Sewing for Others - Bridesmaid / Cocktail Dress

Phew, apologies for the lengthy absence - I was making a bridesmaid dress for a friend and whilst I had the intention to blog about it on the way it quickly became clear that I had better focus on actually sewing it so she would have something to wear at the wedding.

I delivered the dress last night and it fits perfectly and looks fantastic on her so although it was a lot of work I am feeling very satisfied, confident and relieved right now.  The dress will also be worn as a cocktail dress after the wedding, it is purple silk with a purple lace yoke.

I am no pattern drafter so this began life as a combination of 3 Burda magazine dresses and gradually came together after a muslin and 2 fittings.  Here are some photos of the dress in various stages of construction, I hope to get some of the dress being worn at the wedding to show you later as trying to pad out my dressform can only do so much!

I also - after procrastinating nervously for days - managed to do the best baby hem ever so I will explain that in a separate post, not least so I can remember how to do it again!

The finished dress - hard to photograph satin at night but this shows the true colour - a Cadbury's Dairy Milk Chocolate purple!

Interior of the bodice which was interlined with interfaced cotton lawn, boning channels and catchstitched seam allowances.  I referred to Susan Khalje's Bridal Couture book a lot for this stage.

Hanging loops - and another Susan Khalje tip to add thread loops to hold the hanging loops in the interior of the garment while being worn.

Inside the finished bodice, the lace was handstitched to the inside of the bodice and the lining handstitched on top of that.

Cover button on the back lace fastening.  I experimented with ways to finish the lace edges  - in the end I faced them with a strip of the lace and then wrapped it round the edge and stitched again.

Back of the dress, I think this is my favourite part!

Front bodice

I added a strip of gathered net to the lower edge of the lining,  it sits between the skirt and the lining and gives great volume to the lower part of the dress without adding any bulk to the hips.

The net effect!