Click here for Sleeping Beauty's Pink and Blue Splashed Dress - Part 2
Okay, you know how I said I only had a week to make a full ball gown? Well, that was a total lie. I only had a week to make three ball gowns! Here, let me explain.
To make the two toned splash effect for this dress I had to make a base dress (half blue and half pink) plus the outer dress that would be in the opposite colors. Because I demanded quality out of this garment ***no shortcuts allowed even on a time crunch!*** I had to make a backing for the outer dress so when I turned it into splashes it wouldn’t fray along they edges. This brings the total to three.
I could probably try and get technical and say that I made the gown a fourth time to line it, but since I’d have done that regardless of the outer design I’ll just stick with three.
Even though I didn’t start this dress until a week before the event, I knew I wanted to make the Sleeping Beauty dress ever since the New Years theme was announced back in September. Because of this I’d been keeping my eye out for fabrics over the previous few months. I thought I had struck pay dirt on one of my trips to Kansas where I found a gorgeous micro suede fabric in both pink and blue. Thinking it would make for an amazing bodice, I scoured the store for other fabrics that would compliment those tones and loaded up my cart. However, when lady at the cutting counter began unrolling the 8 yards of pink I’d need, we discovered that the bolt was actually just a collection of remnants… and they weren’t even from the same dye lot! Ugh! I was heartbroken. I knew the dress needed complimentary fabrics and tones or it would clash, and a patchwork of 5 different colored pinks just wouldn't do. Reluctantly I put everything back and went home empty handed.
*** Have ya’ll begun to notice a trend? I always seem to have trouble finding fabrics! Even though I know exactly what I want the stores never seem to carry it. I wonder if this is common problem for other people too. Hmm….***
Any who, I kept looking for fabrics for the next few weeks with no luck. It was getting closer and closer to go time, so I needed to find something soon. Before sucking it up and calling the company to rush order entire bolts, I decided to drive the hour south to Moore to take a chance on their fabric stores. As luck would have it they had almost the same exact fabric I wanted in the first place. Yay!
There was one little problem though. In the entire store there were no lighter pink and blue fabrics in the same tone. ***insert eye twitch here*** Okay, fine. The fabric gods have obviously deemed that I was not allowed to have a micro suede bodice for this gown. But I wasn’t going to let them have the last laugh. The back side of the micro suede fabrics were beautiful shades of pink in blue in just a few steps deeper than the front. I’d simply flip my original plan! Now the sleeves and flouncy overskirt would be made with the micro suede, and for the bodice and main skirt I’d just flip the fabric over.
See, I can be flexible. ***Sticks tongue out at the fabric gods***
So, now that I had my fabric purchased (all 24 yards of it @_@), I finally got started on the splash panels.
Hopefully that made sense. Perhaps one day I can make a video for the technique.
Once I finished each of the splash panels they were pinned onto their bases where they awaited their impending applique stitch!
Soooooo many needles. And this bodice was only 14 inches tallish? Just wait til you see the skirt!
Do you see my cute little cheat sheet up there? I was so of proud of it. In order to prevent myself from messing up, I wrote a list of every pattern piece, right side or wrong side, that I needed to cut out and in which color. It seems kind of OCD, but it was actually a huge helper. It’s super easy to cut out the wrong color or pattern side when you’re making a dress that is half one color and half another!
To be continued...
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Do you have any tips for keeping your sewing projects organized? Even with my many lists I still sometimes find myself making tiny mistakes!
Click here for Sleeping Beauty's Pink and Blue Splashed Dress - Part 4
Click here for Sleeping Beauty's Pink and Blue Splashed Dress - Part 5
Click here for Sleeping Beauty's Pink and Blue Splashed Dress - Part 6
