I am going to try to make McCall 7505 as my first wedding dress mock up. Either it will be beautiful and I love it, or it will be unflattering and hideous and then I can move on to making the basketweave dress.
I do need some help however!
First, go the wiki and look at the actual pattern. There are none for sale anywhere on the interwebz, nor are there pictures of the back of the pattern or the shape of the pieces.
I think the bodice is fairly clear and I am going to start on it first. My only question for the bodice is should it have princess seams or darts on the front? It looks like the bride's dress has princess seams, but the bridesmaid's dress has bust and waist darts. Probably princess seams would look better. I am making the bridesmaid dress, though. What do you think?
No idea about the skirt, but princess seams on the bodice will most likely be easier to fit.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think so too.
DeleteI'm almost sure (by what I can see from the illustration of the pattern) that the skirt is made with godets, which is what makes it hug the body at the top but flare at the bottom.
ReplyDeleteMy approach to drafting the skirt would go like this:
ReplyDeleteBegin with a pattern for a floor-length, slim-fitting A-line skirt that hugs your hips nicely, with whatever darts and side-shaping that requires. Draw in the scooped seam-line that divides the skirt into the close-fitting upper and flounced lower halves, and cut along the line to separate upper and lower.
For the upper skirt - looks like this is just one piece, no side-seams. Take the upper pattern pieces and draw in the v-shaped waistline in front and back. Now you have to close any darts in the front and any shaping in the side-seam (so that you can get rid of the side-seam entirely). This is going to involve splitting to the point of the dart from the lower edge and opening the fullness out into the bottom . This will make the upper skirt a little less slim-fitting than it was before; however, it looks like this will be cut on the bias, which will help because the weight of the flounce below will pull it close to your body again. Smooth out any kinks that this has put in the lower seam-line.
Once I'd got this far, I would probably make a muslin of the upper skirt (easy, now there's just two darts and one tiny back seam), pin it to the muslin for your bodice/some other bodice or shirt that will support the waistline and check that it fits and hangs about right.
Assuming that the top part has worked out, move on to the lower half of the skirt. Start by slashing vertically and adding any width that you need to make the bottom part fit the top again - the scooped seam on the top will now be longer than the one on the bottom, and they have to match up. Then you want to start adding fullness by slashing vertically and opening up the pattern from the bottom - as if you were putting in godets, as anto said. In the illustration it looks like there are no seams at all in the lower skirt, but I think that might be artistic license - I have my doubts that you could get enough fullness with just one kinda-circular piece. So I'd just keep slashing and adding fullness where it's needed, and if that takes the skirt round to being a circle and that's full enough then awesome, but otherwise split it down the sides or wherever and keep going. Finally, smooth out the hemline again. Doing all this slashing-and-opening means you have a lot of control over where the fullness goes, and when you put it all together the length should be the same as the a-line skirt you started with.
Hopefully that made sense! I'm really tempted to go home and do a little miniature mock-up, to see how it works, but it's eight in the morning here and I'm at work :( I'll totally be obsessing about it all day, though.
Wow, that is incredibly helpful! You made it sound like something I could accomplish!
DeleteIf only you could see the back of the pattern envelope for the technical drawing *sighhhhhh* Id say the princess seams will be again, the easiest option for fitting, but i'd also suggest that perhaps if you do princess seams on the front, then you will probably want to mimic that on the back as well.
ReplyDeleteWith the skirt from the fashion illustrations, I would have gone with a circle as well...with perhaps the seam at CB? just so the seam follows through.
Id say the best thing to do is make up the skirt and drap it in similar fabric. That way you can figure out what you like, and get the right fullness.
Perhaps you could contact Mccalls and see if they could share any information with you?
Good luck! I look forward to seeing how it progresses :)
My only thought about a center back seam is that it's meant to be a wedding dress with a train. Would one really have a seam right down the back? I have no clue.
Deletehmm i read one below which said maybe have them line up with the back darts? I do like that option a bit more! follow the princess kind of line down through the skirt?
DeleteHere is what I think, for the bodice you could do a princess seam or a dart. I went to google and looked at images of vintage sweetheart necklines and the princess seams look more structured and the darts give a softer look. I looked at the skirt of the pattern you like and read what the description said and I think it is a "high low flounce" I also went to Evadress and looked at the pattern pieces for Br30-6633 and it is really helpful. You could make a mini version of the skirt and try a high low flounce cut on the bias and a version with a godet, it should give you a fairly good idea! good luck!
ReplyDeleteI have four yards to work with, so I can putter around and see. Thanks mom!
DeleteI think what I think is probably the same as Steeple, but for what it's worth...
ReplyDeleteFor the bodice, I'd personally go for princess seams as they're easier to fit (and on my figure look better), but I don't think it matter. Are you going to do this from a pattern you have that fits well or more "from scratch"? As if you're going with one that you've already got I'd just stick with whatever that already is unless you have a preference.
With regards to the skirt, There's a section in Gertie's book about how to do something similar. I'd get a skirt that fits similarly (and well) through the hips, then on that work out where you want the seamline. Cut along that line, and then slash and spread (creating extra triangles) the lower part of the skirt to give the fullness you want. I don't know where the seam would go though... maybe somewhere in the back sort of below where the back darts would normally go?
I sent you an email with a diagram in response to the comment you left at my blog... just wondering if you did get it?
ReplyDeleteYes, thank you! It makes it seem possible now!
DeleteI don't have any advice, but I'm looking forward to seeing your progress. I think we can all learn from this! Good luck :)
ReplyDelete-Sara, Road to the Heart