Sew-In-Progress: The Bridesmaid Dress

As you might have noticed reading through my blog, I rarely sew outfits for special occasions like weddings or engagements. That’s because I try to adapt my sewing to my life-style which usually asks for more causal outfits (yes, I run around a lot trying to manage zillion things together, fate of the modern woman…). However, I always wanted to try making an outfit for a special occasion. And a special occasion is now on the horizon. My husband’s lovely niece is getting married in May and so I decided to sew my own dress for this occasion.

I named this post the bridesmaid dress but that’s not totally true. I am not actually going to be a bridesmaid but I will be in the wedding procession in the synagogue. This definitely calls for a special dress in Turkey!

I looked through the internet for inspiration. I could not find exactly what I imagined in my head but I was inspired by the bridesmaid dresses for day weddings. I somehow had to adapt them to the dress that I had in mind though.

The dress itself is not so complicated in terms of its pattern. However, what takes time is the sewing especially the lace. Here is a short list of materials that I needed for this dress.

Fabric: The main body of the dress will be made of what is called “podange” fabric with lycra. Podange is woven fabric that has a bit of a shiny look. It is not a draping fabric and I chose it because I wanted the dress to sit tight. I had light yellow in mind but I ended up with light pink because I could not resist it when I entered the store, oh well 🙂

The top of the dress will have a lace part. I chose a “French lace” for the top part.

Pattern: I developed the pattern from a close-fitting bodice block adjusted to my size.

Parts of the Dress: The dress basically has two parts that I’ll sew together. Below you can see the top and the skirt part.

The front part of the skirt.

The back part of the skirt drafted with a vent.

Here is the lace top. Sewing the lace was kind of difficult because you have to pin it with many needles. The back side of the lace top will have a little opening on the top.