Dress accessories: top & bottom

I will cut the muslin for the Crepe dress this long weekend. I WILL I WILL I WILL!!! 

I've written already about my ideas so far for The Dress' construction, stuff to go on the surface, and stuff to go underneath. The last batch of ideas I've been holding onto are for items to go on top and on the bottom.

TOP

I haven't decided yet if I want some sort of jacket or shawl or something to cover my shoulders and arm a bit more as part of my outfit. Originally I thought, if I make a separate piece to go along with the dress, then I can have each item contain some more formal looking elements that when put together elevate the overall look, but then could be worn separately afterwards and dressed down easily. I also generally don't like to be sleeveless when being photographed (ah, for the days when I played at least 2 hours of tennis every day...high school arms, I miss you!), and setting in sleeves while sewing garments is a pain, so I thought maybe handmade sleeveless dress + purchased jacket would solve those issues.

It's going to be hot in June, though, as hard as that is to imagine right now. Dan will be wearing his suit jacket during the ceremony and take it off afterwards, so I could probably also get through the ceremony with more clothing on, but decreasing sweatiness potential is a good goal to keep in mind. Also, I usually have difficulty finding jackets that fit well in the shoulders, aren't tight in the arms, have enough give to be able to move my arms backwards and forwards, and close up without gaping.

The bridal brigade and I went on an accessories trip to the mall on New Year's Day and while we were in H&M, I spotted this orangey-red lace cropped jacket that was surprisingly close to what I had been thinking of in my head previously:

Credit to my sister for sneakily snapping this cell phone photo. Though the H&M workers at our local Jersey mall probably wouldn't have actually cared all that much...

Pros: cheap, red, eyelet fabric, vertical lines are elongating

Cons: more of an orangey-red than a cherry red, sleeves are probably a tad too long, and no size available then that I could remotely squeeze into.

Tasia had posted this 50s bolero pattern previously in her own quest for a coverup for summer dresses that I thought was pretty cool-looking and figured would help increase the vintage vibe:

Vogue 7411

But she ended up not being too happy with how it turned out, and looking at it again, I don't know if the strong horizontal line made by the bottom of the bolero is a good idea with the waistline probably also making another horizontal line across the body.

I've looked at knitted shawl collar patterns too, like this one designed by Amanda Berke:

Knitted items are a lot more forgiving to fit, and this one looks like it has a pretty cool construction. The photos make it look like it ends up have cap sleeves, though, and with the way it's constructed, it could take me awhile to figure out how to make longer sleeves. Also, I'm a pretty slow knitter.

Etsy, as always, provides a gateway to really gorgeous items, like these wraps and boleros by the seller bonzie:

The Corsaged Silk Wrap, inspired by Victorian styles, made in dupioni raw silk ($79)

See, it really is a wrap, just ties in the back. No fitting worries!

The look I like best currently, though, is this vintage bolero sewn by Veronica Darling:

Apparently the pattern (Simplicity 3546, a 50s pattern) has just 2 pattern pieces and only took her an hour to sew up!

I'll be pondering this for awhile longer, what with the muslin cutting I will be doing this weekend.

BOTTOM

For my shoes, I want to wear sturdy heels in the vicinity of 2-2.5", that I'll be able to keep on for at least most of the day, that are less than $200, and that I'll wear again, and often. Heels just looked much better in the photos, I think, with that extra lift (I'm 5'2" and Dan's 5'11"). Lately when I get bored, I just comb Zappos and Endless and Scarpasa and any other online shoe store with free shipping and returns and extensive search filters. The colors I'm looking at include bright red, yellow, light blue, and gold, but I haven't really found much so far. People at work make fun of how many pairs of shoes I order, get delivered, and return shortly thereafter.

A friend at work introduced me to this site, Shoes of Prey, which allows you to design your own shoe! They cost $230 for 2" heels made in leather and can be returned for a full refund if you're not fully satisfied (as stated in their FAQ). $230 seems like a pretty amazing deal for custom shoes, but a bit high considering I don't want anything that's actually that fancy in design, just well-constructed, comfortable, and an acceptable color.

If I find the perfect shoe in terms of color, fit, and heel height, but the heel is on the skinny side, meaning in danger of sinking into the grass if the weather's good enough to still have the ceremony outside but the ground is soft or muddy, this SoleMate product that Cara suggested could be quite helpful:

It basically widens the base of the shoe's heel to prevent sinking.

I'm not sure I'd be comfortable walking in shoes with heels that narrow, though. I wear Converse or other flat shoes most days.

