I always assumed that 5.00 wedding suits was some kind of wedding blog trickery.  Second, where is the thrift store magic for big girls?!  The injustice.
• RSVP postcards slowly trickled in then stopped altogether.  So far we have eleven confirmed guests . . . but there could be more as both our mothers keep adding people to invite!  When we asked them there was no response but now that the first wave of invitations has gone out they suddenly have opinions. . . so we have to make more invitations.  Hopefully I can get them in the mail tomorrow.
• The time has come to think about . . .  decorating this here shindig and all the other projects that still exist on my list.  I left it pretty late but I think this might be a good thing.  I don't have forever to waffle over things like color choice and design details.  I just have to get it done.

Project Wedding Dress-A Little Inspiration

Check out this slice of delight . . .

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I don't usually hang out on Style Me Pretty, but this wedding is too beautiful to just pass by.  I also just spent like fifteen minutes to try to find the link again.  If you want to check it our for yourself just head to Style Me Pretty and search for Phoenix wedding.

I love the earthiness of the details. . . but I especially love that dress!  Can we talk about that for a minute?

As you know, I am making my own wedding dress.  Lately I've been wondering if it isn't a little boring even if it isn't white and how can I add a little more personality to it.  I never considered, until I saw this photo, creating a two-toned or two piece dress.

What do you think? White lacy top and dramatic colorful skirt?  Too much?

Project Wedding Dress-Picking a Color

I am 92% sure that I do not want a white wedding dress.

The question now is what color do I want?  I could still go traditional and pick a nice ivory or champagne or candlelight.  Or I could go bold and pick red or black or even purple.

I'm thinking pink.  This . . .

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Not this . . .Hello Kitty is awesome and all but that shade of pink makes me think of the "Girl" toy aisle and a particularly atrocious miniature ironing board "toy".  No big deal . . . but was there a powder blue "boy" ironing board?  Um . . . I'll save that feminist rant for later.

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I love the rum pink dusky peachy tone of the first dress.  Fabric in that shade has proven difficult to come by.

I want to make my wedding dress in a silk cotton blend.  I have this idea that it will be cooler, less stiff, and more comfortable.  I also really like the texture of silk cotton.  However, the exact color has just not materialized in a cost effective way.

Here are the cotton silk swatches I ordered from fabric.com.  I took these pictures outside to hopefully give you a truer color representation.  The champagne and the baby pink in the top right and bottom left corners respectively.

Personal Photo

I also took a chance and ordered some silk dupioni swatches.  I love the color of the sample on the right.

Personal Photo

Which one would you choose?

Project Wedding Dress-Fitting the Skirt

My last update concerned creating my custom dress form.

I've already put it to use and I have to say-it's awesome.

I reattached the bodice to the skirt and placed it on the form to check the fit.  My major goal in fitting the skirt was matching up the side seams.  I will need to add more fabric in the skirt front to make that work.

You can kind of see how I did that in the center front.  I slashed the skirt muslin and and spread it until the sides fit the way I wanted them.  Then I covered the slash with as scrap of muslin that I taped into place.  (Yeah, I'm professional like that)

Check it out.

It's actually starting to look like a wedding dress right?

Now that I am pretty much done fitting the bodice, I started experimenting with where I'll place the detailing.  My inspiration dress has a pleated cummerbund that circles the waist.  I taped some fabric in the front to get an idea of what that might look like.

I also need to shape the upper edge of the bodice.  These curves definitely need smoothing.

Once I work out the kinks on this muslin, I'll take it apart and use it to redraw the pattern pieces.   I also have plans, probably really over-ambitious ones, to add an inner corsolette for further support, steel boning in the lining, and maybe button looping on the back closure.

Then, I'll probably make another muslin, this one nearly complete so that I can practice some of the detailing and finishing techniques I would like to use and perfect the fit closer to the wedding date.  I will also experiment with a sleeve option involving lace.

What do you think?

Project Wedding Dress: DITing a Fitting Assistant

I had Friday off last week so Wes and I put our time to good use.  (By which I mean we had our weekly lunch date--this time at Agua Linda's, puttered around Academy and Goodwill, and watched even more South Park on Netflix).  Bliss.

Then we got down to business.  I put on Hudson Hawk (Netflix gets a lot of play around here) and busted out a bowl of water, a Pyrex pie plate, and coils of paper tape strips I prepared the night before.  It was time to get busy on our latest DIT project.

