Lace-up back - done!

I have some good news to report (and no, not just about how the sun has finally come out here in the last few days) - after a lot of drama and incidents, and needless to say, unpicking, the lace-up back of my wedding dress is finally completed!

What's more, this also means that the only thing left to do on the dress is the hem!

Incidents first? Well first of all I managed to stick a hand sewing needle through my thumb under my nail! Ouch! That was a week ago and it's still a bit bruised! Lesson learned - trying to attach the fabric covered corset cord to the dress by hand is not easy! After that I've been using a thimble. Much safer.

But hey, I soldiered on, after whinging about it for about half an hour...

Then last Friday, the most gross thing happened. I was happily reinforcing the loops by my machine, and there it was, this gigantic spider that was sat between the dupion and the lining layer, STILL ALIVE! Now I'm not a screamer but I almost screamed. It was huge (especially on reflection) with solid looking legs.

Thankfully my other half came to the rescue. I covered the details of the dress and made sure that he couldn't sneak a peek of course! We found a seam where it was still left open (thank god for that! otherwise he'd have to get through from the bottom of the train to the top of the princess lined dress!) so he managed to get the fast moving creature through that. Bless him, he was worried about not having washed his hands thoroughly before getting into the dress - which was the least of my worries at that time! That's why I'm marrying him.

OK drama over, here are a couple of pictures of the lace-up back finished:

I thought I'd try out different ribbons and see the effects - I preferred the self fabric ribbons (I haven't pressed it yet after turning the spagetti loop out - please bear with me) in the end.

Overall the lace-up back was not the easiest thing to make. I know that I've made a couple of toiles of this already, but I had not given as much attention to those as I did to the real thing. I made sure the fabric covered cords are nice and smooth (to learn how to make them, see tutorial here), all the loops are perfectly aligned and are of the same size and shape, the loops are secured about 10 times to the dress (in addition to the organza selvage which they've been sewn onto), and the modesty panel evenly attached to the back.

For the modesty panel, I did include 4 bits of plastic covered steel boning to make sure that it stays in shape when laced up. Unlike the spiral steel boning which I love using for bodices, I used the covered steel boning because they only bend one way. I also used a couple of longer pieces to stablise the back opening and reduce wrinkling.

I'm really happy with how it's turned out. I think when I put it on the opening is going to look a bit bigger, because I've turned my dress form down to its smallest to over compensate for how much my body would "give". What do you think? If you have any questions on how to make a corset back for your wedding dress, please feel free to ask and I'll try my best to answer!

I'm going off on holiday to Malta shortly (maybe I'll do some fabric shopping when I'm there? although I really don't NEED any more fabric... ) so perhaps I'll put my almost finished dress into a garment bag rather than leaving it out on the dress form...

Wedding dress progress update

Another quick one from me - it's been a while since my last wedding dress progress update... so you must be wondering if I had given up on it already?! Not only because I spent 2.5 days on my shiny new green dress? and a couple of days feeling over the moon with it?


Of course not! I've kept going with it and now I'm pleased to report a couple of milestones!


Milestone 1. April 2012 marks the end of hand sewing of all the seams on ALL layers (yep all 7 of them!) of my wedding dress - so I have now hand overcast all the exposed seams, pressed seams flat where appropriate and catch stitched seam allowances to the fabric/underlining. I haven't got a photo to hand but will be sure to share the world of hand sewing with you when I get a chance!


Milestone 2. I'm ready for the lace-up back! I finally know how to do this!


After I made the covered cord for the loops (see Tutorial), I have altered the fit of the mock-up bodice/corselette and tried out the continuous looping as opposed to the criss-cross method adopted previously. Here's a picture of the new attempt:

I tried it on one side of the mock corselette, with 2 different types of cords. One is from Liberty, the first 7 slightly thinner loops on the left of the picture, and the other a viscose/nylon thicker cord. I preferred the Liberty one (apparently I have expensive taste :o) so will probably go for that for the wedding dress. 


Just in case that the loops still aren't strong enough, I also secured them to a strip of silk organza selvage to help maintain shape too. Now I can sleep tight!


So this is what I have ended up with:

The loops on the left are the new ones - I sewed them in between the 2 layers and simply did a dart for the right hand side. Although I feel able to proceed with the real thing now, without (a lot of) fear, there are still a couple of things that I will do differently for the wedding dress lace-up back:

1) The loops on both sides still stick out too much when pulled so I'm going to made the loops even less deep. 

2) I'm going to insert/move spiral steel boning next to the closure on both sides, in order to have a smoother finish and less wrinkles. 