If everything about the shoe is perfect except for the color, BurdaStyle has a tutorial on covering shoes with fabric:

Before

After

I think they look surprisingly good, don't you?

That's all I've got for now. If you have any other ideas for me, please do share! I'd very much appreciate it, as instead of aimlessly browsing shoe stores, I will, of course, be cutting out my muslin.

Dress accessories: petticoats

Depending on whether the horsehair braid hem method gives sufficient poof to the skirt portion of the dress, I may need to wear a petticoat of some kind. From a particularly fluffy one I tried on at Re/Dress a few weeks ago, I know that it should at least have more fluff around the hips, to look more like a bell, rather than a triangle.

Sock Dreams sells a few different styles ranging in price from $16-$35, and they have free shipping. Many of their styles even come in red. The annoying thing is that for many of these, the product photos are arty but not that helpful to getting a straight on view of the petticoat's shape.

BurdaStyle has a tutorial for making a simple three-tiered petticoat:

I'm pretty certain this is the tutorial used in the Petticoat Sewing Class offered by M Avery Designs (the same sewing studio right in Hoboken that I mentioned has open lab hours). The class goes for 2 hours and costs $25 on top of the materials (including 9.5 yard of tulle. 9.5 yards!).

I've been spending a good amount of time lately updating my Ravelry account (social networking/project management site for knitters/crocheters, basically) because I've been on this whole organizing/labeling kick, and this knitted bloomer pattern is in my queue:

Hmm, they look a little ridiculous in that photo. Well, they probably are rather ridiculous in real life too, but! I have loads of red Tahki Cotton Classic yarn sitting around anyway, and it seems like a relatively easy knit, and if you're like me and have round thighs that rub (and therefore chafe) when it's really hot like, like it was all last summer, bloomers/pettipants are a godsend. Srsly.

Dress embellishment

In the category of, "probably only if May rolls around and I somehow find myself with oodles and oodles of free time," here are a couple interesting ideas for embellishing the dress:

As brought up by Gertie, the hand embellishment techniques used by Alabama Chanin have the potential to be adapted for different aesthetics.

I checked out a copy of Alabama Stitch Book to flip through and I don't think I would've paid much attention if it weren't for Gertie's post. In its Alabama Chanin form, it would be a little too...homespun-y for my taste, but check out what Gertie's done for one of her dresses:

Gorgeous.

Another method that may be slightly less time-consuming (but probably not by much) is this vintage-style surface cording tutorial from Colette Patterns:

Again, gorgeous.

One of the benefits to cording versus beading is that I might be more comfortable with machine washing it. I think that's a goal I want to have, for this dress to be machine washable, so that I'll wear it often afterwards as a summer dress. Any fancy bits will either have to be detachable or part of a separate piece.

Dress construction

I keep meaning to start on the muslin for the Crepe dress sew-along, which is an easy-to-fit wrap dress from Colette Patterns with a sweetheart neckline:

I bought a bright green leaf print cotton to use for the sew-along, and then I realized that this might work for The Dress as well. So, my plan is to make and fit the bodice in musin, then make the whole dress out of the green fabric, and then if all goes well, make it one more time in a dressier red fabric.

I do also have this New Look pattern I ordered of eBay ages ago, that also has a sweetheart neckline but with princess seams and a zipper, as well as the dress sloper I made in the Perfect Dress class at Sew Fast Sew Easy, so I have a few backups for patterns.

The issue to getting started is that I still want to finish the skirts I made even before the dress class, and I just haven't gotten around to doing that. Also, I hate cutting out fabric at home, I clear off the kitchen table or the coffee table but it always takes ages because I can't lay everything out at once, the heights are uncomfortable, and I worry that things might slip and the cutting will be inaccurate.

I've discovered that there's a sewing studio right in Hoboken that hosts open lab hours for $10/hour. It might be worth that just to have sufficient space to cut everything out on, I could do all the sewing at home. I meant to go check it out this past weekend but decided that staying in my PJs and finishing up the chilling book Let the Right One In, and later finishing up my spice jar/soap dispensers reorganization with the newly arrived labeler I bought from Amazon was more appealing. I have pretty simple needs.

Anyway, a few more construction details/ideas I've been saving up:

Gertie's post of examples of vintage red dresses with lace overlay made me swoon, but I don't think I'd be up for making a whole dress with a lace layer. Maybe just a skirt overlay wouldn't be too bad, though? Also, here's Gertie's own finished red lace dress, which is lovely.

I really want to do everything right on the dress, even if it's simple. Putting a lace trim on the lining would be such a fun detail. Perhaps my something blue?

