A December Bride

Customizing a dress from the pattern stage to the very last detail is something I love to do. Last summer I was asked to make a bridal gown for a December wedding.

The bride sent me a picture and asked if I could make something similar and most importantly, within her budget.  I think that's why I do what I do.  I like working within someone's budget, creating a piece that is every bit them and not beyond what they can afford.








As always, I start with a picture and find patterns to create the look.  Patterns give me a good starting point and then I can make my own changes from there. Sometimes that starting point consists of just one pattern, sometimes more. For this dress, I used two patterns, one for the bodice and another for the skirt.

Inspiration Dress

Design:

Skirt pattern

Pattern for the bodice

Making as many design decisions at the muslin pattern stage is a lot easier than making changes to the dress when it is put together.  There are times when design changes need to be made to a finished dress but I try to avoid those as much as I possibly can.

Once the muslin pattern was made, I fitted it to the bride.  She was thinking she'd like more of a cap sleeve than the sleeve on the inspiration dress.  I made both sleeves for her so she had a choice. She decided to go with her initial thought - the cap sleeve. The neckline needed to be adjusted as well,  I made those markings on the muslin pattern with my red sharpie and then transferred them to my paper pattern which I used to cut out the dress fabric.

Fabric & Lace:

She chose a shade of champagne called eggnog for the satin underskirt

https://www.joann.com/casa-collection-sanded-satin-fabric--eggnog/15080237.html

Ivory all-over lace was used for the layer between the satin skirt and
embroidered tulle overskirt

https://www.etsy.com/listing/269486360/lace-fabric-ivory-graceful-chantilly?ref=yr_purchases

The embroidered tulle used for the overskirt was two toned - ivory & champagne

https://www.etsy.com/listing/614029086/ivory-with-champagne-exquisite-tulle?ref=yr_purchases

The Chantilly lace was layered between the satin underskirt and the embroidered tulle. The dress came together beautifully. The dress consisted of  three panels in the front and four panels in the back (two on each side of the zipper.)  Each panel had three layers - satin, all-over lace, and topped with embroidered tulle.

Before stitching the panels together, I pinned each panel
to my dress form to make sure the lace all looked like it 'flowed.'

Ordering extra fabric is a must.  Mistakes happen. Sometimes I know immediately after a few snips and other times, like with this dress, I don't realize until later on in the construction.  I didn't realize this one until I had the panels pinned to my dress form.  I needed to cut a new outer layer of embroidered tulle because of placement.  Looking at the photo below,  notice the floral pattern of the overskirt. The pattern starts at the bottom edge of the skirt and extends to the hip area of the skirt. One of the panels I cut had the embroidered detail going from the lower edge of the skirt ALL THE WAY to the armpit because of the way I laid the paper pattern onto the fabric - so when I had it pinned to my dress form, it looked off, way off.  So I recut the one panel, and moved on.

One design choice made by the bride was to use the "wrong side" of the embroidered tulle.  The "right side" was covered in sequins and sparkly thread which added shimmer and bling, more than what the bride wanted.  Using the underside as the "right side" created a softer look while taking nothing away from the detail of the embroidery.

A closer look. 

Trimming the neckline and sleeves:

The trim is from a company called Lunss Custom Couture, based in Hong Kong. www.lunss.com

The company makes custom dresses and sells trim and fabric.  The original trim I ordered was out of stock and they sent me two pictures of lace they felt would be a good replacement - so easy.

 

  https://www.lunss.com/ivory-narrow-embroidered-corded-bridal-lace-trim-2495.html

A problem I was having was I didn't have enough trim to edge the neckline and sleeves.  At first,  I was just going to trim the neckline and try to find something to match for the sleeves.  Of course this was all happening at the end, close to my "done date" and I was running out of time to order anything.  One night I was staring at the lace and thought maybe I could cut it in half and use one side for the neckline and the other for the sleeve.  And that's exactly what I did!

Sleeves in place

Two final details - the bustle and a single layer veil.

The bustle was a mixture of two - a French bustle was used to tie up the satin under skirt and an American over bustle was used to hook the lace layers.

Her veil was finger tip, single layer made of ivory tulle and stitched to a clear comb.

Congratulations to this beautiful bride and her groom.  Thank you for asking me to help you create a look that was all your own.

Specially Made for The Beach

Everything I make begins with a picture, whether it's hand drawn, computer generated or a series of pictures.  Sometimes people bring a garment to me and will say what they like about it and what they want changed, that's a good place to start too. And that's how my next dress began.

A bride came to me this past summer with a dress she ordered online for her October beach wedding. The style was what she wanted but there were things she wanted changed and was wondering if we could just make the changes to the dress she ordered.  After looking at the dress, I told her it would be easier to make a similar dress because matching fabrics, color and texture, is sometimes a challenge and if we started from scratch she would be able to choose her color and make changes that couldn't be made to the dress she bought.  So that's what we did.

