The wedding dress, continued

I've had a few people ask me for more information about my wedding dress, so I'm putting it here.

Image courtesy of www.butterick.mccall.com

Butterick 6582 is a pattern I've had in my collection for a very long time. It's a vintage reprint, and I love vintage fashion, especially from the 1950's, when women wore glamourous dresses with full skirts and brooches, and house dresses were the norm, instead of jeans and t-shirts.

I probably purchased this pattern around 2007 or 2008, but didn't think I'd ever have a reason to sew it, so it sat in my pattern box until last year, when I finally had a good reason to make myself an awesome dress.

Because it was my second marriage, and I hate how I look in traditional wedding dresses, I decided that I wanted to go with a vintage look, and that it would most definitely NOT be white, or any of white's close relatives.

©Aspiring Threads

No, my dress had to be green. I have two favourite colours, and I didn't want to wear purple for the wedding, because it just didn't seem to suit the occasion. That left green. I found this beautiful fabric that was nubby like raw silk, but was a stiffer fabric. I can't remember the name of the fabric now... Anyway, it was really affordable. I think I only spent about $150 on the fabric for three dresses, which is a steal!

As I said in a previous post, my figure requires a full bust adjustment, otherwise known as a FBA. I'd never done one before, but thought it couldn't possibly be THAT hard. Well. I was wrong. Apparently, it is more complicated than the tutorials make it look.

©Aspiring Threads

Because of the shape of the bodice on this dress, I thought it would be too difficult, so I chose a different pattern... After several muslins (using leftover quilting cottons that were in my stash), I finally had a dress I could wear.

You don't want to know how many muslins I went through. I think it was around eight, possibly more. I stopped counting, because I was too frustrated to keep track.

I have to admit, I don't remember what the pattern was. I was happy with the fit, but should have extended the bodice more, because the waist was a bit too high... but the bodice fit my bust, and that was all that I really cared about at that point, because I honestly thought I was going to be arriving at the wedding in my underwear.

Once I got this dress to work, I decided to try transferring my modifications to the original pattern I wanted to sew, and wouldn't you know, it actually worked. I had to do a bit of tweaking, because the pattern had different darts, but it worked.

©Aspiring Threads

Here it is on my (way too small for me) dress form. One of these days, I'm going to pad this thing out to my measurements. I got it in order to use it for sewing for myself, and at this size, it's completely useless for this purpose.

Anyway. The dress is finished at this stage, except for making the belt. I sewed decorative bead slides onto the shoulders, as they were a perfect complement to the colours in the dresses (gold, burgundy and green). I used another in my fascinator, in fact.

I can't recall if I put the petticoat under the dress for this photograph. I think that I did, but don't quote me on that. The dress also needed ironing, so please ignore the creases.

©Wanderlust Photography

As I mentioned previously, I could have tweaked the bodice a bit more than I did to get a perfect fit, but I came close enough to a perfect fit and I was happy with my dress. Would I make this dress again? Certainly I would. It was not a very challenging pattern, once the FBA was done. I did omit the facings and line the bodice instead, because it was my wedding dress and I've never been a fan of facings, especially in dresses.

In the end, I'd say this pattern is best suited to someone who has more standard measurements than I do, but if you're willing to do the work and have the patience to do FBAs, it's well worth your time. It really does make a nice dress. Maybe my next one will be the wiggle dress... a gal can't have too many dresses, can she?