Gown for Black Tie Dinner at the Smithsonian
In February, Bob and I went to New York City for a few days and in the course of fabric shopping came across two gorgeous pieces of textile that I knew I had to have but didn't have a clue what to do with. I didn't even see the two as going together.
Here are the fabrics draped together.
The top is metallic gold and black fibers woven in an abstract pattern. The bottom is a red/black taffeta with a border print that feels raised, like flocking.
Okay, I had these fabrics. Then came the invitation to a black tie dinner at the Smithsonian. What to wear?? These fabrics came to mind and I started sketching. Here's what I came up with.
I had always pictured them as being two separate pieces, rather than a connected gown. My reasoning was that this would enable me to wear the pieces in separate outfits in the future. For instance, that top would go wonderfully with a pair of black slinky palazzo pants, and the skirt would look great with a sparkly black boucle top I have.
So now it's on to the pattern drafting process!
Again, I use PatternMaster Boutique to generate most of my clothing patterns. For this outfit, I selected an armscye-princess blouse bodice, close fit, side zipper closure, short semi-fitted sleeves, jewel neck (which I modified in the pattern editing process).
Now it's muslin time!
Here's the muslin of the bodice. The sleeve on my right arm was the first pass; it was too tight at the upper arm so I redrafted it a bit and generated the one that's on my left arm. The fit of that one is better, but wasn't quite right. The third draft (not pictured) was perfect and will be the one I use.
The fit of the bodice is actually looser in the muslin than I would like, so it's all going to be tightened up a little in the final product, and I will be using boning to give it some shaping.
Here it's very easy to see that the right sleeve is way too tight.
This pattern fits so nicely and even the muslin was so comfortable to wear that I'm already planning on making some blouses with it for this summer.
May 4, 2002, 4:00 p.m.
The bodice is now cut and partially assembled. I found out in the process of pressing the princess seams that the fabric reacts badly to being pressed. Now there are dark areas following the seams. However, it's not necessarily tragic; I don't think the casual observer would even notice.
Here's the outside of the bodice pieces.
I'm using a size 75 quilting needle and Mettler 50-wt silk finish thread to do all the assembly work on the gown. So far it's sewing very smoothly; I had worried that the metallic fibers would create difficulties. The only thing I'm encountering so far is the outer fabric has a nasty tendency to ravel. Fortunately all the pieces are completely underlined, so the stitching holding that in is confining the raveling to the very outer edges rather than compromising the seam area.
This shot shows the underlining of the bodice. The fabric is a very light black cotton batiste that I pre-washed. It looks shiny but it isn't; that's the outer fabric showing through.
I had thought about boning it but now I think I'll wait and see how it looks at the first fitting.
May 4, 2002, 10:00 p.m.
The outer bodice is put together, and it actually fits! (I'm always surprised when that happens, no matter how many muslins I make)
As I suspected, it feels very scratchy. I am sure adding the lining will alleviate most if not all of that.
I ended up using an invisible zipper on the recommendation of one of the members of the Pattern Master users email list. And it worked! I was worried the fabric was too textured for an invisible zipper, but it went in flawlessly and works perfectly.
The back view of the bodice. Because of the inherent stiffness of the fabric, it doesn't really "drape", so these folds are pretty noticeable. Don't know what if anything I'm going to do about them, other than play around with some boning tomorrow. I was hoping to avoid having to bone the bodice, but I think it will make a big difference in making the line a lot smoother.
I did encounter one interesting problem: it's very easy to put on the bodice, but very tricky to take off! Again, I am hoping the lining will make it easier by making it a bit slippery.
That's it for tonight... tomorrow I will tackle the boning (if any) and the lining. I hope to have the entire bodice complete and ready to wear by the end of the day tomorrow!
And now Part Two... the skirt!