Look what came in the mail today!

It's still unhemmed and unpressed, so more shots to come!

Dress 1 - Almost done!

We made some great progress this weekend! We're working with 2 Colette patterns, making 'practice' dresses out of each of them, comparing and tweaking the designs/lengths/fit... and then picking the winner for the real deal. I love Colette because they're gorgeous vintage-style dresses with some funk, room for creativity, and such tailored fits. She really makes beautiful patterns!
Dress 1 is Eclair, a strapless little cutie with a big sash that goes from the front side waist. The bodice is pieced together with 6 panels, meaning great tailored fit. Especially with Courtney's careful sewing!
She put the bodice together, we fit it to me and realized we could probably cut the bodice about 2 sizes smaller! But with the seams re-done, it was perfect. Then Courtney put the skirt together. Last up is putting them together, which is on tap for the next few weeks. The question with this dress is whether we would need to boning in the bodice. We'll see how strong it is with the lining once it's all done.

Next is up is Dress 2, i.e. Chantilly. I have to say, I'm a little enamored with Chantilly, mainly because it just has such a classic style and looks so flattering and comfortable. While Courtney was sewing away, I pressed the main and lining fabric for the practice dress, cut the pattern pieces and the main fabric pieces. This time, we cut the bodice smaller, so everything is to measurement on this one. It should work out since the pieces are joined by gathers at the midsection.
Once we have both practice dresses done (which I can't wait to wear!), it really comes down to fit and comfort. We'll try to imagine each dress in a calf or floor length (maybe?), in a creamy billowy fabric, dancing around at a bbq joint in NYC...

details...

Bex and I are getting started next weekend and I'm caught up in the fun details-

Like pleated necklines:


via: http://shoesandpie.com/2009/06/18/vintage-sewing-part-five/

And fabric flowers (in clusters, but not at the neckline):


via: http://katiedid.squarespace.com/katie-did-journal/2009/5/1/tutorial-flower-collar.html

And pretty skirts:


via: http://www.theflashdance.com/index.cfm

Pockets

One thing I think Bex' dress will need?

Pockets.

Some Inspiration

This is my mom. The day she married my dad. Isn't she lovely? You can't see the dress very well, but it's a pistachio green sleeveless v-neck, with a matching cape (yes, cape) with big tie-dyed looking sunbursts (yes, sunbursts). Handmade by someone. 1976. We lost the cape years ago, but I still have the dress, and here she is today.I've always loved the general fit and shape of the dress. Sadly, pistachio green has never been my color, and the fit is not quite perfect. But this is the dress that started it all. I told my mom that Courtney and I would be copying this dress, and she said oh so tenderly, "Oh honey, I'm sure you can find something better than that. That was just my choir dress." So that's the plan. Keep aspects of this style in mind, and build from there. Here are some other dresses that caught my eye for some reason or another...

(clockwise from top left: unknown, SHIHAR, Aida Coronado, Neiman Marcus, JCrew, Neiman, Aida, an Etsy sketch I can't find now)

So you can see some ideas taking shape. More to come...

Seams

If you can't tell from my last post, I find a lot of inspiration and information on the web- in blogs especially! Until we start making our dress form, I'll be posting regularly about the great things I find that are guiding the work we'll do when I start sewing!

I wish I'd been able to follow this from the beginning, but thank goodness for archives! Hippo Bumpo recently had a 9-week seam-along and gave some great how-to's and pictures. French seams intrigue me and would be a potential choice for finishing the inside of Bex' dress, but she is a lucky duck because I also happen to own an overlocker!

It's important to think about seams from the beginning because I certainly don't want to 1) purchase too little fabric (seam allowances need to be factored in) and 2) can't forget about them when I'm sewing!

The Requirements

I'm a simple down-to-earth gal, and by no means fancy.  Though I've had visions of what I'd want my wedding dress to be, I've never felt strongly about any particular style.  Here are the requirements and thoughts that are going into the dress:

1. It should be pretty.
2. The length must work with my 5'2" height, and the fact that I will NOT be wearing heels, and more likely be barefoot the whole time.
3. It will be in August/September, a pretty informal affair, outdoors hopefully.  It will likely be hot, and nobody wants to see a bride with sweat stains.
4. And I'll be dancing, excessively.  Maybe even doing cartwheels.  I want it to bounce and flow.
5. I'm a pretty traditional curvy hourglass.  I'm ok with accentuating (think v-neck).  I'm not OK with revealing (think halter top).
6. Very limited or no decoration, beads, trim, lace, whatever.  I'd love the dress to be simple and have a nice shape and drape.  The fabric should accent itself.
7. I'm not really into white, but I think cream or champagne, something along those lines would be flattering.  Maybe a color accent, maybe not.

Those are the main requirements, otherwise, just about anything goes.  Which means Courtney has lots of freedom and can show off her creative wit!

Measurements, Dress Forms and Patterns

There are few beginning steps we’ll be doing before we start dreaming about fabric and the final dress. We’ll start with measurements, dress forms and patterns:

Measurements:
Taking all of Bex' measurements is key to the fit of the dress. Label-Free has a great illustration they shared last year that talks about some of the things to measure.

Dress Forms:
A great video was featured on the BurdaStyle website about how dress forms are made. The Science Channel produced the video, which you can view here.
This is great, but custom dress forms are expensive! So Bex and I are planning to put together a Duct Tape Dress form. Spoonflower recently posted a great YouTube video that shows the process of putting one together.
I haven’t gone in depth on this post and podcast yet, but it’s on my list to read: http://sewforthnow.blogspot.com/2008/05/episode-28-dress-forms.html
Here’s a great example of a finished duct tape dress form.
There are more great resources out there- here’s the results of a Google Blog search that I’ve barely scratched the surface of!

Patterns:
One of the ideas Bex has is to copy a dress she already has, one with a sweet history (that I will let her share if she wants to). So that means copying something that is Ready To Wear (RTW). We know we don't want to take the dress apart, so when I read this great post on The Princess Seam about copying RTW knew it was a definite possibility. If we want to keep looking (which we will do either way- who doesn’t like to window shop?!), sites like Craftster, Burda Style, Pattern Review and big box stores like Jo-Ann’s will help us to narrow down our ideas about the final dress, too.

I know that Bex has some great tear sheets and ideas she's been gathering. Can't wait to see what she's been dreaming of!

I like to sew...

But never thought I'd get to this point!
My dear friend Bex is getting married in 2010 and a few months ago, she approached me about making her wedding dress.
And I was brave enough to say yes!

So, we decided to start a blog where we can track the process.

Here goes!