She didn't want to wear white but wasn't sure what shade of 'off white' she wanted so we ordered samples ranging from deep champagne to a very light ivory.  She decided to go with a soft champagne stretch satin for the body of the dress with ivory chiffon for the overlay.

No matter the dress, I start with a muslin mockup, always. Making changes to the mockup is far easier than to the finished product.  With her dress, she wasn't sure how deep she wanted the bodice to go so we played until we got it just right.

At first, the "V" went to about an inch
above the center band. Here we closed it in
 so the "V" now ends about 3 inches
 about that band.

With a muslin pattern, we were able to
place the shoulder straps exactly where
they looked best on the bride.

Here are two colors of chiffon laid over the
dress satin. The color of the left piece is champagne
and the color of the right is ivory. Both are beautiful but
the ivory was the color the bride was looking for.

With the muslin mockup fitted and color of the dress decided, I got to work on the dress. Each bodice piece was layered with a piece of chiffon.  The front then had a piece that was "ruched", gathered.  This took some thought and a little bit of playtime with how much gathering was needed.

Two pieces gathered.  I needed to pause, the dress was
starting to take a turn that I wasn't too happy about and
didn't know how to change, yet.

Pausing to think more about the bodice, I assembled the waistband and skirt.  The skirt has two layers of chiffon with a slit that ends about 4 inches above the bride's left knee.  After finishing the rest of the dress, I decided to give the bodice a more subtle gather, more of a pinch so it blended with the gathered waistband.

Here you can see the slit in the front.  The dress
looked a little plain, it needed something.

So we added some bling.

And it was just the right amount of something
this dress needed.  I wish you could feel the dress,
it was so soft and light.

The dress flowed like she wanted it to when she walked along the beach, beautiful!  Thank you to this funny and good natured bride who never panicked as we cut and adjusted her muslin mockup dress.  I had a lot of fun working with you.  Congratulations to you and your groom!

A Fairytale Dress

This dress was layers upon layers of tulle that began halfway down a very fitted skirt attached to a very fitted bodice.  Beautiful.  The bodice needed to be taken in along the princess seams, the back side of the fitted skirt was looser than the bride wanted so I needed to take that in along the back seam below the zipper,  and a bustle needed to be created that would match the front of the dress. 
I started with the bodice.  The bodice had no overlay of any sort, so any changes to the seam lines had to be made carefully as to avoid any evidence of a change from showing on the outside.  I know what you're thinking - "Isn't that the idea? Shouldn't any change be unnoticeable on the outside??"  Yes, but there are times that a change is noticeable and is easily camouflaged with lace or an applique.  In this case, there was nothing that could hide a mistake made on the inside.  So needless to say, I took my time with the bodice and made the changes slowly and conservatively.  I made slight changes and made more adjustments at each fitting until we got the bodice fitting the way the bride wanted it to.

With the bodice and backside brought in, I started on the front hemline.

As you can see in the photo below, it needed to be shortened quite a bit.  I shortened it from side seam to side seam, only in the front.

Here's the original hem length.  This is the inner most layer.

There were four layers of tulle edged with 2 inch wide horsehair braid with a layer of un-edged tulle in between each layer for a total of 8 layers!  My original thought was to remove the horsehair braid, cut the tulle to the correct length and replace the trim.  My second thought, taking each of those layers and tacking them up underneath and only cutting the un-edged layers of tulle.

If you look closely, here I have it pinned, ready to be tacked.
I used sturdy upholstery thread.  Same thread I use to make loops for
bustles.

Here's the new hem, two layers done.

All front layers hemmed.

The bustle...

photo by Samantha Metheny

 Creating the French Bustle (under bustle) with the 4 longest layers of tulle:

Underneath the layers, I attached 9 pieces of ribbon
along the edge of where the tulle skirt is attached to
the lower bodice.

Closer to the bottom of those long layers, I attached
9 corresponding organza ribbons. I chose organza so it wouldn't
show along the outer edge of the skirt.

Each ribbon is numbered to make for easy tying.

Tying white ribbon "1" with organza ribbon "1"

The bottom layers all secured in a French Bustle. 

Creating the over bustle, American Bustle:

I made chain loops using upholstery thread and
attached them along the mid point of the upper shorter 4 layers of tulle.

Satin buttons were attached to where the tulle skirt meets the
lower bodice.  The buttons were spaced evenly along that edge.

Attaching each loop to it's corresponding button

Everything secured on top. 

Beautiful.

photo by Samantha Metheny

My hope for the bustle was to make it match the architecture of the dress, I wanted the back to be a continuation of the front.

Congratulations to Joni and Nick.  Thank you, Joni, for letting me help you get the look you wanted with this dress -- you are stunning!