bridal

Making Wedding Dress Pt. 10 – Hemming and Attaching Pearls and Rhinestones

September 26, 2011 By Chie

Hello everyone! Hope you had a wonderful weekend. Mine was nice – Andy, Kiko and I went to Enoshima, which is a small island near Fujisawa, Kanagawa. They have a plenty of Japanesey cute shops, souvenir shops and of course a beach. The weather was super nice, sunny and crispy (not muggy like an average Japan summer day). After our family excursion, I went to get my hair done:) I was going to cut my bangs short and straight, but I decided against it – I’ve had my bangs long for so long, I don’t have the courage to change it dramatically.

Anyway, here is my progress on my friend’s wedding dress. I finished the skirt lining and installing the zipper (successfully) last time. At this point, I hemmed the skirt. There is a very nice item called horse hair braid to hem skirt like this. This was my first time using horse hair braid, and what a clever item it is! I bought this at Okadaya in Shinjuku, and I think it was about 250 yen per meter. If you are in the States, I know Sunni from A Fashionable Stitch has horse hair braids stocked in her shop for a very reasonable price ($1.60 per yard). This item is great for hemming both circle skirt and half circle skirt.

So, I attached the horse hair braid to the hem, and then realized that I had made a crucial mistake – I did not underline the skirt, and I really should have. I wish I underlined the skirt with silk organza, so when I hand sew the end of horse hair braid onto the dress, I will be able take the stitches from the organza itself, not the fashion fabric. It was really nerve-wrecking to try to scoop a stitch from the back of the fashion fabric without a stitch showing on the right side of the fabric. Lesson learned for next time…

Before attaching the upper body lining, I hand sewed the lace, pearls and rhinestones. It took FOREVER! This dress took so much more hand sewing than I expected. I carefully hand sewed each pearl and rhinestone individually. I did this by tying the string and cutting it for each individual piece. I did this because I did not want to have all the pearls/rhinestones attached to one string thereby opening myself up to a possible domino effect where one pearl gets detached from the dress and causes all the others to disconnect from the dress. I think I watched 4-5 episodes of project runway while doing this. I often stopped to see the balance of the pearls and rhinestones!

It took time, but I am very happy with the result:

What do you think?! I’m almost done!!

P.S. I’m guest blogging at Jo’s blog, A Bit Of This and a Bit Of That today, sharing a tutorial on how to make a headband! Check it out here.

Read my progress on sewing wedding dress! :

Part 1 – Fabric shopping
Part 2 – Muslin
Part 3 – Another Muslin
Part 4 – Cutting Fashion Fabric
Part 5 – Sewing the Bust Part
Part 6 – Ruching
Part 7 – Skirt Part
Part 8 – Install a Zipper & Bones
Part 9 – Skirt Lining, Another Attempt to Install Zipper and More Supplies

Making Wedding Dress Pt.9 – Skirt Lining, Another Attempt to Install Zipper and More Supplies

September 19, 2011 By Chie

Hello! I hope everyone had a nice and relaxing weekend! I went back to my parents house for the weekend. My mom, Kiko and I visited my grandmother, who lives an hour away from my parents. It was my grandma’s first time to meet her first great grand child, so I was happy that they were able to meet. While I was staying with my parents, I started on my first quilting project! Yes, I am making a quilt! Call me grandma. I used to make fun of my dear friend, who is super fashionable but also loves quilting for being “grandma”. But now I’m obsessed with my new quilting project. I’ve collected several images as inspiration. Anyhow, I will write more about my first quilting project soon.

So back to the wedding dress! Last time, I attempted (and failed) to install an invisible zipper. So I skipped the zipper part for now until I get a new zipper, and install the bones. At the same time, I worked on the skirt lining.

For skirt lining, I used the same skirt patterns (half circle skirt, separated in four different panels). The fabric I used was cupra. My bride friend and I were recommended to use that fabric for wedding dress lining. I was pretty satisfied with the selection. It is light weight but does not cling to your legs in bad way like polyester linings do.

To cut the skirt lining fabrics, I shortened the length of the skirt patterns for 2″. The sewing part was really easy. I just sewed straight lines, and I was done!

I went to Okadaya in Shinjyuku to get some additional supplies for the wedding dress: flat knit zipper, horse hair braid, grosgrain ribbon for waist band, pearls in two sizes, rhinestones, and new zipper foot for installing flat knit zipper. I think these cost about 7000 yen (80 dollars) in total.

Before attaching skirt lining, I installed the zipper in the center back. This time, it went much smoother, and the zipper didn’t break! Thank God.

After the zipper, I pinned and sewed the skirt lining to the seam allowances of the wedding dress fashion fabric.

I also hand sewed the bra cups. I was deciding whether to use bra cups or quilt batting to custom make the bra cups, but I went for already-made bra cups. I felt like those would give more structures than quilt batting. The quilt batting worked well for my bombshell dress bust part, but for wedding dress, I was glad to have chosen the bra cups. 🙂

Read my progress on sewing wedding dress! :

Making Wedding Dress Pt.8 – Install a Zipper & Bones

September 12, 2011 By Chie

I tend to use invisible zippers for most of my creations. I think they are easy to install as long as you have the correct zipper foot. Also, I just generally like the clean look of it. So I tried to install an invisible zipper for this dress and ended in utter failure.

First, I used an iron-on interface along the line of where the zipper will be installed to stabilize the fabric. Then I trimmed the seam allowances a bit.

I did manage to install the zipper. However, the zipper did not go up. That’s because of all the gathered fabric from the ruched waist band! I kind of anticipated this to be a problem, but I went ahead to used the invisible zipper anyway hoping to get by. I should have followed my instincts and used a flat knit zipper:(

I ended up having to de-stitch and remove the zipper. I needed to buy a new zipper, so until I was able to make it to the store I worked on making the lining.

For the bodice lining, I used the fashion fabric, instead of the lining fabric which I originally bought. I did this because I wanted to have a bit more structure to the bodice. I cut out the pattern pieces just like I did to make the bodice.

Then I sewed just like I did for the outer bodice. By this time, I was an expert in making this bodice! In total, I sewed the same thing about 6 times including the multiple muslins I’ve made!

I went to 100 yen shop (like a dollar store in Japan), and bought this white bias strips. I am going to use this to make boning channels.

I sewed the sides of the bias tapes to where I want the bones to go in on lining fabric. Here is the look from the inside:

Then I cut the plastic bones to the appropriate length, put the boning caps and inserted them in the boning channels. The boning caps prevent the bones from poking through the fabric. I bought these from Tomato Notion shop in Nippori, for 25 yen each.

This is what it looks like from outside of the lining bodice. The boning gave a good structure to the bodice.

In retrospect, I did not have to make the boning channels, since I used the plastic boning which can be sewed directly on to the fabric. I guess if you use steel boning, you should make the channels, but for plastic ones, channels are not necessary. But, I do think the channels look prettier and neater! 🙂