All posts tagged: weddings

Frothy fairy dresses

I’m sewing a frothy goddess frock – just for the fun of it. It’s a nice break from the UFPro pile, and commissions, and historical costuming I’m working on, all of which have specific requirements for their creation. The dress was kind of inspired by this week’s poll. I don’t understand all this modern vampire and werewolf and zombie craze. I want to be a fairy. It turns out that I’m not the only one who wants to be a fairy – well over half of you have the same impulse. So I’m making a fairy frock. Not a tinker belle fairy frock, sort of a fairy godmother meets the traditional faerie queen fairy. A study in contrast: natural materials with an etherial feel, elegant formality and whimsical fun. I liked the idea of making a dress that looks a bit like a sarong tied around you, and a bit like a Regency gown. One that blends total relaxation and classical formality. The fabric is an ivory cotton voile with tiny woven-in stripes of silver, …

Sewing my wedding dress

Published by The Dreamstress

There is a superstition (which I am convinced was invented by the wedding dress manufacturers) that it is bad luck to make your wedding dress. Marriage-wise, my own observation would indicate that it is extremely good luck to make your own dress- all the women I know who did have had long and happy marriages. Perhaps the bad luck is in the making of the dress itself? I could see that. Making my dress was an unhappy and traumatic experience, and both my mother and mother-in-law suffered unfortunate incidences related to the making of their dresses (one of which involved brand new sewing shears, tripping over the toile, lots and lots of blood, a trip to the emergency room, and a permanent scar). Still, if that is the price you pay for a successful marriage, bring on the wedding dress making horror stories! My dress was a case of anything that could go wrong, did. Part of the problem was that in between bouts of dress making, I wrote a thesis, graduated from university, moved …

My wedding dress: the fabric

Published by The Dreamstress

I went wedding dress fabric shopping in the spring and summer of 2005. It was not a good season for bridal fabric. Or even for bridesmaid fabric. Everything was deadly boring. I looked, and looked, and looked. I looked in Wellington. I looked online. I looked in San Francisco. I looked in Oakland. I looked in Palo Alto. New York City was my last resort. So, when I wasn’t visiting museums and taking photos of flowers*, I scoured the fabric district. I’d seen a piece of stonewashed silk charmeuse in Oakland, and I was in love with the fabric (not the colour though – it was bright coral). But there was no stonewashed silk to be found, and the only things that I found that I liked even half as much were over $60 a yard – too much to pay. Finally, digging in a huge pile of rolls in a little tiny designer ends fabric store , I found the holy grain – a roll of palest ivory stonewashed silk charmeuse. It was a …