Smocked Dresses

I decided to try using elastic thread to make a smocked/shirred dress for my daughter to wear this summer. I followed Dana's instructions from her blog MADE. Both versions I made were from tank tops that don't fit me very well. This blue one was too big for me, and is consequently too big around for my daughter. The yellow tanktop is too small for me, and the dress came out too small for her too!

Using a tank top instead of starting from scratch made the project take less than 45 minutes to make. I am not kidding, start to finish was under 45 minutes--and that was the first time I'd ever used elastic thread in my machine!

Just cut off the straps, turn down the top edge, do your shirring, make a big hem, then sew the straps back on only much shorter. Super easy! And super cute! Can you believe I haven't taken a picture of her in it yet?

I ended up giving the yellow one to a friend whose daughter is smaller than mine. And the blue one looks fine, she just has some room to grow.

I'm really contemplating making a shirred dress for myself, but I'm trying to figure out how to prevent it from looking too juvenile. Any ideas on an adult version?

Mother-In-Law's Dress

A few months ago, my in-laws came to visit and I was wearing this dress. My mother-in-law liked it so much she asked me if I could make her one. She wanted a few things different like the color and thickness of the material and the length of the skirt and sleeves. It's such an easy pattern that I agreed.

I didn't end up finding the right fabric until we visited them again in St. Louis and we went fabric shopping together. There is this wonderful little fabric shop in Kirkwood called Sew It Seams. I was drooling over half of the fabrics in the store--lots of linen-silk blends, tencel, fine wools, and cool woven structures like herringbone. We decided on a lovely sage green tencel twill that fit both the requirements: it had a good drape and it wasn't see-through.



The printed pattern is one I borrowed from an Anthropologie blouse about 3 years ago. I'm very pleased I was able to use the print blocks again, and they're still in good condition despite being carved from the easy-cut stuff which typically breaks easily.



The hard part of this dress was the printing of the design. It's a little nerve-racking trying to line up each one and print the whole hem and sleeves evenly. It also took me longer than I remembered.


The finished product. It would look much better if I had a picture of her wearing it, but I got a call from her yesterday that she'd received it and it fit quite well. If I get a picture of her in it, I'll have to post it.

Just a note on sewing for other people: If someone wants a very specific thing made for them and it's fitted at all--good luck with that. I have had several experiences making fitted bodice dresses for friends that went very wrong and were very frustrating on both sides. It probably attests to my lack of sewing skills to fit people other than myself, but I would caution anyone considering a complex project for a friend. I agreed to this project because it was not fitted, was a very loose shift dress, and because I had made the pattern before and knew it was super easy.
Do you have any interesting stories about making things for other people?

Draping Experiment

I recently came across a brilliant idea for making your own custom dress form out of duct tape. I successfully convinced my husband to wrap me in duct tape (while he was watching a basketball game) and voila! it's really easy! And cheap! I would highly recommend investing in some duct tape and a few hours of your time for this great tool.

Of course I immediately had to use it for a project, and I've always wanted to try draping. I actually have no idea what you're supposed to do, but I just used common pattern sense and tried it. I have attempted making my own patterns tons of times, but all in the flat form--and not one of them has really worked (except for skirts.) But this was pretty successful. I had an idea for a dress and just pinned some scrap fabric onto the form and drew the lines I wanted for the neck, then cut it out. Then I moved on to the bodice, and on down. Now, I did have to make a first version and then tweak a second version in the scrap cloth. But once I was satisfied with it, I cut it out of the nice fabric and sewed it up--very successful, at least compared to my previous attempts at making patterns.


Here is the finished dress on the dress form. I wanted to use some old lace on it, but it looked hideous, as you can see, so I took it off again.


In the back I put a ton of pleats for the skirt's fullness. The only problem I ran into was that the dress was higher on one side than on the other at the waist. If you look closely at the first dress form picture, you can tell that my right shoulder is significantly lower than my left, and I ended up taking over an inch off of the right shoulder seam. Weird! I have never had that problem before and I wonder if it's because of making the pattern on a dress form of myself.


The finished product, I'm very happy with it. I finished it just in time for my friend's wedding. This picture was taken after wearing it all day, so there's wrinkles from sitting down. The material is a linen/bamboo blend herringbone twill in dull gold and cream.

In other news--gooseberries! My husband loves gooseberry pie and I picked just enough off of a bush planted at my parent's house. Unfortunately, I do not like gooseberry pie, but it's fun to make anyway. One of the best things about summer is berry picking. We're going to get strawberries tomorrow! Mmmmm... my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Anniversary: what I was making last year

Okay, so our anniversary was May 17th, I'm a little late. But I thought it would be fun to post my wedding dress pictures here. I spent an insane amount of time on this in the winter of 2007/2008. I actually made 2 other dresses before this one (I hated how those came out and they don't even exist anymore.)
The fabric is white linen and the neckline and belt I wove. The dress pattern is Butterick 4827, but I altered it a lot for a different neckline and added very large gores on both sides to make the skirt extremely full.


The belt and neck trim I wove on a 4-shaft floor loom in a pattern called "Murphy's Diaper Weave" (not a cool name)--it's supposed to look like an 8-petaled flower. The warp is white cottolin with green perle-cotton edges. The weft is grey perle-cotton. I think I wove at least 5 yards of the stuff over Christmas break. I had pictures of it on the loom, but I can't find them!


Inspiration:

This was my original inspiration for the dress. The poor picture quality is because it's a picture taken of a photocopy. I found it in a book from the library, Martha Stewart Weddings, that had a lot of cool old dresses in it. This one was from around 1920, when it was in style to mimick medieval type stuff.

This is where I got the idea for the pattern and adding the gores for fullness (Susan's dress from Lion, Witch, Wardrobe.) I think the princess seams are much more flattering than a full/gathered bodice like in the 1920's dress.

This photo is a small section of a Holbein painting. I came across it just before I started making the dress. I just love the detailed pattern on the bands.

I also embroidered my initials on an old handkerchief to put around my bouquet. It belonged to my great-grandmother, and she did the tatting around the outside.

So now I have a dilemma. I have this awesome dress that I spent a billion hours making, that fits me perfectly--and it's white. I really want to dye it so that it won't look like a wedding dress and I could wear it again. But I'm really afraid of wrecking it. Any ideas?