Smithson Gown 2007
March 23, 2007
Here we go again!
I'm a bit late getting this year's gown started. Part of the reason is that I am again constructing a Vignette for the International Window Coverings Expo, so that has occupied my time. But it's been on my mind, believe me!!
The gown will be doing double-duty again this year, although it won't be part of the vignette. The IWCE will this year incorporate a formal gala of its own, and is calling it a "Red Ball". The gala doubles as a fundraiser for heart disease research (the founder of the IWCE just lost her mother to heart disease). People are being encouraged to wear red.
Unfortunately, red isn't really my color anymore, unless it is toned down considerably. Still, I had this silk in my stash and this other sheer fabric left over from my vignette:
The colors aren't really "true" in this picture, but they're close enough. You can see the sheer has a slight tint to it, and the swirls are a deep burgundy velvet. It's lovely fabric and remarkably easy to work with.
So here's my plan. The dress will be a simple princess bodice, with a gored skirt. Here's the sketch:
The base fabric will be the red silk, and the swirled sheer will overlay the entire dress. On the bodice, the sheer and the silk will be sewn as one unit rather than having the seams show on the overlay fabric.
The Muslin
First muslin is sewn and tried. I think the fit is pretty darned good for a first pass!
Note: the neck seam allowance has NOT been cut off, and I didn't put in the sleeves.
Overall it fits and feels great. The only change I think I will make is to drop the waist just a little; it feels like it's sitting too high (it's at my natural waist).
Bob asked if it wasn't just a tad short for a ball gown.
Back to the Main Sewing Room Page
Side view. I see the horizontal wrinkle in the back; I'm not sure if that's fit or posture.
This was drafted with zero ease at the bust. I have found that in nearly all cases, princess seamed bodices fit better this way.
There's a teeny bit of extra fabric at the front of the armscye but I'm betting that will go away when I put in sleeves.
Back
view of the dress. I like the scoop. The waist was also drafted with zero ease;
I'll add half an inch and see if that doesn't help the wrinkle problem.
I'm really not worried about the fit of the skirt as it's going to be poufed out anyway.
So there you have it! Deadline for finishing this gown, by the way, is April 9. On the 10th I start installing the vignette, and from then on will be spending my days at the show. The ball is on Friday the 13th (oh lucky me!), and Bob will be attending with me. I hope I have enough red silk left over for his tie and cummerbund!
Friday, April 13
Nothing like the last minute!!
The dress was completed last night at 11:00 p.m. I only had time to quickly try it on to check the hemming before it was time to get some shuteye, as I had to get up at 5 this morning to catch the Metro into town for an 8 a.m. class. Bob would bring my dress and shoes downtown when he came later in the day.
I'm almost embarrassed to say that I spent next to no time on this dress, yet I am almost more pleased with it than any other previous gown. The fit is wonderful, it is incredibly comfortable, and I got loads of compliments on it.
Here is a picture of me with Grace McNamara, the head of the company which produces this drapery conference every year.
Grace's dress is also made of silk, from the same supplier as my dress's base fabric.
You can see that I widened and lowered the neckline, and it does indeed look better. I could have lowered it a bit more, but didn't want to overdo it. Besides, I lowered the back too. Here's a shot of the back:
Now for some construction details.
First of all, this entire dress came from materials in my drapery workroom. The base fabric is a drapery-weight silk dupioni, topped with a velvet-swirled sheer drapery fabric that I used in my vignette design. The bodice is lined with black classic sateen drapery lining, and the skirt is lined with ivory classic napped sateen drapery lining.
The sleeves and invisible zipper were set in by machine, and the entire neckline was slipstitched by hand.
The sleeves are banded with silk taffeta, left over from binding the sheers for my vignette. It is cut on the grain (I didn't have enough fabric to cut strips on the bias) and machine-topstitched.
The gored skirt was drafted in PMB and modified in PE. I wanted to have more of a "pouf" to the skirt, rather than a flare, so I brought the pieces into PE and used the "slash and spread" tool to add 5" to each pattern piece. This just about doubled the skirt waist. The waist was then gathered to match the bodice, and stitched in place.
In order to avoid seeing any seams joining the sheers, I treated the dupioni as underlining, serging the sheer to each garment piece prior to assembling the gown. This served to anchor the sheer as well as prevent raveling.
I didn't try to pattern-match the sheer across the seams; I figured the pattern is busy enough that it wouldn't really matter anyway.
I will be wearing this again next weekend to the Smithson Gala, and will post more pictures after that.
So there you have it, folks! Another Smithson Gown project completed. I'm sorry this one wasn't as well documented as past gowns; I was pressed for time and just wanted to get it done.
Second Time Around...
I wore the gown again to the Smithson Gala on April 21 and got a lot of positive comments on it. Pictures are here.