If I don't go with the wrap dress pattern, a waist stay seems to be in order if you want to do a proper full skirted dress ("hooks up around the waistline and helps to support this wonderfully full skirt...also reduces strain on the zipper, which is great on any fitted dress").

Finally, in my last skirt class, the teacher introduced us to the marvel of hem-marking tools, to be used while you're wearing all the right shoes and such to measure and mark consistent distances from the groun. She used this Dritz chalk hem marker in class and said it could be used by yourself, but I'm doubtful of my ability to do so and it seemed to required too much careful inching along and around to rope Dan into helping me with it. So this vintage hem marker tool from Singer seemed a lot more usable:

The method of placing the pins at the right height seems a little more foolproof on this one.

Standing at 5'2" since 8th grade, I do a lot of hand hemming on jeans, pants, and vintage cotton dresses (and send over to the tailor the knits, polyester, silk, and other slippery fabrics). For the most part, I just (try to) measure an equal distance from the bottom all the way around, iron, pin up, and hem by hand. The problem with this is that the dresses often end up being shorter than ideal in the back because how it falls over my rear end. On the denim skirt I need to finish, I dropped the back hem by about 0.5" which seems to have helped with that sufficiently. 

However, I've also messed up the measuring/pinning before and ended up taking the dress to the tailor to get it fixed, because fixing the curve on a full circle skirt seemed to be just asking for more trouble to me. With a handmade dress, measuring up from the bottom will also demand more accuracy from the piece cutting out phase. We'll see how it goes, it's usually a bit easier when you need to chop off less than my usual 6" all around. I may get my sewing-inclined friends to help with the pinning, or I might just throw it the tailor if that's the last thing that needs to be done.

Gorgeous (but tiny) vintage red party dress

In the Sally Jane Vintage shop, currently listed at $66:

Isn't it beautiful? This is so close to what I have in mind: classic silhouette, mostly plain red but with some texture/subtle pattern, princess seams down the front bodice...the only thing is I probably want a deeper neckline and shorter sleeves for the hot summer weather, but I'd scoop up this dress if I could. However, I could only have fit into this dress if I were the size I was...in middle school, maybe. 24" waist, 32" bust. Damn you, beautiful tiny vintage dresses, always with the breaking my heart!

I have a long list of dress-related bits that I need to post, but no, I haven't gotten started on making the actual (or muslin for the) dress just yet. Soon!

1 year until the wedding!

In a post that's almost 2 weeks late, but so it goes :) Dan sent me an email two Fridays ago to remind me of this fact. It was devoid of punctuation so I don't really know whether it was 1 year until the wedding! or, 1 year until the wedding... and he likes to be coy about these things. Most likely he was just stating it as a fact, kind of like an 'on this day in history' but for the future. I like to think it was with at least some enthusiasm, though.

One whole year (minus almost two weeks) seems like a pretty luxurious amount of time, especially since we don't have a real to-do list put together yet. Still working on the apartment, enjoying the summer, etc. I'm getting a 4-day weekend from work for July 4th and it'll be a goal of mine to for real catch up on comments and clear out some of my 'to blog' list's backlog.

Here's a quick one, since the most common question I get (after just "How's the wedding planning going?" in general) is on the dress. This dress from Gertie of Gertie's New Blog for Better Sewing is a great template for what I have in mind.

The fabric is actually hot pink, but it looks red to me. It's a textured cotton from Mood, and Gertie says it's simple enough for beginners to work with but with added interest from the texture. Hmm...

Look at that full skirt! And without a petticoat or tulle or any kind underneath, courtesy of a horsehair braid hem, score (note that it's not actually made out of horsehair nowadays).

The weather in the Manhattan area has alternated between perfect clear sunny blue skies with a cool breeze to miserably sticky and grody for the last couple of weeks, so I've been a little bit worried about the weather The Day next year. Princeton is further south in Jersey, for one, but on the other hand, cities do tend to hold a lot more heat in all the buildings and concrete so maybe it'll be fine.

Either way, not having to wear extra layers underneath for volume would probably be a good idea, since I'll probably be wearing pettipants as well, like I have been under all dresses that I'm not wearing leggings with. Read more about pettipants in this post at Fashion for Nerds. My friends made fun of me for wearing bloomers during our weekend trip to Lancaster PA a couple weeks back, but don't knock it until you've tried it.

Back to the dress: I'd definitely do a different neckline, at least a scoop or v-neck (the What Not to Wear people beam proudly in the distance) if not a sweetheart neckline like in this pattern (New Look 6273) I bought off eBay awhile back.

