Self drafted: Tea length dress.

Now before anyone asks, the dress isn't for me !!!!

I bought this material a while back without really knowing what to make out of  it but an image of a tea length wedding dress with classic styling and a dropped waist kept popping in to my head, so I rolled with this idea for a while and sketched some images. Since that wasn't enough to make the idea go away I knew I had to make the dress out of this material which has a bow and flower pattern on it.

It's a bit of a random make but because I really like sewing I tend to make things just for the hell of it!! usually it's just to push myself, test my nerve and try my skill. 

The toile/mock-up

 I drafted the bodice block pattern from the Winifred Aldrich book. Why I choose the 'bodice' block is anyone's guess, I should of used the dress block instead, seen as it is a dress I'm making, so after shaping the neck line and constructing a circle skirt I made the toile.  I made a few minor alterations to the pattern (smooth the neck line curve, reduce the shoulder width). I started cutting out the fabric and then realised I didn't have enough for the circle skirt I tried all ways but it was just not possible to get a circle skirt out of it and I didn't want to order more fabric. so I did a gathered skirt instead.

Shoulder Detail

The little bows I was experimenting a few weeks ago were for this dress, I used a wave type of embroidery stitch for the edge of the bows and sewed them on to the shoulders, The dress isn't with out problems though.............

A Hole

I don't think you can see it too well in these photo's but when I attached the skirt to the top I caught the material in the over-locker creating a small hole!! I stable-ised the hole using interfacing on the underside and then darned the hole to make sure it wouldn't get bigger, but even thought the hole was fixed I was still unhappy about the mend being visible so after much debating I decided on attaching a band round the waist with the same wave stitching at the bows so it ties in.

 Lining

 I not only lined dress but also underlined it too (get me!!). I used cream as the white material was very cool almost harsh colour so by using the cream it has warmed the white up.
I choose to make use of the circle skirt pattern i'd made so I used it to create the lining it also helps to poof the fabric skirt out. I used tulle as trim on the bottom of the dress which I ruffled. I attached the tulle to the lining but made it long enough so it peaked out of the dress fabric.