All posts filed under: Sewing

Things I sew – historical and modern

Shell got married! (And her dress looked gorgeous!)

Published by The Dreamstress

Here is what you have all been waiting for: photos of Shell in her dress from her wedding! These are my photos from the day.  It was definitely one of those times when I really wished I had a better camera – mine just doesn’t zoom well, won’t focus at different levels, and doesn’t play pretty tricks with the light, which really limits my fun. It was an absolutely lovely day: the rain stopped just in time, everyone was happy, the site was gorgeous and Shell looked amazing: the perfect vision of elf queen meets modern bride, just as we had hoped. And one with the bride and her dressmaker to finish it off: There you go!  Would you be interested in a less ‘dress’, more ‘wedding story’ post with images from Sarah (in other words, images that are better than mine!)?

Patterns for a 1911 wedding dress

Published by The Dreamstress

Want to recreate one of the gorgeous 1911 wedding dresses we have looked at?  Unless you are brave and foolish (e.g. me) you’ll want a pattern.  Here are some that might help: The S&S 1910s tea gown pattern generally receives excellent reviews and is very similar in cut to many of the wedding dresses we’ve seen.  The sleeves appear to be a bit shorter than most examples, but it shouldn’t be too hard to lengthen them or to add lace undersleeves.  You could also lengthen the skirt to form a train if desired.  The one slightly tricky thing will be filling the neckline, as its much too low for a daytime wedding.  The easy way to fix this?  With a guimpe!   (Note to self – do a guimpe tutorial).  This is perfectly historical, as I’ve found quite a few 19teens wedding descriptions that make note of the guimpe, and  there are examples of 1910s wedding dresses that were worn with guimpes for the wedding, and without for evening wear after. Sense & Sensibility also …

Shell’s dress: a zip and buttons

Published by The Dreamstress

You’ve seen the extraordinary buttons for Shell’s dress already, but I haven’t really told you about how it fastens. It closes with a zip under the false buttons. Yes, that’s right, I caved and did the ultimate wedding dress cliche.  It’s a cliche for a reason though: buttons by themselves would have a hard time holding such a fitted strapless bodice, and would be a pain to fasten, so the zip is necessary, but brides love that buttons up the back look. Since it isn’t a historical technique, a zip under buttons is not something I have ever had occasion to do before. It also isn’t something that you can currently find any instructions or guides on how to do on the internet. So I did a few trial runs, and guessed, and went for it. It came out very well: when the dress is on and the buttons are fastened its almost impossible to tell there is a zip under them.  This was very important to Shell.  Initially she was almost as anti zip-under-buttons …