I as usual wanted to be different and what better way to make sure that no one wears the same dress as you, than to design and make your own! So here is the first stage of my development. It has evolved into many different things over the past few weeks but now I’m confidant that I have a design that I’m satisfied with and that I can actually reproduce with the amount of fabric I have.I started off with a circle of fabric using a circle skirt formula, making it much shorter, gathered it and attached it to a neck band.
I then did 6 box pleats and elasticated the bottom to make it measure about half of my waist.
A neck band (no idea of the right terminology here) was put together consisting of the lace, and interlining and an actual lining. The lace was sewn to the interlining and that was put right sides together with the lining . The curves were then clipped and it was turned the right way out.
A skirt was then put together using ……..In the picture the collar (aha, that’s the terminology ) hadn’t been sewn together yet so it had a few inches taken off the width for the final thing. Ditto for the waistband, but you get the general idea of what it’s supposed to look like.
So I ripped up all the pieces and placed them onto my fabric (a gorgeous dusky rose pink satin) and they didn’t fit, plus I was slightly worried about working on the bias with the circle skirt bodice. Anyway it was back to the drawing board.
I looked at the dresses in my wardrobe and I saw a bodice with princess seams and had an “aha” moment. So I made up another bodice using simplicity 4070. I also took out several inches of the width of the skirt as I only have 3 metres of satin. It’s draping all wrong but that’s only because its a bit long for Millie, but once it’s hemmed it will be fine.
The arm holes needed to be cut down a bit more which I did later. Again the width of the collar is all wrong so the dress is out of proportion but you get the idea. I also took out several inches of the width of the skirt.
So this is the finished design for the prom dress and I’m fairly happy with it, although it’s not how I first envisioned it. The next step is to make a wearable muslin out of some fancier fabric so I can practice my princess seams and to make sure that I can deal with the slippery fabric.