Images from patternreview.com. It would be the style of the blue/green floral version.

'

View D, here.

I'd like to have some gold pattern in there too but it'd probably be easier (and cheaper) to make it some kind of wide belt rather than finding fancier fabric with a gold print on a red background. Maybe some kind of border print along the hem and edges too, though.

Quirky illustrated invites

Unfussy and adorable:

(Megan + Daniel at Oh So Beautiful Paper)

Oh! It turns out these are designed by Kathleen, whose own wedding invites had the lovely vellum paper/typewrite/kraft paper combo I posted about previously. Note the ampersand modified to include a heart, clever. I think I would've preferred a softer font/layout for the main info card (the one that says Megan Daniel), it might suit the watercolor illustrations better.

Watercolor illustrations (and pen drawings, a la Danny Gregory) are something I've always wanted to develop as a skill. I'm not an Artist or really a sketcher or drawer but I do enjoy slipping into that right brain drawing mode when I've taken art classes. This is really, really dorky but after I made a Personal Development Plan (PDP) for work (yeah, I know, but really it's helped with prioritizing which things I want to work on!), I made a rough one for personal hobbies and pursuits, which has the following items on it:

1. Create a beautiful, cozy, organized home (we're moving again in a few weeks! so posting may die down a bit again, or just continue on the mostly fluffy here's cool stuff I found on other blogs vein I've had going thus far while we get into and settle in the new place. I haven't been entirely pleased with the job that I'd done with our current apartment but I'll chalk it up to not really loving the space all that much)
2. Develop a regular exercise routine with dance classes (possibly at this studio in Hoboken, which would be convenient since it's right near the PATH train) and long walks with Dan. Maybe also the yoga classes Meghan and Abby have been taking, and maybe restarting that Couch-to-5K plan that I've tried a few different times so far and got most of the way through once. A good friend of mine just completed her first 5K this past weekend and I was so happy for her! I often wish that liking running would come to me more easily. I recently gave up my gym membership, since we're moving, and that's been a relief. Definitely not going to become a gym person when I didn't go often to a gym that was just around the corner from our current apartment.
3. Fix up wardrobe with own sewing work and learning to sew tops and dresses, working towards the wedding dress (aka 'fun easygoing red dress that I will put in the effort to make muslin mockups and such and that I will be able to wear again afterwards without causing a scene). Once most of the work in outfitting the new apartment is done, I'd like to take some of the classes offered by Sew Fast Sew Easy, starting with their Intermediate skirt class and progressing to the advanced classes on dressmaking.
4. (and finally winding up the earlier topic, here in 4th place is) Illustrated watercolor journaling. This instructional DVD on 'Beginning Watercolor Journaling' seems like it'd be a good substitute for an in-person class, though I've also found some drawing and painting the city classes that might be fun as well. There's a slight chance I might be able to take the 'Illustrated watercolor journaling' class in California at the end of June when I'm out there for a work trip, but I'd have to work out a way to get to Santa Cruz Mountains from the Palo Alto area.

I'm really no artsy-crafty paragon or anything like that, though. Abby graciously bequeathed some of her magazines to me so I can create an inspiration board of colors and textures for the wedding and I'll post a picture of what I've got so far when I get a chance. My Costume Design* teacher always said I needed to do more editing on my mood boards, a concept I understand a little better now, but I still just enjoy a wide range of different things that that's hard for me to do. 

*Again don't get me wrong, I was a Biology/Psychology double major in school. Costume Design was one of those classes that I took when I had my mid-college 'rebellion' against my parents wanting me to finish the bio major and I was just like, FINE, I will TAKE 7 classes when most people take 5 so that I can fit in both majors, a fun class, and study abroad in Melbourne the next semester. I'll show you! Ha! Anyway Costume Design ended up being one of the best classes I took in college**, it was just so fun to have 'make a collage' and 'collect fabric swatches' as homework assignments. I'd take breaks from my harder classes by doing homework for this fun class instead.

**Other great classes include Australian Wildlife Biology (here's a species of ___ only found in Australia, we're not sure if it's still around or not, the last time we sighted it was 15 years ago when it was discovered in the stomachs of some roadkill in the dessert...), Intro Physics (loved the professor that much), and of course the Western Cultural Tradition classes we had to take as part of the honors program, where I learned critical thinking and how to actually propose and defend a thesis in a paper (I did not come out of high school with very much of this particular skill).

