Mirroring Suzy Bee Sews - Life So Strange It Should Be Fiction

My best friend is getting married in March next year, myself and her sister are the bridesmaids. We'd planned on getting a custom made dress from a website overseas but the good/bad news is her sister has just found out she's pregnant (that's good), which means with a changing shape the chance of the dress fitting properly is not likely as she'll be just over 8mths at the wedding (that's bad, lol). So, I offered to make the dresses, which I'm actually excited about but have a big learning curve since I've very rarely sewn with lace or chiffon and have never fitted a pregnant belly before. The current dress plan is a princess line bodice with a lace overlay and sleeves. The skirt will be a chiffon pleated one. I figure I'll make a couple of mock-ups, not only to check the fit but to play with the technique. I've got 2 of Claire Shaeffer's books (Couture sewing and Bridal Couture), so I'll be reading up on sewing with lace. Pattern wise, I ...

This is version 2- I managed to overfit Version 1 plus I ended up hating it so much I never finished lining it or hemming it! Some quick dress details; Bodice from Simplicity 4070 Sleeves from Vogue 8943 Skirt is just the width of fabric gathered. Rigelene boning in the back and front seams. Adjustments; Size 18 1" FBA 1" Back width 1" bicep adjustment Fabric; Lace from Clear It in Melbourne Chiffon and Lining from Lincraft The dress was constructed from directions in Bridal Couture - there is a muslin underlining which is overlayed with the lining then the chiffon - my lace has a purple undertone that I couldn't match with plain chiffon but with the purple lining layered underneath it matches pretty well. I catch-stitched down all the seams and fell stitched in the lining. First time I've used prick stitching instead of understitching and I'm really happy with it. I added bra strap holders. All in all I...

The wedding was about a month ago and I've finally recovered enough to talk about it! This is going to be a photo heavy post - there were too many nice photos of the day just to pick a couple. This is the final post about bridesmaid dress sewing - part 1 , part 2 , part 3 . My boy has grown so much lately, I'm still taller than him in heels though! BTW, its apple juice! (Photo credits to: John Davies Photography) Pattern Details; Simplicity 4070 for the bodice Simple gathered skirt C was 38 weeks pregnant at the wedding, I did the final fitting the weekend before with her and took a couple of tucks out of the lace to get the bodice sitting smooth. I had a great comment from Sarah on my first post; "1) empire waist dress 2) yes - you need the pregnancy / beer belly equivalent of FBA to cope with the 8 month bump. Add extra length in an arc from side seam to seam, and extra width to the front skirt. I'd leave hemming and finalisi...

I feel like a fraud writing couture sewing - do real couture seamstress consider using the serger instead of binding seams? Or think that silk organza is a scratchy itchy seam binding? Or use plastic boning stitched into seams?! Anyway, I started fitting and sewing the first practise run of the bridesmaid dresses. I'm using Simplicity 4070, its the only pattern I have with a lace overlay which means I don't need to draft anything. I'm pretty much following the instructions out of the Bridal Couture book so cut everything with big wide seam allowances and marked the stitching lines with wax tracing paper. I underlined the georgette with muslin which gave it a bit of body and let me catch stitch down the seam allowances. I wanted to add in boning and had a big roll of rigeline in my shelf - I used two strips on either side of each seam except for the very front seams where I only used one. Its smoothed out the bodice nicely. I left it too late to add channels so just stitched...