Dress Stress ">_<"

So I've started sewing a wedding dress for November. Working on the bodice at the present. It's all going well so far. Although at every new step I stress that somehow I will screw up without even knowing, and then I will go to fit it to her, and it suddenly won't fit anymore.....STRESSFUL



This is what hard work looks like....I swear

I guess I have to just build up some confidence and tell myself that I've done enough toiles and fittings that nothing (or only a tiny bit) can go wrong!



Coutil layer of corsetted bodice:
Boning, good... No Boning, badddddd
Need to add more anyway

The thing that I'm actually thinking a lot about is MY dress. I finally have a chance to make myself a beautiful garment, to wear to a botanical garden wedding! Could I be any more excited?
The problem is though.....what do I make? I mean, how often does a 21yr old do I get to wear a truly gorgeous dress? Never, pretty much. And I already have a few at home which have never seen the light of day.

I want to make something a bit more elegant and feminine than my normal style. Most dresses I make have full skirts that I guess are quite girly, but I think I want to go for a more draped elegant style.
But now the problem is what style and pattern? Well making one that is, because I really don't think I can be bothered buying patterns anymore and then fitting them to myself.
But what design? What features? What colour? What fabric?

I'm finding this dilemma very comparable to say, eating out somewhere expensive? As with someone my age, how often do I get to eat out and dine on something truly delectable? Close to never, as I am yet to find a gentleman with enough schmooze and cash to do so.

So of course, being a rarity, I don't want to go and sit down and order something sub-par, or something that doesn't fill my every fine dining desire. Normally I sit there for a very long time, seriously stressing thinking, 'What if I order the wrong thing?'
It has happened a few times when I used to go out with my boyfriend, and he would somehow always order the better dish, and I'd always be punching myself on the inside, thinking 'WHY, OH WHY DID I MAKE THE WRONG DECISION! WHEN WILL I EVER EAT LIKE THIS AGAIN?!' *Sigh* 


I want it to look elegant, but not overly simplistic, I want to be able to use a technique I've never gotten to use before, I want to make it out of a gorgeous fabric, and I want to be able to stand there and get to say 'Why yes, I did make Samantha's Wedding dress. Oh! And I also made my own.' Mwahahaha ^__^




I figured these Melissa's I already have will be perfect to wear to an outdoor garden wedding! No heal sinking issues, and no issues with them getting dirty! Win!

Essentially I'll be a walking advertisement for my work, and seeing as it will be a first, I don't want to get anything wrong.

 

There are a couple of dress's I've found online by some lovely sewers that have caught my eye.



The main on being 'The Dress' made by madalynne who has a very wonderful blog, and probably has my dream job! Her dress was based on this BHLDN gown. Seriously have a look through their website, some quite incredible dresses.

The Dress - madalynne

This colour combo looks great on us 'fair' types. I generally cant wear black because it's just far to harsh on me with my light hair as well.

After a lot of thinking, this is the dress design IIthink I'm going to go with, and a similar colour scheme. She choose great colours to match her (and my) fair complextion. I even went through a huge swatch card of colours, and I still came out with almost the same picks!

madalynne was even nice enough to send me through an email with some specs on how she made this lovely dress, and said that I could post her beautiful photo's on my blog ^__^

All I did was post a comment and she sent me an email directly!

 

Similarly she made this dress to attend a friends wedding.

I'm so glad I got into this blogging business, otherwise who knows if I would have come across her amazing blog! She has a huge catalogue of pattern making information with a lot of tips that you would probably never find anywhere else. Guess that's the advantage of being a technical designer, you know all the insiders tricks ;-)

 

 The Dress - madalynne

Below are some other designs that deserve a particular mention, as both have had some cconsiderable though put towards them.

So Sew Lovely posted her flip turn dress based on the pattern magic book about two weeks ago. She really gave life to this dress. I wasn't overly drawn the pattern by the pictures in Pattern Magic, so it's great to see it made up so wonderfully! Its a very versatille dress pattern now that I see it, and I think it could be done up really chic in a medium weight silk. I'd probably add a bit more fullness to the 'flip' area, so a few more folds fell through, and then maybe some length to the end that comes through.





Pattern Magic Flip turn Dress

Lastly, found this is a magazine a fair while back and really liked some of the feature's. Others are not quite to my taste, but essentially from the waist down, pretty stunning, reminds me of the shape dresses from the early 1900's created.

I really like the pleated zig zag feature, It would be a lot of work to get it right, but its gorgeous and screams couture!

I'm thinking I'll treat myself to some (very well researched and priced) 4 ply silk.



Two colours I think Ill use. Probably more the second, with highlights or accents of the first to match my shoes. However this fabric is $60 per YARD! Eeep! and without postage You can see above that I love the colour combination madalynne has used!

I've found another website which sells 4 ply silk for $35 per meter, but the colours aren't as nice from what I can tell, because it's a bit of a dodgy picture of a sample card! Oh oh wait I just found on Mood fabric it is $40 per yard and has a great colour range! ^__^ YAY....too bad they don't have an international postage option on their page!

Although I am very in love with the grey/purple above, I can't go anything more purple or lighter than that, as the bridesmaids are wearing lavender, and I don't want to come off as a bridesmaid wanna be! Oh gosh :/

Please leave your opinions/thoughts/ideas! I'd love to hear them! Or if you know a good fabric store on line for buying some beautiful 4 ply silk, hit us up!!

Also, just a general thing.....does anyone else find formatting their blog posts an absolutely b***!!?!?! Or maybe it's just the computers I use.... Also, anyone find it funny that in spell check, 'Blog' isn't considered a word....? hehe