kluublog

The Wedding Bells Project

Happy New Year!

What a great way to start the new year with a WEDDING! Yes, the first wedding of our group of high school girls! 16 of us high school girls! We’ve been this huge group of catholic school girls since.. I think year 9?

The good news of the engagement came about a year ago. And roughly 7 months ago, she approached me and asked if I would be able to make her bridesmaid dresses.

I said, “Yeah sure! Love to. But I might not be able to sew all the dresses. You guys might need to find a sewing lady to help out.”

She said, “No worries, we’ll help you sew!”

We had a few consultations, some via the internet, and some in person. We talked about what she wanted - the styles she was interested in, the colour palette: a light and dark shade of coral, the goddess look, the Grecian drape look, softness and which fabric.

I remember her asking me, “So which ones do you think you can make?”

I answered, “Anything babe. I can make whichever dress you like.”

And we set out with the complex dress in mind.

So with the brief and images that she provided me, I set out to draw the initial design via Illustrator! Love illustrator!

The dress didn’t take me long to pattern make. Ok.. It took a day. LOL because I was procrastinating for most of it, and then I took some time to think about it. I made up an initial tolle - out of cheap polyester PJ fabric that I bought for $2 a metre, and this butterfly chiffon to test out the ties for $5 a metre.

The result.. even thought it was RED with SKELETONS on it, it looked interesting! So that was our fitting #1.

After that, we set up a date to get together to start cutting the dress out! OMG. Buying the fabric was a really fun day as well!! LOL 6 girls at Spotlight thinking and calculating how many metres of chiffon we needed in each colour.. counting the panels, counting the lengths… omg.. did my head in! LOL

So after cutting, I taught the bridesmaid’s how to do a French seam. It was each girl’s job to sew all the panels together using a French seaming method because it looks better with the nature of transparency of the chiffon.

I waited a good month or two, before the girls were all finished with the panels.

Now it was my turn to put the whole thing together. My first job was to sew the bodice pieces together and iron all the seams, cut little triangles and such.

My next job was to sew the bodice pieces with the panels and secure the waistline. I did this first to because it would be easier this way, as apposed to finishing the armholes before sewing the middle. I wouldn’t be able to do a full straight run around the waist. But yes, you guessed it - it was cumbersome as anything holding 3.5 metres of fabric.

After that, I was to sew up the chiffon ties, position them on the bodice, around the armhole to insure that there were in the right place. Sew the armhole, which requires turning the bodice in and out from all sides. Then cutting little triangles, and finally a top stitch over some parts of the sleeve to insure a perfect finish.

I remember I was google waving (stupid laggy program!) while sewing.. I don’t know how, but I managed. And I was having a hard time getting the ties right! LOL I tried to French them but I kept forgetting which way to turn for the right side. SO half the ties were had French seams. Half of them had just a normal seam! LOL I could’ve fixed it if I really wanted to satisfy my perfectionist heart, but hey.. you couldn’t really tell!

By this point I was thinking about the fit of the dresses, and how the ties were sitting.

I put in the zips as well. It wasn’t as hard as you think it would be. They were all invisible zips. I am actually quite pro at invisible zips now! Woo!! … I think about 6 years of practise!

This is the result by this stage

But I really couldn’t make any amendments until another fitting. As you can see, I was thinking about how to do these ties and how I can make them sit well.

Fitting #2, was to see if the dresses fit. To my amazement all the girls LOST WEIGHT! So what did that mean to me?? ALTERATIONS! I had to take in things, let out things, move things.

Honest, by now I was like… aiiiiiiyaaahhhhh

Lol

Ok, so after taking things in here and there, I did the finishing touches, and sewing the bias binding around the neckline to seal the dress up! This meant the girls were NOT ALLOWED to GAIN or LOSE weight!

Final thing I had to do was the hem. Tiny .5cm hem! Beautiful!

A full steam was then done on the day of the wedding. And the result!

Stunning!

We did it girls! We did it!

______________________________________________________________________

If you are interested in having an bridal image consultation, or even to have some bridesmaid dresses made, please feel free to shot me an email at info@gintze.com for further information, consultation fees, construction fees and brief exploration/development.