Part 3 of wedding dress construction!

Part 3 of wedding dress construction!

• 5.05.2011

More wedding dress progress!  I've got an update for you (for those of you who aren't opposed to seeing all the steps along the way)--if you want to be surprised in August when I get married, look away from this post!!  ;)

Just a refresher, here's where we left off on wedding dress construction.  Next step was to put together the tulle overskirt and put it on to the under layer.  The tulle was also cut gored.

Easier said than done.  I have four layers of tulle--light grey, light pink, shimmery light peach, and ivory.  I cut four panels of each, 34" long I think, and sewed the long seams together.  Then I had four veeeeery big tubes of tulle, to gather as one.  The problem was, the shimmery peach was a few inches narrower than the others, so one layer of tulle was smaller than the rest!  It looks fine finished, but means I can't assemble all the layers together flat.  So I fought with it...

Pinned one side to the mannequin, then realized it was a two-person job and enlisted my mom's holding help...

While putting together, lots of little threads and fuzzies from the floor in the sewing room stuck to it...

Then finall got all of it pinned together at the top and did two rows of gathering stitches to keep it together and bring all the fullness in.

When you make a skirt normally, you put one of the seams at the place where there is an opening on the bodice (the center back or left sideseam).  But I wanted the tulle layers' long seams to be staggered, so I offset them all (otherwise there would be thick lines up and down at four places around the skirt).  That meant I had to align the layers and cut a placket opening, which will go on the sideseam.

Next I sewed the gathered overskirt to a piece of twill tape to keep it together until I assemble the whole thing (not till right before the wedding, so I can perfect the fit as needed).  Then I pinned it on the mannequin to see what it will look like!

Ta-daaaa!!

So pouffy... hm...

For fun, I played around with the straps and trim.  I folded some scraps of the grey and made them into scraps for effect, and played with some bridal lace my mom had sitting around.  I am going to use self-fabric flowers and embellishment, for the most part, but it's nice to see the look with other trims, too.  Not sure what I'm doing for a waistband yet but I added one as an example!

Who knows what type of trim I'll decide on and in what pattern.  Until then, it's fun to play!!

So, that's the update for this time.  Hopefully I'll get some time this weekend to do more on it.  I can't wait to start making all those hand-done self-fabric flowers...