Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Wedding Gown Getting Started pt.1

I mentioned a while back that my daughter Jill is getting married this coming May and I'm making her Wedding gown - a huge and exciting undertaking. I made my own gown many years ago so I've done it before but am a bit out of practice. Many of the features on this gown are new techniques for me; it will be quite a learning experience. The main fabrics will be charmeuse in "natural" and Alencon lace. I'm using a 30mm weight charmeuse which has a lot of body and a beautiful drape for the underneath - that's already here and ready to go. The lace I still have to buy and am trying to figure out how much I'll need. The gown is all lace and it's very expensive so I don't want to buy more than I need but, it also runs 72" wide with borders on each side going the lengthwise of the lace. So here's how I figured it - a bit makeshift but it worked. I pushed everything back in my studio and using blue painters tape, made lines on the floor with strips being 0", 36" and the last one 72". From the strip on the left to the one on the right is 72" - the width of the lace.
I also marked off yardage on the strips as you can see below.
I then laid the pattern pieces down, allowing for a flip of each one as all called for "cut 2" of each piece.
It really helped to see it laid out like this. According to my calculations (nervous, nail biting time) I think I figured righ and I'm off to buy it tomorrow at House of Fabrics. There is a professional seamstress on board who makes wedding gowns. I look forward to her input.
I also made a muslin some time back, tweaked it and tweaked it again and then made adjustments on the pattern.
It's nice to be able to mark it up with a Sharpie marker.
So here is the layout of the charmeuse and the organza.
I was talking to my friend Nancy today and was saying "I can't imagine that I can't do this" and she jumped in and said Judy, don't say that.  You've got to say "I know I can, I know I can". So.... Thanks to all of you for joining me on this journey - I know it will be a good one (and I also know I can)!

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