Prom dress

Months ago I had promised to sew my goddaughter’s prom dress.  We went fabric/pattern shopping.  I tried to steer her in the direction of something that would be fairly simple to sew, but the young lady had definite ideas of what she wanted, and … what she wanted was what she got.  (Well … with a few minor design changes.)  When we started this journey, Julie was none too certain that things would turn out the way she wanted, but judging by the reaction last night, when she tried the dress on for the last time, I do believe Julie is happy.

Meet Julie – my gorgeous goddaughter.

We started with McCall's7320.

The fabric is a teal polyester satin – not quite as heavy as it should have been, but sometimes you just have to work with what you can find.   And the pictures just don’t do justice to the actual colour.  I straightened the neckline and raised it by 3½ inches for modesty’s sake.  (And yes, I most certainly started with a muslin!)  Julie opted for having the hem all one length. Originally, Julie wanted “bling” around the top, but I managed to convince her that trim with large beads would be rather uncomfortable and scratchy as she moved her arms.   She just had to believe in my abilities to amp up the design.  I went with an outer facing in black velvet and a bow at the back.  I think it worked out rather well.  Without the black velvet, the dress was rather blah.  Adding the velvet added just enough interest.

“The guts” pictures were taken as I was waiting for Julie to get ready to put on the dress.   This last week I was going pretty well non-stop, and I did not have time to stop and take pictures.  I was getting worried that I would be sewing up until the last minute.  And the more I worried the worse my usual “panic aches” became, which only slowed down the whole process.  (I really shouldn’t be sewing for other people – way too stressful!)  

We attached the belt to the zipper with safety pins, just while getting the dress on, otherwise the belt kept disappearing into the lining.

Just for the record… there is a “corset layer” with boning and an elastic belt that holds the whole top securely in place, a strip of buckram around the top to keep the whole top edge stiff and secure around the body.  The inside facing is a bias strip of black batiste.  All of this was stitched by hand – except the channels for the boning.  The zipper was sewn by hand.  There are 3 loops for attaching hanging ribbons.  There’s a loop and snap for keeping the bra back where it should be. The lining came from my stash - a pinky apricot colour.  Actually, two pieces of lining.  The upper part is a softer polyester (?), and then there’s a gathered skirt, which I made from a stiffer acetate lining.The pattern calls for netting, which would have been scratchy and far too poufy (and it would have caused the skirt to stick to it, which then would have necessitated yet another layer of something or other to protect the outer layer of fabric.  The stiff acetate gives just enough pouf to hold the skirt out.

And  just two more pictures from the pre-prom party.

 

Acting a little goofy.