Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Lindsey's Wedding Dress - Stage 1 - February 2010

In the Fall, Lindsey asked if I would design and make her wedding dress and bridesmaids’ dresses.  In February, we met for a day of brainstorming, going over patterns, sketching a design, and of course, fabric shopping!

Sketch
We chose a design made up of a few different elements taken from a handful of patterns.  We picked a skirt from one pattern, a bodice from another, an underskirt from another, and of course I had to include my favorite corset pattern.
Skirt Front pattern
Bodice pattern
Underskirt and Back of dress
Corset pattern
We had a general idea of what colours and fabrics we wanted, and we had pretty good luck finding all the components of the wedding gown at one store.  We chose a green peau de soie satin for the underskirt, and the most gorgeous lace for the overlay for the green skirt, as well as the overlay for the bodice pieces, and cap sleeves.  Lindsey fell in love with a delicate ivory silk satin for the overdress. 

Lindsey in front of the wall of lace at the fabric store
Silk satin, lace, and green satin
Somebody's excited!
The bridesmaids will be wearing simple knee-length skirts and stretchy tops, each of a different design.  We found a sumptuous drapey lineney/rayoney fabric for the skirts.  It’s my personal favorite out of the bunch.  It feels like butter, and I can’t wait to sew with it!  At the end of the day, we made our final lucky strike and found some gorgeous ivory stretch satin for the tops. 

Skirt fabric.  Look at that texture!
Stretch satin on the left, skirt fabric on the right
Skirt fabric with green ribbon
We also bought some darker green ribbon and a few different sizes of green beads to add embellishment to both Lindsey’s dress and the bridesmaids’ skirts.

Assortment of beads

3 comments:

  1. Where did you find a store with all that lace? I am going to make my wedding gown next year, and was thinking I would have to order online. But I would love to be able to go and see it before I buy!

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  2. Being able to see and feel your fabric is such a nice thing when making something as important as a wedding dress. We shopped at one of the high-end fabric stores in Edmonton. We have 2 nice stores here. The one we went to here is Sig Plach, and the one I went to for my wedding dress and bridesmaids was Estee's. I absolutely loved working with high quality fabrics. They were an absolute joy and gave me no trouble at all.

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  3. Oh, Thank you. I have only been to Marshalls in Edmonton. Good to hear recommendations about others! I see a road trip in my future!

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