A Beautiful Wedding

We had a lovely weekend. Not just lovely. Fabulous.

Helen married Anthony on Saturday 4 June in a local church. Helen’s two sisters were her bridesmaids.  Anthony had a best man and 4 ushers including his brother. My two grandsons, Helen's nephews, presented her with a lucky horseshoe - a real one,  painted by Alison and trimmed with ribbon from her wedding (no photos of that yet - will have to wait for those from the official photographer)

Helen and Anthony. Alison and Joanne. Best man Alex and 4 ushers. Taken in the garden at Capheaton Hall

Then we travelled out into the country for the reception which Helen and Anthony had organised and the two families help set up in the few days leading up to it. It was great. Photographs,  garden games, wedding breakfast in a large marquee, ceilidh followed by cake cutting (the cake was made by Anthony's mother), hog roast. A free bar with plenty to drink including a bride's cocktail and a groom's cocktail.

Then on Sunday we had a post wedding BBQ in our garden for their friends who were travelling back - mainly to London but some friends had travelled much further, one from Australia who had travelled just for the wedding and was then going back. The weather was glorious.

You want to know about the dress, though.

Yes, I finished it. Very much at the last minute. All that hand sewing took so much longer than I thought, not helped by incorrectly sewing in the weights and having to redo. Helen made the belt to go with the dress (well done,  Helen, you did a brilliant job and I'm not going to say any more so you can put it in the sewing blog you’re going to start) and I finished the cathedral length veil at 11pm on Friday after Joanne and Alison researched how to do it for me.

I realise I am not going to post a lot about the design or construction of the dress as I've had to put all of that in my course portfolio.

Helen wanted an unstructured very soft dress in double crepe sandwashed silk. My portfolio shows some of the evolution of the idea. We had to compromise as the design needed to be something I could make but that still had the vibe that Helen wanted. Her first ideas were much too complex for me (I tried but couldn't make them work). Gradually we evolved something that worked.

The earlier ideas were very revealing dresses e g. illusion tulle topped with fine Chantilly lace and appliqués added strategically.

Originally she didn't want a waistline but this affected fit so we changed.

The very low front was raised as I couldn't stabilise the front properly.

Helen decided against princess seams at the front. She wanted completely smooth. As I had to wedge out neck and armscyes and have waist shaping there, this led to a very large side dart - I decided to split this dart into 3. We like it.

The back consists of small side wings. It is supported by 3 spaghetti straps on each side. Each bias strap has a core of cord. The wings have an additional layer of silk organza interlining. The sides are low and cut away as requested.

Getting ready

The back skirt does have princess seams and is tightly fitted with the centre backs extending into a short train. We discussed how she'd dance etc but H just wanted to let the dress do its own thing. It did.

The neckline and armscye are supported by tape and understitching.

The whole dress is underlined in habotai silk. We tested samples and this soft silk kept the look and feel Helen was after. The dress is lined in a soft fine charmeuse silk. The lining has a fine rolled hem (done very much at the last minute as I had to shorten it the night before - I had to do this quickly on my overlocker). The dress has a horsehair braid hem and the back to the sides have string weights inserted into the hem. I ended up stitching and pinking the main skirt seams though I hand overcast the bodice seams. I just realised today that I forgot to put a chain stitch between lining and dress - perhaps that contributed to the train’s early demise!

I didn't like working with the charmeuse or the habotai silk.  Too squiggly and difficult to control. I did enjoy working with the sandwashed silk, which didn't fray much at all.

Proud mother, beautiful daughter

There had to be a few very last minute changes as the silk was spongier (not sure of what word to use to describe) and I had to give up on the planned side zip because of bulk that I couldn't remove with three darts there. I used a back zip instead and on my tutor's advice stopped this at waist level (mistake - it would have been much better going all the way up as the suggested hooks and eyes didn't hold it sufficiently firmly and came out a few times anyway - I was going to sew her in at the reception but we didn't do that)

Helen found the dress supremely comfortable. She had wanted very soft very unstructured, very her,  as she had heard of brides being so uncomfortable in their dresses. Helen could sit, dance, go to the toilet etc. The dress is supremely lightweight and soft, just as she requested.

