The Wedding Dress -- Waistbands

So THIS blog is primarily for my DD -- but you can read it too. I spoke on the phone with DD yesterday afternoon and mentioned that we needed to decide on what kind of waistband we needed for the bridal skirt. DD commented that she didn't know what I meant. So, this blog will explain to her different types of non-elastic waistbands. Elastic waistbands are rarely used (if at all) in couture. They are more a staple in casual clothing and allow clothing to be pulled on without any fastenings. I am sure that there may be more types of waistbands than shown here, but these are the types that I am familiar with and that were available in my closet!

A common waistband is a fold over with a tab. Often used on suit pants and skirts, this waistband is strong and good looking. It is made by cutting a strip of fabric and folding it in half lengthwise. The front of the waistband is sewn to the skirt and the back is sewn to the lining of the skirt. This means that you don't have to hide any stitches in the seam allowance and there is less chance that a catch stitch will come through the fashion fabric. Sometimes this type of waistband has two buttons as shown, sometimes there is a hook and loop with a button. In the case of DD's wedding dress, a button closure would create more bulk than we would want to have. Snaps and hook and loops might work, but perhaps there are better options.

Another popular waistband is really band-less. This waistband is smooth and usually has a interface made of the fashion fabric so that you never see a change in color/fabric when worn with a tucked in blouse. Note that the interface is cut on the bias. It is also cut in two pieces -- one for the front of the skirt and one for the back of the skirt. This helps maintain the natural curve from the waist to the hip. This zip closure is on the side, if you had the closure in the back, you would want a 3 piece interface -- one piece in the front and two in the back. The zipper goes all the way to the top edge of the skirt, unlike the folded over waistband.

This third waistband has a sewn on folded over waistband as in the first option, but there is no tab and the zipper goes all the way to the top edge of the skirt. I see it as a combination of the two types above. The folded over waistband creates its own fashion fabric interface.

And, just as an aside, this is my favorite skirt. It was also the inspiration for the idea of DD's ruffled overskirt having a different fabric for the hem.

I'll let everyone know what waistband the DD picks for her dress and then, when the time comes to create it, maybe we can walk through it together.

Happy Sewing!

The Wedding Dress -- Field Trip to Vogue Fabrics

If you have never been to Vogue Fabrics in Evanston, Illinois, north of Chicago, it is hard to imagine a fabric store this big. The address is 718-732 Main Street and that alone should tell you it takes up an entire block. The photo above is of just one of several rooms. If I were not limited by the parking meter and lack of extra coins, I could spend an entire afternoon (and a large amount of money) in this place. As it was, I left with nothing. Yes, friends, I said "nothing". They were out of the cream dupioni that I need for DD's dress and they told me to order it on line and have it shipped to me. So that is just what I did. 

However, I still did a bit of poking around and found some really neat stuff, and took a few pictures of beaded trim that DD might like:

DD and I spoke briefly on the phone and she said that she would like a large beaded or sequined patch on the bottom of the bodice over the hip. But Vogue Fabrics didn't have anything there that I would work, so I suggested DD look on line and see if she could find something that she likes.

Happy Shopping! On line or otherwise. . .

The Wedding Dress -- It's a Full Skirt!

I got the whole skirt together! Monica (the mannequin) is wearing the skirt since DD won't be here until March to try it on. I finally finished the bridal skirt around 4 PM today and sent pictures to DD. She is very happy! I wish that I could show you better pictures, but DD made me promise that I would never show pictures of the whole dress. Showing you too much of the skirt would make me guilty. (Sorry!)

So, tomorrow, I plan to make a field trip to Vogue Fabric in Evanston to get the cream colored dupioni. It will be a hardship, but I will try to enjoy it. If I get home early enough, I will begin cutting out the base of the bodice and working on the boning.

Yes, I know! There is still so much work to do and I am already celebrating finishing just the exterior of the skirt. Why? Because I need small victories!

