Hey look! Something!
I don't know if I'll be working on any costumes this year. I'll just have to see what sort of funds and time I have after the work that needs to be done is done. My best friend, branflake is getting married in November here in Nashville. It's a 1930s themed wedding, which means we all get to wear vintage stuff from one of the most fashionable decades in modern history.
Her dress has a lovely a tea-length, bias cut, handkerchief hem chiffon, skirt (wow, that was a lot of descriptors). I love it! It drapes in these gorgeous folds and the hem just flutters. The bodice is sort of straight through the midsection from just under bust (kind of like empire waist) to about hip level (making it kind of like a drop waist at the same time). The bodice is made up of rows of about 1.5" or 2" wide lace trim embellished with about 4mm iridescent sequins and the half-cut smooth bugle beads (just like the ones on miscellaneous LOTR costumes, of which I happen to have a half kilo). It has a low cut halter neckline.
I'm to make a bolero jacket to go with her dress. She wants it to look like it belongs to the dress so I'm trying to make it follow the lines and at the same time exchange some materials between them to try to make them seem like a set.
We're using material from her mother's wedding dress (circa 1981). It has tons and tons of this 4" wide (or so) lace trim. Some of it has been cut and pieced together like appliques around the high collar. There's a lovely section of embroidery on mesh that sits over chest above the bust. Then there's more of the lace trim which sort of crisscrosses over the bodice, which has a high waist, almost Empire. There are faux pearls glued on in places all over the bodice. It has long, puffy sleeves with more of the lace running the length of them and gathered up into tight cuffs of more of the lace. The skirt is trained and full and seems to be a synthetic (probably polyester) organza layer over top of kind of a lining layer which is probably also a polyester taffeta type something or other. There is yet more long, vertical pieces of that lace trim all through the skirt. Plenty of material to work with and even do some experiments on (like fiber tests and tea dyeing).
This week, I've pulled the sleeves and cuffs off her mom's dress and pinned the sleeves to the dress form, tucking the bottoms up to make a 3/4 length bell sleeve. I've pulled apart the bodice of her mom's dress to get that piece of embroidery and some of the lace off. And I've taken a comparably wide trim to kind of outline my general shape on the dress form. Since there's so little material in front of the proposed jacket, I'm going to stick the embroidery in the back. I'll continue pulling lace off the mom dress today to try to replace my stand in trim with it and get a better idea. Then I'll drape muslin to start cutting out and putting together a mockup based on her measurements to ship to her to try on.
Also, we've been looking at her dress and how we might alter it to better suit her needs (because when you score a $20 wedding dress, this is what you do). She wants to close up the neckline a bit and I thought I'd add in a row of the lace from her mom's dress there. Also, she'd like the hem to be a bit longer so she can wear some lovely 4" heels. So, I'm thinking about adding a second chiffon skirt which would be 4"-6" longer than the one there. Also, since I love this skirt so much, I'm thinking of adding a tail, of sorts, to the jacket to sort of give the feel of a train without actually having a train. So the back of the jacket and dress together will just look like a drapey waterfall of chiffon. I like how it's coming together in my head and I hope I can make it play out well on the garment and stay true to the vintage style and not get to frilly all at the same time.
I'll post pics of all this soon.
Also, I finally took my serger out of the box (the very thoughtful gift Chris got me for Christmas, yeah, that one). I unthreaded and rethreaded it to familiarize myself with all the parts and pieces. I can see now why I was intimidated to even look at it. It's quite a piece of machinery! Takes a map and a pair of tweezers to thread it. No, seriously! (Those of you with serger experience, stop laughing!) But, I remember being very intimidated when I first got my ultra simple sewing machine, too. So, I trudge on into the great unknown...
Her dress has a lovely a tea-length, bias cut, handkerchief hem chiffon, skirt (wow, that was a lot of descriptors). I love it! It drapes in these gorgeous folds and the hem just flutters. The bodice is sort of straight through the midsection from just under bust (kind of like empire waist) to about hip level (making it kind of like a drop waist at the same time). The bodice is made up of rows of about 1.5" or 2" wide lace trim embellished with about 4mm iridescent sequins and the half-cut smooth bugle beads (just like the ones on miscellaneous LOTR costumes, of which I happen to have a half kilo). It has a low cut halter neckline.
I'm to make a bolero jacket to go with her dress. She wants it to look like it belongs to the dress so I'm trying to make it follow the lines and at the same time exchange some materials between them to try to make them seem like a set.
We're using material from her mother's wedding dress (circa 1981). It has tons and tons of this 4" wide (or so) lace trim. Some of it has been cut and pieced together like appliques around the high collar. There's a lovely section of embroidery on mesh that sits over chest above the bust. Then there's more of the lace trim which sort of crisscrosses over the bodice, which has a high waist, almost Empire. There are faux pearls glued on in places all over the bodice. It has long, puffy sleeves with more of the lace running the length of them and gathered up into tight cuffs of more of the lace. The skirt is trained and full and seems to be a synthetic (probably polyester) organza layer over top of kind of a lining layer which is probably also a polyester taffeta type something or other. There is yet more long, vertical pieces of that lace trim all through the skirt. Plenty of material to work with and even do some experiments on (like fiber tests and tea dyeing).
This week, I've pulled the sleeves and cuffs off her mom's dress and pinned the sleeves to the dress form, tucking the bottoms up to make a 3/4 length bell sleeve. I've pulled apart the bodice of her mom's dress to get that piece of embroidery and some of the lace off. And I've taken a comparably wide trim to kind of outline my general shape on the dress form. Since there's so little material in front of the proposed jacket, I'm going to stick the embroidery in the back. I'll continue pulling lace off the mom dress today to try to replace my stand in trim with it and get a better idea. Then I'll drape muslin to start cutting out and putting together a mockup based on her measurements to ship to her to try on.
Also, we've been looking at her dress and how we might alter it to better suit her needs (because when you score a $20 wedding dress, this is what you do). She wants to close up the neckline a bit and I thought I'd add in a row of the lace from her mom's dress there. Also, she'd like the hem to be a bit longer so she can wear some lovely 4" heels. So, I'm thinking about adding a second chiffon skirt which would be 4"-6" longer than the one there. Also, since I love this skirt so much, I'm thinking of adding a tail, of sorts, to the jacket to sort of give the feel of a train without actually having a train. So the back of the jacket and dress together will just look like a drapey waterfall of chiffon. I like how it's coming together in my head and I hope I can make it play out well on the garment and stay true to the vintage style and not get to frilly all at the same time.
I'll post pics of all this soon.
Also, I finally took my serger out of the box (the very thoughtful gift Chris got me for Christmas, yeah, that one). I unthreaded and rethreaded it to familiarize myself with all the parts and pieces. I can see now why I was intimidated to even look at it. It's quite a piece of machinery! Takes a map and a pair of tweezers to thread it. No, seriously! (Those of you with serger experience, stop laughing!) But, I remember being very intimidated when I first got my ultra simple sewing machine, too. So, I trudge on into the great unknown...