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Bridesmaids dresses – finished!

Both bridesmaids dresses for my September wedding are now finished! Since I’m sewing both of these plus my own gown, I stipulated that these had to be knit so that I could sew them early and my girls could feel free to gain or lose a few pounds without too much last-minute alterations hassle.

To refresh your memory, the three of us chose the Gant exclusive design dress from the Sept 08 Burda magazine:

The previous posts about these dresses spanned over a year (from our pre-illness, original wedding date), so to help you find them, here’s a handy list:

  1. Choosing the pattern

  2. Going fabric shopping and choosing their colours

  3. Tackling those pleated cummerbunds

  4. Finishing the first dress

Here are both dresses together, so you can see how nicely their colours will go together on the day:

In Progress

Bridesmaids dresses – one down…

I made a big push on Sunday to get as much done on the first bridesmaid as I could, and between then and some “non-commuting” time yesterday and today (I worked from home both days so I put the hour I’d normally be commuting to good use!) I managed to finish Pip’s dress, apart from the hem and the covered buttons, which I need to purchase in town tomorrow.

To refresh your memory, I’m sewing the Gant exclusive design dress from the Sept 08 Burda magazine:

I tackled those pleated cummerbunds first to get them out of the way, but even the easier silk jersey portions were not entirely straightforward. With a design this simple, the glory is in the perfect execution!

First thing I was grateful for is my newly-raised cutting and drafting table. Each gown takes four skirt sections this size (front & back, exterior & lining), and they take up nearly the whole table!

I didn’t take any intermediate photos of Pip’s dress, but I ended up doing the entire bodice on my sewing machine after all, so that I could understitch the neck and arm openings more easily. In the end, I only used the overlocker for the long skirt seams.

In Progress

Bridesmaids dresses – I pleat the fifth

While I’ve been showing you all sorts of books and magazine reviews and drafting up free bag patterns for you, what’s been going on in the sewing room, I hear you ask! Well, I set aside April and May to sew my two bridesmaids dresses, and after a long muslin period, I’ve been getting stuck in with the most time consuming portion of the dresses first – the pleated, silk satin (charmeuse) waistband/cummerbunds.

If you recall, I’m sewing the Gant exclusive design dress from the 09/08 Burda magazine:

The fabrics were bought over a year ago, so I fished out the bag and got to work on the reeeeeeeally long pleated sections using Burda’s magazine instructions (which are surprisingly helpful) and a bit of info from my The Art of Manipulating Fabric book (thanks, Cindy!). These are knife pleats, one centimeter apart, and Burda called for seven pleats down the band, but after my test piece, it looked a bit sparse at the top and bottom edges, so I decided to go for eight pleats in the final versions.

So in order to help any of you attempting this on your own (and sadly, a Perfect Pleater is way too narrow to help me here), or those of you wondering why professional designers outsource their pleating to professional firms, here’s what’s involved…

How to pleat

Step 1 – On the reverse of the fabric to be pleated, mark chalk lines exactly 3cm apart, one for every “mountain” pleat.

In Progress

Bits and Pieces

Ok, so to take a brief break from reading material, I thought I should update you with what I’ve been up to in the sewing room…

Bridesmaids dresses

I had the first fitting of P’s muslin, and there are surprisingly little changes to be made – raising the neckline and armscye, pulling up the waistband by a centimetre, and that’s about it.

So I’m doing a second version of the bodice for her to try on this weekend, and then I unpick the skirt off that muslin and attach it to G’s bodice (the skirt is enormous and I didn’t have enough knit muslin for two!) and have her first fitting while I get down and dirty with the waistband pleating. I’m anticipating the pleating to be the most time-consuming part of both the dresses… (Earlier post about the dresses and colours here)

A spring dress

I finished a nice Springy version of BurdaStyle’s Heidi dress yesterday (finally!).