I've already started working on the fit of my wedding dress muslin.  I talk about that more here.  However, fitting on yourself is pretty damn difficult.  I was finding it pretty much impossible.  So I finally bit the bullet and purchased a jersey covered dress form.

I got this one . . .

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. . . from Store Supply Warehouse.*  It came with the topper and the base and it's pretty much awesome.  It's also a size 8.

I don't know if you noticed-but I am not a size 8.

Why order a size 8 form then?  Well, the price was right.  It's foam which means it is pinnable.  Larger forms have triple digit prices.  Larger forms would not be any more helpful than this form because even though they are bigger they are not bigger in the right places.  A plus size form with a flat belly--what would I do with that?

I bought this form because I knew that, while sewing for myself, I could customize a paper tape form molded to my body to go over it.   The adjustable base and the form underneath make my paper form a lot more stable and usable.

What's a paper form?  Only the most awesome thing ever for the home sewer.  Mine looks like this-disregard my hair situation . . .

 . . .  and it is made from the gummed paper tape you can buy from Staples.  There are really awesome tutorials that outline the process, but essentially you moisten the gummed paper tape and wrap it around your body to create a molded form.  This one has lots of pictures and this one, on jejune.net I found particularly helpful.  The tape hardens as it dries and what you are left with is essentially . . . prison armor.  (You can thank Wes for that one.)  The hardened shell is stiff enough to stand up on its own, hold its shape, and it is pinnable.

I do have some additional tips if you want to undertake this yourself.

• We cut our strips to about 12 inches long and then we cut them in half lengthwise.  This really does help them get around curves more efficiently and smoothly.
• The criss-cross action is essential.  It cuts the taping time down a lot because it essentially means you are doing two layers at once.
• Don't wet the tape completely.  Just moisten it.  If you over saturate it with water you will rinse away the adhesive and then the edges won't lie down.  Think of it as licking a stamp.
• Don't be afraid to clip puckers or wrinkles in the paper tape as you wrap to make it lie smoothly.
• Apply a layer of paper tape to the inside of the form as well.

Then you'll have a really nice, smooth form that is customized to you for less than ten dollars.

Here she is in action.

*Seriously you guys-this business is pretty awesome.  They shipped quickly and they called to let me know when my order would go out.  They emailed The prices are pretty fantastic too.  I have my eye on some wooden hangers-which they sell in bulk and for less than what you would spend at Target.  Check them out.

Project Wedding Dress: Research and Reading

I started summer school this week.  I am officially one step closer to becoming a teacher and doing something useful with my life.

Anyway, being back in the classroom reminded me of an important factor that you may have already noticed.  It is true that I get all kinds of crazy ideas for projects from the internet.  What is also true is that I then research the hell out of them.

This is true for whatever foolish thing I attempt to do to my hair.  I like to use YouTube for actual technique tutorials and what not but I also really like to check things out on natural hair blogs like Curly Nikki or Naturally Curly which both have excellent forums.  The comments are also incredibly helpful.

For my wedding dress project I have created a list of sewing blogs and tutorials that I am compiling in a bookmark folder.  Pattern Review is an amazing source because it also has forums.  I also like to refer to other sites where the author made or is making her own wedding dress for confirmation that it can be done.  Seriously, if you are at all interested in sewing, check out those sites.  Iowahoodlum especially has really good, detailed pictures, that cover the construction of the foundation of her dress that I am finding particularly invaluable.  She also very helpfully compiled all of those posts in one area on her site.  I also discovered another blog when I was trying to figure out how to add a corsolette and Pin Queen was very gracious in responding to my questions.

Additionally, sewing is also one skill where construction manuals are both available and truly helpful.  I was able to get one fairly quickly through interlibrary loan.  Bridal Couture by Susan Khalje is an excellent resource book because if focuses specifically on gown construction and couture techniques.  I tend to skim read non-fiction or reference books, but this one is so good that I'm totally engrossed.  I also have to say-I have a new level of respect for the previous generation of wedding gowns.  They had sleeves.  They had a lot going on.  They were awesomely constructed.  I am just in awe.

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If you plan to make your own wedding dress, you should read this book.  If you plan to make a lot of your own clothes-you should also read this because couture techniques can inject some serious quality into your work to make it look handmade instead of homemade.