***There isn't actually a 3 asterisk next to something, I just wanted to point out that I have somewhat intentionally tried to throw in more random about me personal stuff so that my posts aren't all just 'pretty things I found' kind of posts. Evidently I'm quite the rambler when I write (one of many reasons why I have never considered myself a Writer either) so perhaps I should start making liberal use of footnotes, like Lyn at Another Damn Wedding or Robin at HitchDied who ups it a notch with the numbered superscript footnotes (one example). 

Whirling Turban custom wedding dresses

Love this wedding dress, featured in this Wedding Graduate post at (where else?) A Practical Wedding.

just right amount of poofiness and girliness

also love the glamorous hair, makeup, and veil

Her dress was custom designed and made for her by Whirling Turban, who she raves about here. They do seem like they'd be amazing, in their attention to detail and fit through photos and measurements, and they do have the kind of Chinese red brocade fabric I have in mind (for a trim or border, if not the whole thing):

I don't think I really want to inquire into their custom dresses, though, since their ready-made dress are all in the $500 range already. I think I should probably keep my attire under that amount, so although Mama G & co. lean more heavily against trying to make the dress, I've been browsing various department stores' websites and I haven't quite find anything that's the right shape and color of red to be able to then take and modify to what I have in mind right now.

I'd like to take more sewing classes anyway, and I've found a few dressmaking ones that might be good. If I can find a good pattern and make a few practice version for fit, and then use a non-slippery fabric for the main parts and then the slippery, shiny brocade for accents, it might not be too bad. For the bolero, that might be something I could have custom made here in the brocade, since anything with armholes is more difficult, but that probably wouldn't cost quite so much as an entire dress.

When Amy and I went shopping on Saturday, I tried on this cute springy Maggy London dress:

The pleating with the print fabric is really well-done, so now I'm thinking maybe something similar with hidden panels for the red brocade fabric. However, I do still also want the poofy, which most likely means some tulle or a crinoline. And, if there's some way to work in pockets, that would be amazing.

I also really like the neckline, I think it falls under the category of a sweetheart neckline? Abby has offered to ferry questions I've got about dressmaking to her seamstress grandmother, so I might ask about the difficulty of that kind of neckline. The straps on this dress were also of a good width and well-positioned. I'm going to keep an eye on it and if it goes on sale I might buy it both to wear now and to try to pattern off it.

Oh and potential bridesmaids dresses! I think I definitely want my sister to stand up with me. Mama G & co. discussed white sundresses, which would be easy, but with the color scheme maybe also a sunny golden yellow? We'll see, as Mama G said, gotta consider what it would look like in the photos.

Poofy short dresses

Via not martha's Planning to Elope blog, which is what turned me on to a short dress in the first place.

Random memory: Lauren K going to senior prom in a short dress. I think someone had said to me some time before, "Well of course you'll want to get a long dress for prom!" so that just never really occurred to me at the time. Good on ya, Lauren K. (I remember Laura B had a Spanish rose thing going on, so that probably meant a shorter dress too, but I just have a distinct memory of being a bit taken aback and secretly impressed by Lauren K) Anyway:

• massive thread on Kvetch (since 2006!): I need to read through all of this, many photos are included so it'll be a great source of inspiration pictures
• Dolly Couture dresses: love, love these.

The Beverlywood

(really like the sleeves and the crossover in the front, though a bit older-looking)

The Milan

(strapless just isn't going to happen, but look at the poofy and the flowers!)

While these are not > $1000 which mean budget in the Wedding Industrial Complex (WIC) terms, they're still hundreds of dollars. I was going to set a cap of $500 and look into how hard it is to get these sorts of dresses re-dyed, but then I remembered how I wanted to try my hand at sewing my own, and also to get a non-white dress because eh, the whole white = purity = no more purity post-marriage.

I am taking a sewing class right now and so clearly, my sewing skills are serviceable but not great. It might be fun to try, at least, or maybe design and get partway there myself and then try to find a seamstress willing to work with me on the whole fitting aspect.

I think I want red and gold brocade or silk, to reference the Chinese heritage. Also, there's a reason East Asians love red so much--our skin tones look pretty great in it, you know. It's gotta be for-real wearable again so right now I'm thinking a sleeveless v-neck red dress with the red/gold on the bottom hem and around the waist and neck (all over just might be too much...though depends on the fabric, really) with a little jacket that has about the length of the sleeves in the Beverlywood for covering up. Maybe with a mandarin collar, I've got a short neck than I'm constantly trying to give elongating illusion to, but it might be ok depending on the neckline. Then with two pieces together it'll be dressier and separately they can be dressed down more easily.

Also definitely would have to have pockets. Pockets in dresses and skirts are the best trend of the last few years.