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!