Claire Kennedy Design

The Dress

When you're niece who've you've known since she was a tiny baby, gets married, NOTHING is too much or too great for her. 

So went the saga of her dress.  We visited some shops to look at some of the couture dresses, but she knew pretty much what she wanted, and I couldn't have been more in favor of it.

She choose a light airy gown, that to me, would show all my masterful skills - every seam would show a mistake and her beautiful figure would be a gorgeous palette on which to showcase this dress.

So off we set on a beautiful adventure....from finding the fabric to walking down the isle!

As I left you last here and here, I could not tell or show more of the dress till after she walked down the isle which was marvelously accomplished in late October!

This is more of a log of how I created the dress....more pictures of the wedding later.

 
I'm not much on draping, but for this style, this was the only way to make her dress do exactly as I wanted.  This was constructed with one draping over one side of the bust, another draping over the other side, accomplished by cutting two pieces on the bias (above), and draping and gathering like below.

 

This is a little like watercolor painting.  Watching the artist do watercolor makes it look so easy, but it does take years of practice and experience to really make this work well.

 

After crossing both busts, I wanted to do a twisting waist effect in front.  After twisting the fabric, then I rouched it into place.  This is always an important step and one which RTW hardly ever takes:  tacking down the rouching, but this also makes the garment look exactly  as you want.  Otherwise, the gathering is haphazard...it's more here than there.  The best method here is not to tack down too much but enough to evenly disperse it in the area to be covered.

The back is fairly straight-forwarded.  It gently sloped back to the center back zipper.  Yeah, I know I'm a little larger than my niece and didn't want to tempt the zipper!!!

Next is the train.  We wanted something that would delicately A-line to the floor then fall flat like a white liquid with little or no rippling.  IOW, the train would lay flat on the ground.  This meant a group of inserted godets.  More fabulous pictures of the train soon to come from the ceremony.

The tale is how it looks and feels on the bride - she loved it, and it was beautiful on her.

The proud Dad and Bride.

And here is proud auntie zipping up cute niece!!!   If you're on facebook, friend me, there are a smattering of photos coming in...the professional shots are in yet!

I promise there are more to come!

The Bustle, part 2

This is the result of being too picky, but what I wanted was the French type bustle with the fold being as close the floor as possible.

To get this, I had to do a lot of bustling up in various locations that was more of a trial and error effort rather than a planned thought-out effort as I originally planned.

Isn't this always the way....best laid plans and all!

But the end result was pretty nice:

MMW - Probably not the last post on this subject...

One of the most fun surprises at my muse's wedding, and there were so many, was that my niece had a gospel choir come sing "O Happy Day" at the end of the service. 

 

Here they are before the service getting ready.

The walked down the outside isles of the church and started singing while the bridal party left the church, then they recessed behind the bridal party singing the entire way. 

It was magnificent.

This was one of the first weddings in the new chapel at my niece's church, and the minister was assured that this was the the best christening it could have had!

There will be video to follow of this most whimsical and serendipitous occasion!

A bustle

I wish I wasn't so picky....the bridal gown I designed for my niece has a particularly voluminous train which we both love, but this does present certain problems when bustling up.

To me there is one purpose to the bustle, so the bride can dance and move around at the reception without having to contend with the train.  This means she can do a 180 turn and not step on her own skirt.  This does not mean that the hem is completely lifted from the floor.  As a matter of fact, the bustle is done correctly when part of the back drags the back.  The reason is that to lift the whole hem off the floor would require that part of the hem be at mid-calf length which would look irregular at best and just plain bad at worst!

Traditionally there is a thread loop sewn into the center back seam and another on either seam on either side of the back seam.  These are hooked over the outside - usually at the point in the lower waist in back.  These are the traditional English bustles.

 

But my niece's dress doesn't lend itself to this sort of bustle...so we're doing a French Bustle.

This is where the train is tucked under the skirt and held up with a ribbon or hooks on the inside of the skirt.  This isn't exactly what we will be doing, but we are using a French bustle.

There's also an Austrian bustle which as you might suspect looks like an Austrian shade, hence the name (yeah, I know, it's a duh moment, but I'm still on drugs from my cold, so am having a lot of those!)

I know - why no pictures of the dress....I'm funny that way....as soon as she marches down the isle...loads of 'em....but I like doing it this way.

As I mentioned the design of our train, made this a little more difficult than just sewing some thread loops and hooks on the inside of the dress.

For one - I don't want to put a hook or loop on a part that is not a seam...the stitching will show on the outside.

The other is that I have to do this symmetrical...this is where my perfectionism comes in.

 

And then there's no way to make sure this is correct other than with the tape and spreading the train out to make sure that it's all working. 

It came out great....but there's one more technique I used here that really makes this work.

There are times when you just can not avoid it.  You must put either a hook or thread loop in a place that the threads will show on the front side. 

 

Yes, this is terribly tiny....approximately 1/4" wide, but just wide enough for me to make a loop and catch all layers of the dress without the thread ticks showing and this looks like a minute decoration.  Actually this a piece of lace from the veil.  But this is an excellent solution to the bustle for my niece's dress.