Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Silk Dress for a Missionary

A young lady at church decided to go on an 18 month mission. Part of that, she is required to wear only skirts or dresses to represent the church in a respectful, reverent manner. So, I offered to make her a dress, her choice of pattern and her choice of fabric.  She has a very pleasant figure, and being new to fitting, I thought it would be fairly simple.  I made a muslin, and had her try it on.  I thought it fit her nicely and took some pictures.  Upon review of the pictures I realized I had missed some big fitting issues, I had not seen before.  I ended up sewing 4 different bodice muslins till I got to a well fitting garment.  I thought the hard part was over, however the fabric she chose was the most difficult.  She picked yummy silk organza type fabric with chiffon florals on it.  This required it to have an interlining, which was an italian, stretch silk, and then a cotton silk blend for the lining.  Sewing the two layers together was quite a challenge to keep them behaving well together and not slip around.  In addition the rolled hem on the chiffon was very difficult because it went from chiffon that folded over easily to the charmeuse that didn't.  In the end the project turned out beautifully, I do wish I had matched the pattern at the invisible zipper.





4 comments:

  1. What a lovely dress! Well done.

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    1. Thank you very much, she felt beautiful in it, and that is the most important thing!

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  2. A very pretty dress indeed! And kudos to you for sewing with difficult fabric!

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