Photo from Patrick Lourie

The dress hasn't survived. I don't know if it's possible to revamp so that Helen can keep it as planned. I dry cleaned the fabric before construction. The train is filthy,  both outer and lining and her foot caught in the braid tearing it back. The hooks at the back didn't survive intact - this meant that for much of the time the bodice was too loose. Helen didn't seem to mind.

I received a lot of compliments for the dress. Helen looked beautiful and happy. 

I spent a long time on the dress and on toiles because fitting at a distance isn't easy. Helen helped by visiting a number of times and I visited her. I’d do it differently on another occasion. I'm pretty pleased with the result and I hope Helen is too (she certainly seems to be). I learned a lot of new techniques and now feel I could tackle anything - the support structures I have are great,  too. Helen says I can't call myself a beginner anymore!  Obviously there are loads of things I've never tried and my attempts at what I did aren't perfect - but the more I practice,  the better I'll get!  When I get around to putting my reviews of the waistcoat on PR,  I may celebrate by upgrading my status to ‘Intermediate’. What do you think?

Back - our family tartan printed on silk

Pre wedding try on

I also made Anthony's waistcoat. More on that later.

I had made the pattern and the final toile for the bridesmaids dresses but in the end ran out of time and arranged with Rory and Dan to sew them; Dan was ill leaving Rory to do them both. I was sick with panic as Rory didn't finish until the evening before the wedding and for the last few days I was running around like a mad thing because of all the activities we had,  including hosting a meal for the two families, meaning that my sewing room was out of commission. Yes,  I know it should have been finished by then…

I took my mother home yesterday (Monday) and rather belatedly helped her sort or some of her stuff in her new sheltered accommodation. Sorted out some by bringing it back with me. We have so much to do! We still plan to downsize…

Tomorrow our course work is moderated and on Thursday we have a display of our work at the college. I handed in my final board with some wedding pictures tonight - some photos from my camera (which I unfortunately broke irreparably by dropping it during the reception). We've had a teaser photo from the official photographer which is fabulous. I've given my tutor the dresses and the waistcoat  but I'm not sure what will be used - do they cover the muddy train? Let it show? The waistcoat and the bridesmaids dresses probably will go in.

Help question, though - a lot of Helen and Anthony's friends have posted terrific photos on Facebook and Instagram. I can't work out how to save and print them, unfortunately. Any ideas?

More later

Pattern Cutting Portfolio Handed In

I'm glad to say that I managed to hand in the second of my two portfolios on Thursday.

Both the portfolios were massive undertakings and it's clear that I made them much more involved than they need have been. My husband attended a photography course which also required a portfolio each term and the tutor there commented that mature students have a tendency to want to do things really well. My tutor (Thursday - pattern cutting) said my work was what was required for level 3. At that stage, she was talking about quantity only, of course. While she hasn't read through the portfolio at that stage, she clearly knew all my work. She wasn't surprised by the number of pattern drafts and toiles I had. I didn't in the end hand all of these in.

In pattern cutting I had to make a personal trouser block with all the steps that involves and include the different pattern drafting stages and fitting toiles with comments on the process. The we had to research trousers, trouser styles, trouser details, fabrics etc and choose one to take forward. We had a croquis exercise, then moved forward to a working drawing. From that we had to develop a pattern and go on to toile fit. We weren't expected to have a garment made up in fashion fabric but we were expected to have made up a final toile.  At every stage we had to include detailed notes on our thought processes.

I chose what I thought would be a useful and not too difficult style - cropped trousers with side knee slits, back patch pocket, jeans type front pockets, fly zipper closure and standard waistband with belt loops. This is the type of trouser that I like wearing to golf in the summer months.

I had to include lots of drawings and photos. I don't propose to put them in this post, you'll be relieved to know!

I found that my initial trouser block wasn't that good a fit, unfortunately.

However, I drew out and modified my block (no seam allowances or details - sloper for those in US) to the correct length and added the slits and seam allowances. I drafted out the pieces for the fly front closure and for the pockets and waistband.

I should say that the vast bulk of this work was carried out at home because there simply wasn't enough time in class to tickle the surface! Also, I missed the penultimate class. As a result, I didn't have any tutor input for the end stages.

