Buttoning Things Up: Sally’s Closures and Linings
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
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
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
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
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. […]
Underlining feature in Seamwork (and two students blog about Skirt Skills)
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 […]
Erin’s Unusual Underlining
Having flashbacks of Lila Rose’s custom wedding dress? Contrary to how it looks in these photos, I am not making another hot pink wedding dress. So what’s this color all about? Underlining to change a fabric’s color If you remember from Erin’s design consultation, we both fell in love with a white-on-white seersucker for her summer […]
The Making of my Mom’s 50th Anniversary Dress
During all the transitions and projects of 2014, I created a very special dress that I’d love to share with you. It was for my beautiful mom. She and my dad have been married for 50 years.
Sewing Technique Spotlight: Underlining (pt. 3)
Today’s post is the 3rd in a short series on underlining! I get a lot of questions about underlining, so I finally decided to start dispelling the myths. In the first post in this series, I talked a lot about what the sewing technique of underlining is, why you might underline a garment, and offered […]
