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.