Sew Dresses and More

Sara and Maria (Sara’s Maid of Honor) called and we set up a video conference using Skype to discuss the style of Sara’s simple wedding dress.  If you’ve never heard of Skype, it is a program you download and then you are able to chat, call or video call other people that also have Skype for free.  (You can learn more about it here.)  It was so easy to do, it made me wonder why we don’t communicate through these video conferences more often.  Okay, enough about the wonders of technology, on with the show.

We talked about what she liked about each of the three dresses she sent the pictures of.  If you missed the post with the pictures, you can find it here.  Dress number 1 has the most features of the dress she wants.  She loves the embroidery on it, which I’m not sure I will be able to master before making her dress, especially since I don’t even own an embroidery sewing machine yet.  But we decided that either I will be able to do it when the times comes or we will hire that part out.  She also liked the overall style of the dress especially the split front skirt. 

Dress number 2 she like the sheer fabric overlay but is not sure about the front split skirt is part.  She does not want the train made of sheer fabric and is concerned that it would look funny to have the front sheer and the back not. 

Dress number 3 has sleeves and she tells me what she really wants are caplet sleeves or maybe even small straps instead of the dress being strapless. 

While we are still on the call, we found a couple more dresses online and sent the links back and forth so we could see what we were talking about.  The other thing Sara wants as part of her simple wedding dress is for the back to lace up instead of having a zipper or buttons, similar to a corset.  We found the back of dress number 4 similar to what she wants, although she does not want the fabric to gather in the back.  We discuss just leaving out the zipper and adding fabric to overlap enough for her to get it on and still lay flat. Here is dress number 4.

Now that I have an idea of what she wants, the next step will be sewing a dress or a muslin sample of the top part of the dress.  This will make sure the features Sara wants will work and she can see those features to make sure we are on the same page with exactly how she wants the top part.  As the seamstress, I will be going to David’s Bridal to look at dress number 1 and then to find a pattern I can use as a base for Sara’s simple wedding dress.

Technorati Tags: sewing a dress, simple wedding dress

Step number one to making a simple wedding dress is for the bride to find a style she likes.  Sara and her bride’s maid, Maria, went in search for the style of dress that looks best on her.  They went to David’s Bridal and tried on a few dresses.  They photographed Sara in the dresses she liked and emailed them to me.  They are, of course, all beautiful but she wants to combine the things she likes about each one into one dress.  We are planning a video conference call so she can explain in detail what she has in mind.  I can’t wait to hear what she has in mind for her “simple wedding dress”. I’m sure glad I like to sew dresses because it looks like I may have to get creative to pull this off.  Here are the dresses she liked.

Can you tell from her expression, this is pretty much the dress she wants?  It has embroidery on the bodice, on the overlay and at the bottom.  I guess that means I will need to get that embroidery sewing machine I have been wanting.

This is dress number 2.

This is dress number 3.

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Yes, it’s true, my daughter, Sara, asked me to make her a simple wedding dress.  I am thrilled and honored that she wants me to make it for her and that she has that much confidence in my sewing abilities.  Now, I consider my sewing skills to be somewhat advanced and I even made my own wedding dress back in the late 1970s (which truly was a simple wedding dress, by the way).  However, this will probably be the most challenging and most important sewing project I have ever done.  You see, by a simple wedding dress, I think she means that it is not overly embellished.  And, even if she has “simple” in mind, she asked me before she went looking and trying on dresses to see what she really wants.  So, we will see how simple she is talking about.  To complicate matters even further, can a wedding dress really be simple if the bride and the seamstress are 800 miles apart? 

I hope you will enjoy reading about this fun and exciting adventure as we see how simple we can make both the dress and the logistics over the next few months.  Sara is getting married next October, which gives me a little less than 11 months to make a beautiful simple wedding dress that she will be proud to walk down the isle in. 

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Here is an alternative dressform to the duct tape body form from an earlier post.  This video is from one of my favorite sites, Threadbanger.

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I just wanted to share a couple of quick tips that are posted in the online version of Threads Magazine.  They give a great directions for fixing two common fitting problems, ” Wrinkles Below the Derriere” and “Bodice is Too Tight”.  You can check out their article with detailed instructions on how to fix these two problems or you can subscribe to their magazine where they are giving six more fixes for fitting problems. 

Technorati Tags: fitting fixes, fitting problems, sewing tips, threads magazine