It was just waiting for a hem for nearly a week, which is a long time for me. It’s nice timing as Spring (or maybe even Summer!) arrived this weekend and it was gorgeous outside on deck with the barbecue going and everyone hopping from boat to boat. I’m hoping to do a photoshoot tonight now that we’ve got daylight for longer in the evenings…

Inspiration

Bridal Couture

I’m in downtown Muslin City at the moment, between the bridesmaids dresses and the very belated birthday dress for my (future) sister in law. So far I’ve made the FSIL’s muslin, had her try it on, and altered the pattern pieces according to the two changes we’re making (which was a pleasant surprise – it fit really well!). And on the bridesmaid front, I’ve completed both bodices and attached one to the skirt in preparation for Pip to try it on this weekend. Since the skirt is so enormously long, I actually didn’t have enough muslin fabric to make a skirt for each muslin. So I’m just going to swap the skirt out and attach it to the other bodice after fitting the first one (it’s a very loose design so the fact that it’s 2 sizes off doesn’t matter much!).

Can you believe I’ve gone through 8m of white viscose knit muslin fabric, between a top, my birthday dress, the FSIL’s dress, and the two bridesmaids dresses?? Wowza.

Anyway, while I’m sewing up muslins, there isn’t much to show off (I don’t mind putting photos of myself up in little more than a bedsheet, but it’d something else to subject your friends to that!) but I’ve got a ton of good sewing books to report on, so you’ll be enjoying a few good books with me over the next week or so…

So to start things off, we’re going to stay on the wedding theme with Susan Khalje’s Bridal Couture, a book so amazing that it fetches RIDICULOUS prices online. It’s been out of print for years (also contributing to the resale value), but the copyright has just reverted back to Susan Khalje, and she is is self-publishing this on CD – you can preorder it here for delivery next month.

In Progress

Bridesmaids' choice

The bridesmaids have chosen their dress design! The only parameters I gave them were that it had to be a knit dress (no way am I undergoing extensive fittings for them on top of my dress!), and they had to choose the same pattern. Luckily, both of them have similar body types so picking a pattern that suited them both was relatively easy!

So, drumroll….

I will be sewing up two versions of BWOF 09/08 #132, the Gant Exclusive Design dress:

Inspiration

Vintage wedding gown detail photos

My grandmother’s wedding dress arrived safely on Friday! I person, it’s absolutely jaw, droppingly gorgeous, even 59 years later. The preview photos I drew the technical drawing from didn’t do it justice, so I’m hoping these photos on James’s DSLR will help to show some of the amazing vintage details.

The dress is entirely silk satin with no lace, embroidery, or beading (just from a mesh panel around the neckline), and the weave of the silk is still perfectly and soft and so very strong still. Granny told me she bought this in a shop on South Street in Philadelphia in 1949, but I’m afraid I can’t tell you the designer as there’s no label and she’s long since forgotten the details. But the workmanship speaks for itself, and it’s very interesting for me to see that they’ve not wasted any silk where it couldn’t be seen – the mesh fabric is used for all facings, the seam allowances are only 1/2 inch, and there’s no lining.

Laid out on our table:

In Progress

Wedding dress ideas

We visited our venue (and totally geeked-out at the museum!) on Saturday and met with the wedding coordinator there so we now have a date – the rather auspicious 19 September 2009. Or to put it another way, 19.09.09 (09/19/09 for the Americans)!

Good thing we have over a year though, because we’re going to need every single day of that to save up and prepare for it. Oh my, the grand total was an eye opener, and we’re not being frivolous in the slightest with our plans!

Luckily, then, my grandmother has given me her gown from her wedding in 1949. She’s insisted I use it and NOT be afraid to cut it up, saying she’ll cut it herself if I don’t, or donate it to goodwill or sell it on eBay. I think it’s her way of not letting me get too scared about changing it or treating it like a relic or something. In any case, I’ve seen photos of it, but I’m going to make you all wait until it’s shipped over to me, cleaned, and pressed before I document its “before” state properly.

Until then, here’s my rough sketch based on the photos and my mom’s eyewitness account: