Buttoning Things Up: Sally’s Closures and Linings

Brooks Ann Camper Bridal Couture

In my last post about Sally’s custom wedding dress, most of the major seams were permanently constructed. This is a bit different from the custom couture process I usually follow. Once I got into construction phase of Sally’s custom wedding dress, with all the asymmetry and stripe matching, I realized that skipping a step (that I never skip!) […]

Gutsy Moves: Inside Sally’s Stripes

Brooks Ann Camper Bridal Couture

After all the fabric was cut and underlined for Sally’s asymmetrical striped custom wedding dress, it was finally time for construction. I love being able to see all the guts of the garment before the lining is added for a beautiful clean finish. Don’t you? While it is impossible for stripes to match everywhere in a fitted […]

Cutting and Underlining Sally’s Stripes

Brooks Ann Camper Bridal Couture

After our two mockup fittings, I was finally ready to start cutting and preparing Sally’s custom wedding dress fabrics! During our design process, we spent a lot of time searching for the perfect stripe. We finally found a silk organza with the exact width of stripe that Sally was looking for. It had a solid […]

Sally’s Mockup Fittings

Brooks Ann Camper Bridal Couture

After the mockup version of her custom wedding dress was ready, Sally visited my studio for her mockup fittings. This is arguably the most important part of the custom process. The mockup is your laboratory. It’s where all the experiments and discoveries happen. With no risk of ruining anything precious, you get to work out all […]

Making a Mockup with Sally’s Stripes

Brooks Ann Camper Bridal Couture

When creating something custom, there’s a lot of trial and error. Every new design is an experiment and so is every new body. I actually find this freeing rather than frustrating. In custom, you don’t have the same expectations for perfection that you would if you had a set of blueprints and directions to follow. […]

Adventures in Patternmaking (and Stripes!)

Brooks Ann Camper Bridal Couture

Once the design was approved by the bride, I was ready to roll on Sally’s custom wedding dress! Finding the perfect stripe… Throughout our design process, Sally and I both explored options for fabrics. Sally had a very specific vision of what the striped fabric for her custom wedding dress would look like. She wanted […]

Break free of sizes: Learn custom sewing!

Brooks Ann Camper Bridal Couture

As you probably know by now, I am new to “home sewing”. I first learned to sew as an adult in professional theatrical costume shops where all the garments were designed, patterned, and created custom to fit all kinds of styles and all shapes of bodies. (Learn more about me and how I learned to sew in […]

This Summer is for Skirts!

Brooks Ann Camper Bridal Couture

Skirt Skills starts July 11! Registration opens June 3! As many of you know, I recently started teaching my custom sewing and pattern drafting techniques to women who want to make clothes for themselves. I chose to start off in a digital platform and offer the course online. It has been very well received and […]

Underlining feature in Seamwork (and two students blog about Skirt Skills)

Brooks Ann Camper featured in Seamwork Magazine

The internet sure has been speaking my name this week! Not only am I featured in a kick-ass online sewing magazine, two bloggers published posts about working with me in my custom sewing eCourse! First, I wrote a new article for Seamwork Magazine that was published in the December issue! If you recall my previous […]