Wedding dress construction Part 4

Wedding dress construction Part 4

• 5.26.2011

I've been walking you through my wedding dress construction process as I make it with my mom's guidance... we've been busy so it's been a few weeks since I came out to her house and worked on it, but this weekend I did!

Here's how it's coming along (again, look away if you want to be surprised at the end!!):

Part 4:
If you remember where we left off, I had assembled the bodice and the many layers of skirt and it was looking like this:

One of the next steps is creating the self-fabric flowers that will go on it--but I'm not quite ready for that yet.  Still can't decide between several different designs and materials.  Ehhh...

But another important next step was making the straps.  I wanted them to be tapered, narrowest at the bodice and widest at the middle of the shoulder, but not a true diamond shape because of the roundness of a shoulder.

To make this custom strap shape, we first figured out how long it needed to be.

We then traced a rectangle the right length (I decided a 2.5" wide at the widest point strap was good, so the 3" ruler was perfect):

With the pattern, we could shape the strap the right way:

We then cut the strap in the shape we had created, and used it as a pattern.

I cut out the dress fabric, the grey, as well as white lining.  I cut out three layers of tulle in rectangles almost twice as wide as the strap at the narrowest points.

Just to keep it all together and since it doesn't pin well, I sewed all three layers of tulle (three different colors, just like on the bodice!) to each other.

Then I put the whole sandwich together...

And pressed and turned, and pinned down the extra fabric in gathers.

Ta-da!!

Straps!

Now what's really left is the finishing (easy--bias binding at the top, zipper at the side, etc.) and the hard part: deciding on and creating the self-fabric (or lace?) trimmings!!!

So many choices and options!  It's so tough when this is, like, the ONLY wedding dress I'll ever have!  Unfortunately I like more than one style of dress.  Aaah, the conflict of the ages...