I’m going to take time to mention the cause that we are supporting tonight as it is such an important one; the Amanda Young Foundation. This non-profit foundation is dedicated to raising awareness of meningococcal disease, to raising funds to research for a vaccine, and to educating people to recognise the symptoms and to be aware of the need for the immediate medical attention that it requires. If you don’t know much about meningococcal disease then please take a few minutes to view the Amanda Young Foundation site. Informing yourself as to the nature of this terribly swift and deadly disease could save the life of someone you know.
Now for the debut of my “Rosetta” dress, name thought up by my son…
(Sorry for multiple photos, but I’m trying to show all angles)
Details:
Dress; mostly my own design with some elements of Butterick 4657 and Simplicity 9775, red velvet, red shot silk taffeta and ivory/black printed polyester
Earrings; Sophie Kyron
Shoes; Nina, from David Jones
Husband sadly working all this long weekend so I’m planning to get a lot done on my ball-gown. Following is today’s effort…
Cut out the skirt pieces, sewed side seams, inserted the zip into the centre back. This sounds simple, but this is the point at which I thought I would break down and cry. Here’s what happened. In good seamstress fashion I put a brand spanking new needle into my sewing machine before sewing this fabric. The side seams and zip went in beautifully. Then, without even thinking, I put the seams through the overlocker to finish the edges. Hadn’t changed the overlocker needles! Doh! Now there are tiny thread-pull marks along the seams, that weren’t there before, thanks to the obviously blunt needles in the overlocker. It was a real oh-no! moment. There may or may not have been some bad language. Note to self; overlocker needles are needles too, you know. They’re not going to change themselves. I’m reassuring myself that probably no one at the ball but me will notice as the pulls are thankfully really tiny, but still… they didn’t even have to be there. Disappointed!
With right sides together sewed the skirt and its lining together around the bottom edge. This was done after much experimenting with different hemming techniques on scraps. I trialled rolled hemming (machine) and rolled hemming (overlocker) on the separate skirt and lining, then overlocker rolled hem on the two fabrics together. Neither was satisfactory. So I went with this method, which I think looks smooth and clean.
Trimmed the top to waist level and basted skirts closed.
Adjusted the corset top to the size I want it. Now, of course I originally used a version of Simplicity 9775 to help me cut this, although this is really a junior pattern and I still had to resize and reshape it to me, an adult woman size. And now its been altered and butchered even further. My point is this; can I really say this corset has been made using this pattern any more? The pattern pieces actually now bear no relation to any of the pattern pieces in the envelope. I often face this dilemma when citing pattern numbers in this blog, as my final garment is rarely exactly made up to the pattern, which I consider a starting point only. Anyone wishing to create something similar to my garments is going to have to bear this in mind when buying these patterns I’ve referenced. This is why I add the disclaimer, “own design” in the details of an outfit. Just saying.
Getting back to events; corset boning. Everyone knows to snip the edges of their boning into nicely rounded curves, right? To avoid nasty scratching from one’s own ball gown during your evening, this is a must do… Incidentally, this plastic boning is the only type I’ve ever seen, although I’ve now heard of steel boning I’ve never seen it anywhere. I think that’s because of living in sleepy lil’ ol’ Perth…
The next step will be to drape some fashion fabric attractively and chic-ly across the bodice, and I’m hoping to achieve some sort of wow factor here. This may or may not be my final outcome. Stay tuned to find out…
OK. This may not look like a lot of progress has been made, but it’s taken time nonetheless.
Firstly, the shot silk taffeta petticoat has been hemmed, by hand…
And the lining of the petticoat has been hemmed, by machine…
Then, since blogging about sewing machines and stuff recently I made time today to service my sewing machine …. (no picture, boring technical stuff)
Have cut out the lining of the overskirt, fitted it to myself, basted together…
And made two lining versions of the corset top, using Simplicity 9775, also fitted to me.
Doesn’t look very exciting I admit, but once I start adding the fashion fabric to the lining it will start to look like it’s on the home stretch.
Oh, the fashion parade last night? With my usual lack of loquaciousness…. wow.
No, just kidding, I was overwhelmed by the excitingness and interestingness of it all but I’ll try to remember enough to give a bit of an overview… Of course now I feel like my wardrobe is oh-so boring and I now want to concentrate on making more interesting stuff to complement it…
I wish I could have taken pictures, but I’ve located some of the garments we saw last night on www.style.com
My favourite portion was the Comme des Garcons garments; all khaki and air force blue, and interesting shapes like… Hmm imagine a sort of de-structured, military nun, and you’re getting some idea. Jackets like frankensteined trench coats, with mismatched fabric sleeves and random asymmetrical capelets, BIG midcalf pleated skirts; I laughed with my friend R that my old school uniform skirt was a big pleated navy blue skirt just like the ones we saw and we teenage girls refused to wear it, but instead opted for the tight pencil skirt a la Grease. Well, (shamefaced) it was the 80’s… If only I’d known I would have hung on to my old school skirt, it would be tres chic for this season!!