Happy sewing!

The Wedding Dress -- Connecting the Skirt Panels

I started hand sewing the skirt panels today. Here are pictures of the four front panels attached. Since the dress is shorter in the front than the back, these are the three shortest seams. It took me about two hours to put these three panels together. Yes, that is a long time. Yes, I could have done it faster. No, it would not have come out as nice.

I think that it looks pretty good right now. If I am not careful, my seams may get out of alignment. That would leave pin holes where I don't want them to be. I also cannot press the fabric until DD tries it on and I have machine sewn the final seam. I don't want to creases in the fabric in case I need to let out a seam a little. You can see the the inside of the skirt in the picture on the right. In couture, you leave plenty of extra fabric until the dress' final fitting. Before completing the process, these seams will be trimmed, tacked down and hidden behind the lining.

I also got the wraps on the bodice cut out in the interfacing this morning. Tomorrow's goal is to cut out the wraps in the fashion fabric and get as much done on the skirt as possible. Could I actually get it done?

Happy Sewing!

The Wedding Dress -- Final Decision on the Bodice

As mentioned earlier, DD and I decided to try one last thing for the bodice. And boy, am I glad we did! Look at how much smoother putting in pleats as opposed to the ruching that we tried before. The silhouette is cleaner and looks much neater. Tomorrow, I will cut out the bodice in the interfacing, cut out the wrap pieces in the white dupioni.

If I complete all that, which is a good chance, I will begin hand basting the skirt together.

Happy sewing!

The Wedding Dress -- Today's Goal Accomplished

Mission accomplished!

It was a great day: I finished basting the last skirt piece by 4:00 PM. Nice to be done with this part for now. It went quickly enough that I feel confident that I will be able to finish the dress by the time that Dear Daughter gets here.

Earlier, I blogged about placing the pins perpendicular to the seam line. I said that this method kept blood off the dress. However, it also makes it easier to follow the seam line with the pins perpendicular to the seam vs. parallel to the seam. As you can see on the left, the fabric gathers up nicely when following the seam line with a needle. On the right, you can see that the parallel needle gets in the way of gathering smoothly.

Tomorrow the plan is to begin redoing the bodice with "folding" the wraps instead of the rouching. Hopefully, I will be able to get DD's decision quickly on what she wants so that I can cut out the wraps and get them cut out and basted.

Happy basting!

The Wedding Dress -- Hand Basting the Layers

This thread is a dream! I am so glad I purchased it. The basting goes really fast and easy because the thread stays perfectly smooth like. . . well. . . silk! It doesn't kink, knot, or fray. I am certainly sold on using this thread for all basting needs.

Each pattern piece had to be set up so that it was easy to baste. I turned the pins 90 degrees so that when basting along the seam line, there was less chance to stab myself with a pin. No need to ruin a white wedding dress with a few drops of blood!

Each seam line had to be basted separately -- continuing the the sewing line without cutting the thread and re-knotting is a no-no. The point of basting is to hold two pieces of fabric together, temporarily and being able to remove it quickly as needed. Also, you want to remove only what you need to remove. If everything is connected, when you pull out one thread you may pull out too much.


I was able to complete three of the 12 bridal skirt pieces yesterday. I think I can get the rest of them done today. Because the basting is so easy to do, I've been entertaining myself by watching old television series on Hulu. Remember Emergency?

Happy basting (and saving lives)!

The Wedding Dress -- White on White

Sorry, I can't make white on white pictures look very interesting, but I did get a lot of work done today. The entire bridal skirt has been cut out. In the picture, you can just make out the dupioni behind the cotton batiste interlining. The work I did last week in marking all of the oversized slubs and loops last week proved to make laying out, pinning and cutting the fabric so much easier.