Other than that, with my chosen fabric (the silk dupion), the strong but skinny cord from Liberty, and V shape that I'm finally happy with, I am ready to move forward! The end is (almost) in sight - get ready to celebrate!

How to make covered cord/loops for a lace-up back

After lots of trial and error (as usual), I think I've figured out the way to make the loops for the lace-up back of my wedding dress. 


So in my previous toiles, I have used various shop bought ribbons and cords but have found that 1) they looked alright but not quite perfect, and 2) I always worried about the strength and the cords fraying from the ends so that a lot of force (oh the price we pay to look slim for the big day!) may pull it apart. Think that for a wedding disaster! So of course I kept trying. 


Then I found it! It's the best of both worlds - using cords covered by the fashion fabric, in my case, the silk dupion used for my dress. This way the colour will of course match, the cord should fray less as it's encased, and the loops will be really strong! 


As I spent ages trying this (and of course looking at the PR discussions and other useful sources), I thought I would share a tutorial in case it does make someone's life easier one day! 


So here we go...
What you will need:

• A bias strip of your fashion fabric - mine was just over an inch wide

• A bit of cord that is just more than twice as long as the bias strip - I tried different cords to find the best one for the real dress

• Some thread, and

• If machine sewing, a piping/zipper foot (alternatively this can of course be done by hand)

Step 1 - Fold the bias strip  
Fold the bias strip lengthwise in half, with right sides together. 

Step 2 - Wrap the bias strip around the cord

Here the position of the bias strip is important. I think the easiest thing to do is to show you a picture first (I have no idea why this has turned itself clockwise when uploaded...)

So the bias tape is placed from one end of the cord, leaving a small tail (end #1), and finishes around the centre of the cord (end #2). We will need to start sewing from end #2 first. 


Step 3 - Sew!
Using a piping foot/presser foot, start from end #2 (centre of the cord) and sew through the fabric and the cord and across until you are just over 1/8 away from the cord. 
Then for the first inch or so of the bias strip, sew along keeping this distance. After that, stitch closely to the cord, just like how you would make piping. Again a couple of pictures should help explain this:







I used my zipper foot to sew close to the cord (only after the first inch or so)

A close up to show the wider gap at the end #2 of the strip. I used a really wide bias strip to try this in fact so your version should have the stitches must closer to the edges. 
I hand sewed the first few stitches across to secure the cord. All this (the securing stitches and the wider gap) is to facilitate the turning out later on.  

Step 4 - trim seam allowances

OK I went a bit overboard with this step so my practice loops had some seams that popped open... but  consider this a lesson learned! At least I will make sure that this won't happen for the real wedding dress! 

As you can see, I did trim very close to the stitching line here. This was because I had made 2 attempts prior to this without being able to turn the fabric out! I would suggest trimming as closely as you can, bearing in mind the fabric you are using for the bias strip. In my case the dupion frays without anyone touching it (honestly!) so no wonder the stitches turned out not to be secure enough. 

Step 5 - crunch time

So from end #2, with the extra gap, you should be able to turn the bias strip out to the right side! If you've left yourself sufficient gap, you should be able to do this fairly easily! Good luck! I didn't use any special tools for this and it only took seconds... so trust me it does work!

There you have it! covered cord ready to be made into the loops for the lace-up back! You could also make this as button loops if your dress has a covered button back. 

I hope this is helpful! Do let me know if you have any questions and I'll try my best to answer them:)

Now I am going to post the progress on my revised mock-up lace-up back in a separate post. 

Too many projects! Is there really such a thing?

I know, I know, I never think about how much I've already got on my plate... but when there's a RTW contest on PR, and there's a dress that I've wanted to make since 2009.... well, how could I resist?

So this is the dress

It's from Gossip Girl of course, and first aired in series 2 back in 2009. I'm a big fan of the show - pretty people, beautiful wardrobe and oh the drama! what's not to like? 

So this is my inspiration dress... and it's quite a challenge! 

The contest is in April which means that I'm not allowed to start sewing until 1 April but I can think about it all I want and buy the fabric. 

So I went to shepherds bush again and bought some (by which I mean 5 metres of) green taffeta.

My plan is to alter the bodice a little to more of a sweetheart neckline which I think will be more flattering for my figure, and make a huge pick-up skirt with a bubble hem that is a little less dramatic than the inspiration dress just so I have some occasions where I can wear it without being stared at! I'm planning on adding some netting between the skirt lining and fashion fabric to give the body... Hopefully this will work! I'm still trying to figure out where/how the zipper would work amongst all that volume... so if you have any good ideas/comments please do let me know! 

