A Jade Prom Dress

 

Happy Easter Monday. I hope you still have some chocolate left over and haven't pigged it all just yet! Its been great having these days off., me and the Mr haven't done a great deal this weekend, just caught up with some stuff, seen the family etc. Its been nice just to have some time to chill out. One of the fruits of me having this time was that I managed to finish off some sewing. YeHa!

So I bring you my jade lace prom dress which I have been making ready to wear to a wedding in the summer. Now I promise you this was a pure coincidence, but when I was pinning this together I realised the wedding is actually the wedding of our friend Jade, and my dress is Jade! How perfect is that! I swear I couldn't have planned that if I was doing it on purpose!

About the Dress:
Pattern: Prom Dress from the first Great British Sewing Bee Book
Fabric: Jade Cotton Sateen and Black Stretch Lace both from Fabricland
Size: 12
Adjustments: Shortened the straps by about 1.5 inches and removed 2 inches from the bottom

I love this dress pattern, its a really good pattern for a beginner and the fit is great for me with minimal adjustment. There are few pieces and they fit together well and in a logical order. I seriously recommend that anyone who owns this book should make up a version of this dress. I love the way it hangs in the front. I do think that I could have done with it being taken in a little bit under the arms but its not at all noticeable with a shrug on. Having made up a toile in a more sturdy fabric I do think the dress lends itself better to a stiffer fabric that I have used here  so it would be a perfect dress to make using a cotton poplin or cotton lawn for summer, or some drill/twill/brocade for winter.

This version of the dress is made using two layers of fabric, the jade cotton sateen with a layer of black stretch lace over the top. In order to make sure that the pieces didn't slip whilst sewing I decided to (painstakingly) overlock the two layers together around all the pattern pieces before I started to construct the dress. This was a big faff, and it took a while, but I do think it was worth it because I had very little difficulty sewing it up, there was very little movement between the two layers which helped a lot. I really liked working with the cotton sateen, its the first time I have ever used it and its got some great stretch to it. This would have been perfect for a version of the georgia dress.

All in all I am really pleased with this one. I have my concerns that its actually quiet thick and so it might not be perfect for a summer wedding, but if all else fails I have another wedding to attend in October so it will be perfect for that one if its too warm in July.

I will leave you with one final image of me prancing around... did you notice I don't have my hands on my hips once in this post!!

Post Wedding Round Up: The Bridesmaids Dresses

Its that time of week again, and this week I am showing off.... The Bridesmaids.

How gorgeous do they look! These girls they are the absolute perfect mix of absolutely wonderful, and a little but nutty! We have my sister on the left, my friend Stevie in the middle who gets far too excited about everything, and Yvonne on the right who is just the right amount of good and bad influence on me (probably tipped on the bad side, but that's ok right!). They really did make my day, and I couldn't have got married without them, so thank you ladies xx.

The dresses were handmade by the talented ladies of at Frock in Nottingham. Rather than explain how they work myself, here is how they put it:

'Frock was born from a love of beautiful vintage dresses. We have a passion for vintage sewing patterns and enjoy experimenting with original patterns, adapting them and making them  relevant to the women of today. Women who want something unique and an alternative to todays mass produced throw away fashion.

At Frock we make our dresses by hand in small runs, this means that we are free to customise our dresses to suit and to play with the design, mixing up fabrics and design elements at will.

Although our dresses are inspired by vintage, we are not restricted to one era and like to embrace the fun and flirty best of all decades and give it our own twist.'

I really wanted the dresses to be something which they might choose to wear again at another occasion. I also wanted to be able to make them similar enough in style, but also allow my bridesmaids some room for freedom. This is why Frock were perfect, because not only do they do a made to measure service (at a reasonable price) it is also fully customizable. So we went through the fabric swatches book, picked a fabric, and then my Bridesmaids picked the style of dress from their patterns that they liked the most. I think this worked out well and I hope they were more comfortable in their dresses as they picked the fit. Frock then made up all three dresses to our specifications and I couldn't be happier with the result.

 

So I hope you like the dresses as much as I did, enough that I had to go and buy my own Frock frock! I was really pleased, as you can see above, at how well everything came together, from the shoes to the dresses to the bouquets. Not bad to say I am pretty sure I winged all this design stuff!

I am planning an exciting Monster Magic style festive tutorial for you at the weekend (when I actually have some daylight to photograph it) so check back on Sunday to take a look.