There were also some interesting light grey wool dresses with overlays of apricot pink chiffon, like the lining was on the outside of the dress. Formfitting, straight skirts below the knee; quite dreamy and pretty and so interesting (at right, Comme des Garcons, Fall 2009, from www.style.com).
There were also some “boyfriend” jackets in charcoal grey flannel that looked cosy and very wearable, slimline pants in khaki, air force blue and “greige”. I secretly congratulated myself I already have some greige gabardine sitting in my stash that I’m planning some winter pants for…
For spring Isabel Marant offered some lovely formfitting short lacy dresses, with navy and white striped nipped-in blazers; a look I’m planning to file away for spring…
The Marc Jacobs look I liked the best was the trench coat (woah!! I’m halfway there) belted over tartan/check chiffon dresses; the dresses were a little froufrou for my taste but I liked the tartan idea…
The Alexander McQueen dresses were very lovely. The parade I’d viewed on style.com had big stiffly structured dresses from vaguely skeletal aquatic reptilian printed fabrics that I thought were interesting but not particularly wearable; the versions that we saw last night used the same prints on soft jersey fabric, made up into very simply constructed short T-shirt dresses. Really lovely; unfussy beach-chic and perfect for the Australian lifestyle.
I noticed a simply stunning necklace that I may have a go at a DIY at some stage; a multi-stranded pearl and diamante necklace with a BIG diamante pendant…
Some of the colour combinations I liked; obviously the khaki and air force blue was my favourite and one I’ll be using for sure, but this winter I also will be experimenting with hot pink paired with charcoal grey; and mustard yellow with charcoal and light grey; forest green and teal blue; and light grey paired with big gold jewellery…
Photos below, left from Marc Jacobs spring/summer 09, centre from Alexander McQueen spring/summer 10. Imagine this McQueen print in a simple little T-shirt dress with cap sleeves, and that is what we saw…, and at right from Comme des Garcons fall 09, interesting details and mix of fabrics in this coat
My daughter’s school ball has been the biggest social event in her life so far, and I was thrilled and honoured that she wished for me to make her dress for her. We had a wonderful time together; planning and shopping for fabric and generally bonding in a girly way.
She had a firm idea of what she wanted, making it much easier for me; the challenge in this process was for me to make the dress to fit her vision of how she wanted to look. Fortunately she loved her dress! She had seen a Gucci dress in my Vogue magazine that she wanted for her look, with the skirt to be fuller. I studied the dress and eventually decided that the best way for this to work would be to make the bodice as a corset with a long waist tie/train to nip in the waist, and with a separate skirt. This immediately caused a few hassles and she emphatically did not want a skirt and a top, but a dress!!! I had to promise that it would look like a dress and no one would be able to tell it was a skirt and top. I think I achieved this successfully.
The whole process was deeply satisfying to me, both as a seamstress and as a mother.
I used as a basic starting point Simplicity 9775, although this was drastically altered to fit my daughter’s shape and the complex style of outfit we had in mind.
I firstly drafted the skirt and overlay and a whole lot of geometric “petals” in paper and fitted and arranged them. I then realised that the model wearing the dress in my Vogue magazine was probably over 6 ft tall, and the arrangement of petals on the original dress was not going to fit on my 5 ft 4 daughter at all!! So I recut and rearranged until finally coming up with a dress and design that looked just right for my daughter’s frame and suited the fuller style skirt she wanted. I also put a petal design on the train, as I wanted for it to flow and mingle in with the skirt overlay to become an artistic folding of layers to draw and please the eye.
The corset caused some angst (for me). It was very important to me that the folds in the three joining pieces (the front and two backs) corresponded exactly to each other, as well as the folds conforming to her body shape to best effect. So, wider folding over the bust and narrow folding at the waist and even narrower in the small of the back. I folded and fitted and folded and fitted into the wee hours of several mornings, and then some. This, along with the applique of the petals, took the longest time. I probably spent a week on just getting the folds of this corset just right!
The dress is entirely of silk, fully lined (obviously!), and the corset is boned. The corset closure is by hidden hooks and eyes. I toyed with the idea of covered buttons and silk ribbon loops, but decided the folding of the bodice should close cleanly with nothing to interrupt the sculptural effect of the folding.
The green shot silk has an orange weft (warp?), so gleams with a bronzy-coppery glow under lights. It looks gorgeous with my daughter’s strawberry blond hair. And as we all know, the shades of ivory/cream/white are almost endless! We both thought this particular shade suited her peaches and cream complexion very well. The underside of the ties/train are black, like the appliqued “shadows” of the petals. I think these splashes of black just set it all off and added a tiny touch of severity and sophistication to the gown.
I have since entrusted it to our local dry-cleaner, and she has worn this to another ball.
My finest achievement…
Photo below is from Gucci Spring/Summer 08, www.style.com, see here
