Fall Wedding

Photo: Robert Gaona

In September of 2015, K contacted me about making her wedding dress. She had found a picture online of a dress that she loved but couldn't find anything like it in the shops. I poked around and finally figured out that the original dress was custom made by a woman named Penelope Perkins in Salt Lake City.

Photo: Alixann Loosle Photography

K loved the layered look of the skirt but wanted some changes. I did a few rough sketches until we were both on the same page about what she wanted.  Then came swatches and fabric choices and finding a base pattern. I decided to use Kwik Sew 3929 because the neckline was close to what she wanted.

This was a very different experience from my first wedding dress, as almost everything I needed to do I had already done before. I didn't have the same nail-biting moments where I "knew" what I had to do (but I only knew it because I had read about it in a book or watched a video online) but wasn't entirely confident I could pull it off. So this time around I had much more confidence and much less terror.

The muslin revealed some fitting issues and I made the following adjustments to the pattern:

• Sway back adjustment of about 3/8"
• Take in princess seams here and there
• Lower center front section by 1 inch
• Lower armsyche by 1/2"
• Adjust front shoulder slope - not sure what to call this, but I had to slash and spread a little dart (you can see this in the photo below)

Blue lines are new stitch lines

Construction details:

• The bodice and skirt were underlined with white cotton batiste
• I used poly charmeuse for the base layer for both bodice and skirt, and the bodice has a lace overlay
• I used the same poly charmeuse for the lining, and underlined the bodice lining with muslin
• The bodice has boning at center, side fronts, side seams,  side backs and just outside back zipper for a total of nine spiral steel bones (I later shortened the center bone by about 3 inches)
• The skirt handkerchief overlays are alternating chiffon and lace - once I knew how long I wanted the points to be for each layer, I got to review high school geometry to figure out the size of each square
• I cut the waist of the skirt overlays large so that I could add volume with pleats (you can see these in the picture below where K's mom is zipping up the dress) 
• I did not hem the lace overlay and I sewed a tiny rolled hem for the chiffon layers - about 13 yards worth of hemming
• Neckline lightly eased to shorter twill tape to help it curve inwards
• Waist stay added to help distribute the weight of the skirt
• Wedding dress strength invisible zipper
• Lining hand stitched to outer layer
• Fabric was purchased from Fabric.com 

K's mom came to almost every fitting and her joy and excitement for her daughter was palpable.

Photo: Robert Gaona

Photo: Robert Gaona

K works for our local park district and she and her husband were married in one of the local parks. We've had a mild fall in the midwest, and their day was sunny and bright, warm in the sun and slightly crisp in the shade.

Photo: Robert Gaona

I love these kinds of projects: fun, challenging sewing on something that really matters to the client. I am so grateful for this work. Happy Thanksgiving to all my US readers - may you all find projects that will you with gratitude for the gift of sewing!

Photo: Robert Gaona

Wedding Dress to Biker Jacket Refashion

Whew. Now this was a Project, capital P and all. This was one of those projects that feels a bit like climbing a mountain or running a marathon. For a long time, you can't quite see where the finish line is and you have to stop thinking about it or you'll get too frustrated. One foot in front of another is the way to go. And even when you can start to see the finish line, it takes a long while longer to actually cross it - like the peak of a mountain can seem much closer than it actually is. But when you arrive? When the last stitch is sewn? Ahh, you are rewarded with such a sense of accomplishment. I need the quickie-jersey-top-done-in-two-hour projects as much as the next sewist, but I glow for days when I finish one of these challenges (and because I'm a little bit crazy, this one was a twofer).

If you have been reading my blog for a couple of years you know that back in 2013 I sewed a wedding dress for client K. And if you don't know than you can back track and read about it here. And since I love to show off pictures of it, here it is it all it's glory:

A year after the wedding, K brought the dress back so it could be shortened to cocktail length. 

A year later after that, K had me use the remaining bits and pieces along with leather to create the jacket using Style Arc's Jett Biker pattern. I think this will be the end of the line, since there are very few pieces left (I had to piece together the front panels as I didn't have anything big enough - the lace pretty well hides the seam). The leftover scraps from the dress and three lamb skins (from GorgeousFabrics.com - still in stock) fit in a quart size ziploc bag.

What made this such a challenge? Let me tell you!

It started with a muslin so that I could check fit and practice some of the steps. The fit was perfect out of the box and I'm close enough in size to my client that it fit me, too (bonus!). This is where easy ended.

The sheer number of pattern pieces was part of the challenge here. Each sleeve alone was comprised of five pieces (although the lining only had three). If I'm counting correctly, the outer layer was made up of 19 pieces while the lining involved another 15. Then I decided that everything needed to be underlined (I used twill for K's jacket because it needed a lot more body and cotton batiste for mine) so for each jacket I had to cut out 53 pieces of fabric. I just added that up right now (106 total!) and I'm no longer surprised that it took me two full days just to cut and mark all those pieces!

Trying to cram as many pieces as possible onto one of the skins.

I decided to go full couture so I hand-basted the underlining to the main fabric. I have no idea how long this took me, except that I watched a season of Broadchurch and a few Miss Fisher's Mysteries while I worked my way through the 27 pieces that needed be be underlined (the leather pieces I basted with glue, so they went quickly). My eyes and fingers were sore by the end.

At this point the meticulous side of my personality was in full reign so I decided that every seam needed to be top stitched with a double strand of thread, so each seam was sewn three times.

You can't even see the second set of top stitching but I know it's there.

The construction process was tricky, but luckily The Clothing Engineer has sewn this pattern and provided guidance through her own blog and on Style Arc's website (see links). If you ever get stuck on a StyleArc pattern, check to see if TCE has help for you. The lovely thing about Style Arc patterns is that once you know what to do, everything comes together neatly because the patterns are so well drafted.  The only change I made was to add a hidden pocket in the inside, since the jacket has no pockets and I was afraid that adding them on the outside would mess with the very fitted design.

I'm such a bad blogger that I didn't take very many pictures of my client's jacket - my giddiness fogged my mind. But I have some of the one I made myself. The are almost the same in terms of main/contrast fabric. 

I used a stretch cotton matellasse for the black parts and a wool suiting for the black/light pink parts, both from GorgeousFabrics.com (sorry, both out-of-stock). I have worn my jacket almost every day since I finished and my client seemed equally pleased with hers. Oh, and those jeans I'm wearing? They are the Angela Woolf Angel Boot Cut jeans I made last spring - they've gotten tons of wear this fall, too!

Next up I've got some Christmas sewing to finish before I tackle my next big project, a winter coat. And I have another wedding dress order, so I have more mountains to climb in the new year! What about you? I'd love to hear about your latest sewing accomplishment (and feel free to post links to said accomplishment in the comments).