When I was at shepherds bush, I also saw this fabric and fell in love.... well I guess it doesn't hurt to show it off a little here before I turn it into something that I can wear!

I'm sure you're all wondering... hmmm I wonder what can be made out of this? well guess what? I received 9 patterns today in the post - it felt like xmas! and the best thing is, another few are coming in the post later on! obviously there was a sale and I took advantage of that! 

I thought I could use the paisley coral fabric for this pattern and it would make a very cute little dress. 

My other favourite patterns received today were:

How fabulous! I can't wait to start them!

However (a big however in fact), is that I need to try and complete my wedding dress first! At the moment I'm doing a lot of handsewing - mainly catchstithing all the seam allowances on ALL layers! 

I also had a go at the mock-up version of the lace-up back, using different types of shop purchased loops, and I think the result is clear - I'll let you judge first!

 

 As you can see, one side is made of a shiny looking cord thing (I don't know how else to describe it!) and the other more experimental - I think the shiny side is the way to go! 

I then tried the previous corselette mock-up on:

 

So the top one was loosely laced up, and the bottom one really tightly (I could just about breathe!) The whole point of this exercise really was to assess how much of a gap I want, and where to stitch the loops into the back of the dress. 

My thoughts were:

• I liked the width and shape of the loosely tied picture so that means that I'll have to leave an even bigger gap;
• The lace up looks a little soft, so I'm going to maybe insert boning near the edge of the lace up;
• The bottom picture shows that the loops are being pulled quite a lot so I'm going to leave less of the loops out of the seams. 

I'm going to unpick the loops now and make a set of new ones using the shiny cord and maybe instead of sewing it on a piece of paper, attaching them to a strip of organza selvage for some extra strength in case of too much stress! The last thing I want is for the loops to come out on my wedding day! 

I will also need to make the loops for the actual ribbon but I'm going to worry about that later! 

Update - Sunday 18 March

This weekend was packed of wedding stuff! my lovely bridesmaid came round to help me with the dress, made buttonholes and I had my hair trial. Was also going to have a trial photoshoot done too but that had to be postponed as the photographer had some family things to attend to. 

So here are some photos:

 Look at that train! 


 As you can see, I haven't quite done the lace-up back yet... I have taken the side seams in by 5mm or so on each side so the side seams would align with the side of my body better (if that makes any sense at all!). Before I start messing with the lace-up back, I am going to try it out on one of the mock-up corselettes from before so I have a better idea of the shape and size of the 'V' gap at the back. 


I'm also tempted to include a bit more details at the back of the dress. After all, this is where people will spend lots of time looking at during the ceremony! Currently I'm thinking about a pretty bow which could cover the bottom of the lace-up (and the short zipper underneath that) and help with the bustle... but I'll worry about these details later! 

My tasks for the next couple of weeks include (of course I like my lists... I'm a tax accountant after all ;) ):

• Start hand finishing seams of all layers - overcasting and catchstitching...
• Practise lace-up back on bodice mock-up
• Possibly hand basting some of the pleats to keep them in place;
• Hand basting all layers together (oh yes, we decided that I'm keeping the lining layer too... so that makes it 7 layers altogether! but they are surprisingly not that bulky, phew)
• Machine attach all layers but corselette lining whilst minding the pleats
• Attach the corselette lining layer to the above and flip - and hope for the very best!
• Finish the diagonal drape line
• Insert lace-up back
• Make up another list for the following weeks!

So quite a lot to do really! better crack on, especially as I would quite like to enter the PR April contest - RTW... more on that to follow I'm sure ;)

Progress with photos - Sun 20 Nov

So I couldn't resist but trying on the layers of the wedding dress although lots of seams are only pinned at this stage (eg the side seams as there will be some pleats/front drape to come) and here's a picture of the work-in-progress:

The side seams look a bit bumpy and the back is open as these seams are still unfinished, but you can see the silhouette of the dress now! I loved how it's turned out and the feel of the silk dupion - it's so soft and luxurious!

I'm going to add a front drape of some sort to it at a later stage, as inspired by Alan Hannah Flavia

I've tried it out with some polyester chiffon over the understructure and it looked like this. Will experiment more later.

After enjoying being in the dress for some time, I finally got round to making a modesty panel for toile #2 to finish the lace-up back. It was very creased (as I used scrap fabric) and I think I could do better when it comes to the real thing. I added covered steel boning (it's stiffer than spiral steel boning which is used in the bodice) but I'm not 100% happy with the result - would like to include one going down but I'm not sure how the intersection would be dealt with... will look into it! Here's what it looks like in case it is of use to anyone who is also looking to make a modesty panel: