Thursday, October 17, 2013

Flower Girl Dress

This dress marked a lot of firsts for me. First time fully lining a garment, first invisible zipper, first time working with crepe back satin, first...okay. Just those three. But the process FELT like one big adventure.

DIY Flower Girl Dress
Flower girl dress, exterior.

Flower girl dress, interior.

The pattern I used is the Oliver+S Fairy Tale Dress. I made View A, with the collar from View B, without the tulle skirt, and with a modified sash (more on that below).


The outer fabric is polyester crepe back satin (from Jo-Ann's). I went with that because I liked the feel of the crepe, it felt more high-quality than some of the other special occasion fabrics. AB and I wore the same color, so that was fun.

Deranged face selfie.

This dress looks very fancy, but it's fairly straightforward to construct. The bodice is simple (I made size 12-18m and there are no darts in that size), the skirt is a rectangle, and even though the tulip sleeves make a big impact, they're not difficult to make.

Tulip sleeve.

There's a reason I chose an O+S pattern when tackling my first lining and invisible zipper! The instructions, as always, are fantastic. I do NOT have an invisible zipper foot, just a regular one, but the instructions gave directions for either kind of foot. Don't blame the pattern for my not-so-invisible-pink-zipper, this being my first I didn't sew quite as close to the teeth as I should have. Jo-Ann's only had long invisible zippers in the right color and I feel like it's a waste of money to shorten a long zipper. Y'know, a waste of like 10 cents.

This fabric is really hard to photograph.

Towards the end of the process, I did deviate from the directions a bit. The thought of slipstitching the lining to the whole zipper made me cry. I managed to jam my machine in between the lining and the outer bodice and sew the majority of the lining to the zipper that way. I realize that sounds like Latin when you're reading it, so I'm not going to elaborate any further. I don't have any photos of what I did, so...sorry. If you're making this pattern and are stuck, ask in the comments and I'll try to explain further!


I also hemmed the lining last. It felt like tempting fate to hem the bodice, hem the lining, attach it inside, and magically have it be even. Additionally, the outer shell was supposed to have a 4" hem (2" turned twice) but I didn't like how it looked, proportionally. I made a 2" (1" turned twice) hem instead. I tried a blind hem but I've never had luck with it on my machine, even when using my blind hem foot, so I sewed a regular hem.

I also made a sash from gold chiffon. The wedding was in a Catholic church and the bridesmaids all wore mantillas (veils) in the same fabric, so this was my way of wedging AB into participating. She continues her hatred of having anything on her head.


I'll tell you what, that sash about killed me. If you look at the O+S pattern envelope, you'll notice that there are two options, a small belt with a bow and a sash with a big bow. The chiffon looked bad bad bad no matter what kind of seams I tried. I decided to do a rolled hem on a single rectangular piece of fabric, cut on grain, and that took a LOT of trial and error with my serger.


Thank goodness I signed up for the Craftsy serging class. I whipped out my iPad, took a picture of my fabric and the problems I was having, and posted it to the class using the Craftsy app. I was able to ask the instructor, Amy Alan, for help. She responded and her tips saved the sash. Yay!

As for the wedding and how AB did as a flower girl, wellllll...luckily I was able to walk with her down the aisle. She carried her basket the entire way but didn't toss the flowers (well, they were leaves, this was a fall-themed wedding). When we got to the end of the aisle her daddy carried her off and five minutes later they left the church. Ha! So we had the photo op and she looked adorable (and she received lots of compliments) and the rest of the wedding was wonderful.

Now for a photo dump of the terrible pictures I took. I normally don't take my own photos at weddings because they never look good (see crazy selfie above), and someone else is usually being paid large amounts of money to do that. I also don't have any from the wedding, just the reception. Someone was busy being a bridesmaid during the ceremony.

flower girl dress




And a special shout-out to the beautiful bride, who devotedly reads this blog every day and included my lovely daughter in her wedding. Congrats!

I don't know about you, but the temps are falling where I live! Just in time for the cool weather, Peek-a-Boo Pattern Shop is offering the Alpine Puffy Coat for today's Thrifty Thursday deal. Grab this versatile pattern (works for boys or girls!) today only for $4!


1 comment:

  1. A really usefull post - Thank you very much I wish you will not mind me writting about this post on my website I will also leave a linkback Thanks

    ReplyDelete

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