Actually, if truth be known, I have been a little nervous about the thought of cutting into the dupioni. The fabric isn't cheap and I don't want to make any mistakes. But once I started pinning out the interlining on the dupioni, making sure every grainline was parallel to the salvages, I forgot all about my fear. I think that I was cutting out the 3rd or 4th panel before I remembered that I was supposed to be scared.

This up and coming week, I am on vacation. My plan is to get a lot of the dress done this week; but for those of you who have read my blog for any length of time will remember my kitchen makeover. I am never one to over-estimate the amount of work I have planned on doing!

Happy Sewing!

The Wedding Dress -- It's the Little Things

Yea! My thread arrived!

This thread is one that was highly recommended by Susan Khalje in her Craftsy Class: The Couture Dress which I took last summer (and still refer to often). The thread is beautiful but you can't go down to your local fabric store and pick up a spool. No, it isn't made any more.

This is thread made of 100% silk by a company called Belding Corticelli. According to this article the silk industry started having issues when skirts became shorter, other fabrics like rayon became more prevalent, and ready made dresses became an acceptable and affordable option. I cannot find too much information about the company after the 1930's, so I am guessing that this thread could be almost 80 years old. . .

Additional information about one of the companies which preceded Belding Coricelli is found here in a historical article on one of the founders of Belding Brothers & Company.

Well, folks, I have a dress to make!

Happy Sewing!

The Wedding Dress -- Silk Road Inch by Inch

Since my last post, I finished up cutting out the interlining throughout the week and yesterday marked the seam lines and grain lines on the interlining with the white wax paper that I bought. It's going to be murder on the eyes to put it all together, but I'm willing to risk that for my baby girl! (Hear that DD? So, now, on to the dupioni!

Dupioni is a highly textured, two-sided fabric made from silk. A somewhat stiff fabric, it resists wrinkling and has a beautiful sheen created when the warp (lengthwise threads) and weave are slightly different in color and sheen. One of the beauties of this fabric is that each piece of fabric is unique. The fabric has "slubs" which are thicker bits of thread in the fabric. If you found this in any other fabric, you would consider it a flaw, but not in dupioni silk.

However, when you are making a wedding dress, there are a few kinds of slubs that we don't want in the fabric. Extra thread that loops around might snag on something or pull out or places where the thread has broken--leaving a hole. So, in order to assure that I don't put one of these right in the center of a prominent pattern, I spent two hours slowly inspecting the 15 yards of fabric. Any flaw that was too big, created excess thread or a hole was marked with a pin so that I would avoid that area when laying out the pieces of the pattern. Again, another long, eye-straining project -- but one that is necessary for a good outcome.

Sometimes, a woven fabric will have salvages that are woven tighter than the fabric itself. You can see here that the salvage curls up. So that the fabric and the salvages lies flat and is easy to measure, I clipped through salvage. Then the salvage can give.

Well, that is about all for this week's blog.

Happy sewing!

The Wedding Dress -- Now the Fun Begins!

The Skype fitting went as well as a Skype fitting could go, so with DD happy with the skirt, she shipped it back to me and then the fun began. Deconstruction was the first step. It was almost painful to carefully rip out all the seams in the muslin. All the work that went in to putting the skirt together!

After washing the cotton batiste, I spent a good portion of Saturday afternoon ironing the 10 yards I purchased. Then this morning, with my coffee safely stowed as far away as possible, I began pinning the panels of the muslin -- now the pattern -- to the batiste. I have about half of the skirt cut out and will continue to work on this through out the week.

My latest issue is whether to use the white or the red wax tracing paper. I can barely see the slightly off white wax on the white batiste.

However, you can see the red wax through the silk dupioni. It is not as apparent here as the dupioni has quite a bit of shine, but when you move the dupioni, you can see the line.





The company that I bought the sheets from had light blue and yellow, but apparently has closed and I will have to find another vendor.

I realize that this isn't much of an update, but pictures of white on white are hard to make interesting. I have a lot of work a head of me and will try to get a little more regular with blogging again.

Happy sewing!