The final steps

My art deco-inspired gown is almost finished. This is very good news, considering that my wedding is only a few weeks away!

Hem's away!

Because I'm working with such a lightweight material, and because my wedding is going to be on the beach, I want the hems of each of the 8 tiers on the dress to be light and movable (so that they move and flutter in the breeze). So that, unfortunately means a narrow/rolled hem. This is tricky. I highly recommend practicing with a large strip of the material before you start. Thankfully, that is what I did. I saved myself a lot of aggrivation and money.

Luckily, a narrow hem foot came with my sewing machine. I finally discovered that the trick is to start about 2-3 inches from the edge, and simply roll, press, and sew the edges without the foot. Another method is to use gauzy hem tape. Stitch it to the edge of the material and feed it through the foot to get it started.

Beaded scalloped sleeve

My gown is inspired by the art deco era. I designed the beading in adobe illustrator and printed it out for reference, and tried to maintain the art deco look/feel with the aesthetic of the beading. The scalloped beaded sleeves proved to be very difficult because I've never beaded silk chiffon before. It's extremely hard to work with. I ended up fray checking the edges and spraying the cut sleeve pieces with starch to stiffen it up enough to work with. Here are the steps:

1) trace the pattern onto the chiffon with pencil.
2) baste stitch the scalloped edges to make it easier to press the scalloped shape.
3) snip around each scallop up to the baste stitched line (also to make pressing easier and to maintain the curved shape)
4) press carefully, 1/4" at a time.
5) use a seam ripper to cut the baste stitching and remove it one small section at a time (so as not to damage the delicate chiffon)
6) bead!!

Lining Time

The next step was to drape a pattern out of muslin for the lining. Although there is a lot of rouching/pleating in the dress design that I decided on, there must be something more structured underneath it so that it keeps it's shape. So the lining is a must for this type of dress.

My body double

I began by making a dress form for myself. My fiance helped wrap my body in plastic, then with plaster strips. I stood still for 2 hours while it dried. Yikes!! Then I went out for drinks afterwards!

After it dried, we cut it off of my body with bandage scissors, sewed it with a curved leather sewing needle up the sides, and filled it with expanding foam. After that, I filed the dried bandages off of the foam and covered the form with knit rib material. There are a few different methods to making your own body double. Another one is using duct tape:

click here for the duct tape dress form tutorial.

The most important part of this process is the boyfriend! You can't do this on your own. You must have a patient, helpful, loving boyfriend/fiance with good coordination and dexterity (thanks, Brad)!