Polka dotted fever!

I nearly did an emergency stop a few days ago, when I saw someone wearing a polka dotted dress waiting to cross the road ! I really wanted to make a dress with polka dots. A big one with a full circle skirt that would pay a homage to the polka dots!

 I went to the fabric shop straight away (after the near episode on the road) and bought a fabric with bold polka dots, keeping my fingers crossed that the client I had in mind would fall in love with the delightful polka dots just like me.

Well ! The gamble has paid off! and I may be soon working on a Polka dotted dress! Its a dress you have seen in my bespoke portfolio many a time as its my client's favourite pattern.... but this time its going to have a slight twist to how I usually finish the hem.. I am not saying a word.......

All I have to do now is to find time in my diary.......Impossible is nearly nothing ...eh..??!!

What a feeling!

I absolutely love love love doing bespoke projects. The best outcome for all the hard work and late nights is the response of my clients. Its really gives me a buzz! I recently started asking the clients for pictures of them on the occasion they wore the dress to . Its really brought me great joy to see how happy they all look and I will be updating this on my Facebook page for sure when I get the pictures . Here are the ones I have collected so far.

The red dress with the stole worn by Lady Anna Marie Brocklebank 

The floral summer dress worn by Lady Anna Marie Brocklebank

The wedding dress worn by Elsa on her wedding day

 little Leah's flower girl's dress

Angel's short lilac dress with swarovski crystals as worn on the wedding 

Its Lady Anna Marie Brocklebank again in one of my creations :) !

Anna wearing another one of my creations!

Where do I begin ....The Reversible Dress

The Reversible dress took quite a while as I had  to rethink quite a few aspects of the pattern to make it work. Not only did  I have to match all the checks (which used up a lot of my brain's grey matter) as much as I possibly could, in the plaid material I had to make the collar reversible as well...I did meet with quite a few challenges on the way .

I won't go on an on about it but here are the three things I had to work on the most:

• I  had to add a hidden hook and bar to adapt the collar into being reversible.(bar sandwiched in the collar tip and hook sewn under the top button) 
• The sleeve was a set in sleeve. It was hard  to make the patterns meet at the shoulders keeping true to the ease given to curve in  the sleeve head.
• The hem was mostly in bias so bagging it out take hours. First you have to let the hem drop atleast overnight in order to level the hem , then cutting  it all around to the new level and stitching it together.

The dress was nearly finished at this stage needed the hem bagged out and just a button left to sew on each side 

The end result is a dress (with a reversible zip ) that the client wanted to wear to a party or a funeral ....or from a funeral to a party ;)..(please excuse the pun)!

Doing alterations with a choice of price...not quality

 If something needs to be altered it needs to be done properly. There are more than one way this can be achieved. Regardless of the amount a client has spent on an outfit, one has to follow proper procedures to alter it.

I come across so many outfits that have been unsympathetically altered before. I am sure that given a choice, one would rather have it done a sympathetic way rather than the most cheap and cheerful way. One can still do a cheaper job, with care to the actual outfit. It does not mean that doing things cheaper will make it a bad quality of finish.

Added centre back seam: this was a budget alteration

When I fit clients I give them more than one option for certain alterations: for example of a dress in need of grading down a size, you can take  in the dress by introducing a centre back seam rather than taking it in on both the side seams and shoulder. Its a cheaper option and It does change the fit of the outfit to a degree when we take a compromise like this, but its the clients choice and the overall effect is not too far of. It has actually made clients save things that they loved and thought not worth it, to have altered.

took in on side seams,shoulder and sleeves.

 The quality is something that should never be compromised on.Simpler alterations can be done without making a mess of the overall finish quality of the outfit.

The zip was redone and an amount was taken in all along the centre back for a better fit. 

The Project ..so Far

A work in progress

 It took a whole day but I managed to cut both sides of the dress. I had to add a cut-line at the centre front and centre back as the fabric was not wide enough to have a double circle skirt . Each plaid piece was cut once on fabric each time in order to have a complete mirror image on the other side. I also had to match the sleeve heads as best as I could so that the plaid went uninterrupted .All four seams are matched according to the pattern of the fabric in the skirt.

Added a seam in the plaid material in accordance with the print

Now I am working on the bodice panels. They need to be mounted on self fabric or fused or both otherwise the weight of the skirt will pull the seam apart . As each dress is like a first sample  it takes longer as one discovers how the fabric behaves as the project unfolds. This is a plaid taffeta pure silk dress with the reverse in pure black silk dupion.

It will take a few days to get to a stage where it will start to come together..