Dress Draped by my Nieces

My nieces age 7 and 9 did this two drape.

This was draped with scraps of fabric I had laying around in my studio.  I'm pretty impress with the mixture of different fabrics they've combined and the flow of it.  I really love the fact that they're not impacted by the rules of how fabric flow and grain line of the fabric or what not because they don't know of them yet.  They just go with it, and it works.  I may use this as an inspiration for one of my future dresses.  =)

This was done another day when I got rid of all the fabric scarps and they used toilet paper.  Way the go!

Etherial Draped Tulle Gown

I've made a new gown/dress.  Yeah!

Below is a rough draping of the bodice for the gown/dress.  This is just to get the idea how the fabric drape look and feel.

I decided I didn't want to twist at the middle to be so bulky, so I trim out some fabric where the twist is.  You can see below that the center the twist is more delicate in comparison to the drape.  The drape is also more refine.

Below is the finish top all tacked and sewn.  I love the tiny drape/fold detail I've added at the waist with the little pearl.  =)

Here's the image of the full gown/dress.

Tulle Gown With Lace...

This is another gown I've made.  It's mostly tulle with lace.  Very soft and romantic.

Front

Back

How To: DIY Boutonnieres for Wedding

I picked these on my morning walk with my dog Jr.  Some I pick mixture from grass to tress.  Next time you're out on a walk, look high and low and  see what you can pick out that may work.

I place them together in the arrangement to my liking.  The I just wrap piece a tulle around the bottom and stitched a few time with needle and thread.  It's simple and easy.  Only took a few minutes to put together.

Here you have it pin to a mannequin.  =)

Process of Making Gown Park II

 You may want to read Part I first.  For this continue from there.  I'm just going to run through the steps quickly.  Each of these steps deserve their own posting for expanded detail explanations.  Perhaps in the future posting, but here goes for this one.  =)

Cut out all the pieces of fabric, interlining, lining, fusible (if your using them).

Fuse the the bodice.

Base the outer layer to the bodice.  Do this if you have more then one layer of bodice sewing together at once so the fabric won't shift while sewing.  

Sew the seams together.

Press the seams open.  I pretty much have to press every seam that's being sewn. 

Attach the boning to the bodice.  Depending on how structure you want the bodice to be, you may want to put more boning if you want more structures.

Sew the bodice to the facing.  Top stitch the at the facing.

Hand base all the layer of the skirt together.  This one has six layer because the tulle is super light and sheer.

Attach the skirt to the bodice.  Sew in zipper.

I added a few tucks at the side.  Put on a belt.  There you have it.  =)

Close up on the bodice.

Process of Making a Gown Part 1

Consider the fabric your using.  If your making something more structure, then maybe best use heavier weight fabric like satin.  If your going with more drape and flow, then perhaps chiffon maybe better.  There are many other fabric maybe used, it all depend design and feel your going for.  Whatever fabric you choose, do preshrink the fabric by steaming before cutting because you'll be doing a lot of ironing and steaming later and you don't want the fabric to shrink then.

Creating pattern for your design.  You can drape your pattern on the mannequin, draft a pattern on paper, or if your really skilled, you can just draft it right on the fabric.  For this particular one, I just used a pattern of bodice I've drafted a while ago for another design.

This is an example of an drape pattern.

This is the drafted bodice pattern I'm going to use. 

  

Gown to be Made

I've been wanting to start a business of making custom gowns.  As you could see the sketches I've been doing from the previous blog.  The sketch are small, it's for me to keep track of ideas and thoughts.  I've decided to start with a simple gown.  Here's a picture of a sketch.

To be continue....