Amie Scott

As none of you may already know, I’m getting married in a couple of weeks (barely any of my family/close friends read this blog, and every single one of them is on my secret shitlist for that)(I don’t actually have a secret shitlist; I usually tell people when they’ve raised my ire)(Can you raise ire? Is that a real term? Did I just make that up?)(Nope. It’s real.).  And, for some zany reason, I felt compelled to make my own wedding dress.

It wasn’t supposed to be a difficult dress making experience; I merely planned on upsizing a pre-existing pattern I’d once drafted of an early 1960s style box-pleat dress.  How hard is that?

Answer: not that hard, but way more time-consuming than I’d expected.

First of all, my original pattern included a waistband. After my very first attempt at sewing this new dress (not pictured), I came to the conclusion that I hate waistbands – they’re too fussy, and prone to misalignment in the back.

I drafted again.

Then I dithered on the neckline. Initially, I thought I’d wanted something in a V-neck. So I made me a V-neck, and it looked like this:

I don’t need to mention that this is a muslin, right? I have several yards of that blue clown print fabric, and I use it for many of my samples. It’s ugly, and easy to work with. The burgundy fabric is just some cheap junk I picked up second-hand awhile ago. I should also mention that the dress form I’m using is waaay smaller than my own form, which makes all of these dresses look ill-fitted.

Anyhoodle, the V-neck got fired for being too matronly (I felt like Wilma Flintstone’s mother). And too ill-fitted. Heh.

I decided that what I really wanted to get married and subsequently drunk in was a box-pleat dress with a high boat neck. It’s what I’m good at making, and it’s what looks good on me when I’m passed out in a ditch.

Alright, that looks doable. Onto the next stage: muslins that I can actually add to my wardrobe.

This one came out too big, but I still really liked where it was going.

And from the back:

I reduced the size of the pattern’s bodice by about an inch in total, and although I don’t have a picture of the next dress, suffice it to say that it came out mysteriously larger than the last dress.

Huh. So that’s how it’s going to be, is it?

Now afraid of altering the pattern anymore, I simply decided to sew the dress with a larger seam allowance.

Be aware that this dress isn’t actually finished yet; I ran out of suitable zippers, and have not yet returned to the fabric store. In fact, I’m nervous about photographing this sample before it’s finished, as I’m somewhat superstitious when it comes to posting pictures of things that aren’t completed. But here it is anyway:

It seems like it’ll fit.

And with that, I decided to cut out and sew the final product. No pictures of that, to be sure – no one gets to see that before my wedding day. I’m pretty sure that the dress will turn out fine, but a part of me worries that I forgot some hugely important step. Like a second armhole, or something along those lines.

Fortunately, the dress is the only thing I’m nervous about.