My initial toile was tried on and some modifications made to it; the tutor was able to help with this fitting. I transferred the modifications to the pattern and made another toile... repeat several times! I had a number of problems as I have knock knees; these didn't seem to be much of  a problem in the past but as the arthritis in my left knee is worsening, so is the bend! In my penultimate toile, I was reasonably happy with things, though I felt that the trouser legs were too wide below the knee; I had done some market research and wide cropped trousers were a no-no. So I narrowed the legs by quite a bit, tapering out to zero at fork point/high hip on side seam. I later split the difference and widened them again as I feared them being too tight for me to wear - and they were to fit me, after all.

At an earlier stage, I spoke to my tutor of putting in a side seam 'vent' and she advised me on that. However, I later came to realise that what I wanted was a 'split' not a 'vent' and was grateful that I had the book 'Professional Sewing Techniques for Designers' by Cole and Czachor. While I had fitting books, they didn't have sewing instructions and sewing books didn't have the pattern details I required; this book is great as it has both the pattern elements and the sewing details. I didn't find this out until too late in the process to modify the pattern appropriately, though.

I carefully trued all the pattern pieces, but found that somehow I'd made an error and my back and front  lengths didn't match at either inseam or outseam. I added the necessary amount (2.5cms) to the back leg length. There was still a discrepancy in the inseam but I texted the tutor who advised that the amount would be usefully eased in particularly as these were sports trousers.

So I carefully cut out all my pieces.

I followed the construction process we had used in our jeans making course. This meant the very first thing to be constructed was the side pocket. This went ahead no problem. Then I had to insert the fly front zipper. I struggled with this - the notes from the class we had previously weren't great, unfortunately. The Reader's Digest 'Complete Guide to Sewing' came to my rescue.

Looking good so far - then I tried them on! The back side seam was 2.5 cms longer than the front. No matter what I did. Well, toiles are for cutting apart and ripping up and drawing on (there's really no such thing as the 'wearable muslin' that I read about so often) so despite this being the night before my submission was due, I unpicked the toile, cut off the excess on one leg only and resewed at the correct length. Now my inseam and outseam lengths both matched perfectly!

Otherwise, I was reasonably happy with fit - I felt another couple of toiles would do it!! I further modified this toile by taking in the back seam where it was loose and standing away from my waist. I found that there was some pouching below the zip and I wondered if I had used too long a zip (8") and also I felt tightness across the thighs when I moved.

It was too late to do anything else. I decided against putting on the waistband. I didn't hem but put in a sample of the vent/slit treatment with comments. I completed my portfolio, including the necessary changes I still thought was required, and went to class on Thursday evening.

The tutor looked at my fitting photos, then I tried on the final toile. It's interesting that the tutor thought one thing when looking at the photos but immediately changed her mind when seeing the real thing, which shows the limitations of fitting from photos.

She didn't think they were too bad and pinned out some adjustments which I transferred to the 'modified final pattern'

• I further took in the back seam
• Excess fabric was removed from front (the pouching between zip and inseam)
• I added 1 cm to the outseam of front legs only
• My left leg (the one where I have a particularly knock knee) was okay from the back but the right leg was not. Although I knew I really needed separate leg patterns, I hadn't had time to address this. However, now I did!

In class I redrew and modified the main pattern pieces. I had one front leg piece and two back leg pieces, for right leg and left leg. I didn't have time to modify pocket pieces, waistband etc.

I look forward to actually making up a pair of trousers when I get my portfolio back - though rest assured, I'll do another toile first! The calico I used for the toile is much heavier than the fabric I intend to use for the trousers, so some adjustment on that account may be required.

I've signed up to the class for September for 30 weeks. The tutor has suggested that my pattern drawing and then sewing project should be my daughter's wedding dress. The main stumbling block is that my daughter lives in the east end of London, works at Kings Cross, and I don't see her that often, so fitting is an issue. I discussed options for fitting - duct tape, plaster dummies etc. I know that Morley College does a dummy making weekend but I think her Dad will carry this out when she's home. Unless anyone has a better idea? My daughter feels that thinking about the design is more crucial at this stage. She wants me to go to London for a few days when we can see a couple of the dresses she likes, finalise a design, go fabric shopping etc. I think it's too early for that. Expense is a problem - I really can't afford to spend several nights in a London hotel and really can't stay with my daughter; I could commute from Cambridge, perhaps. I'll have to think about this.