Fabric Challenge - Kimono silk wedding dress - part 3

Thanks to everyone for the wonderful comments on my previous posts.  This kimono silk wedding dress was so much fun to create and I did wonder if the unusual fabric and color would appeal, but the response has been wonderful and I appreciate it very much.

I will tease you with one wedding day photo of Susan and her mother.  More photos to come of the wedding in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.

Once I had the bodice assembled, it was time to figure out how to do the skirt.  When making the muslin, I seamed together 14" wide lengths of the pink cotton, in order to be working with the same type of yardage as when I used the silk, and then gathered it into the waist.  Recall that Susan wanted to be able to bicycle to her ceremony, so the skirt needed to be full.  Once she tried on the muslin, we both thought she wasn't really the gathers or ruffles type, but reserved judgement until we got to that point in our collaborative design process.  By now I had underlined the whole bodice in the silk organza and it gave the fabric such a nice weight.

This fabric was interesting to sew, and had some quirks that added to the fabric challenge aspects.  The silk is so tightly woven that it was almost impossible to get a pin through it.  I generally use long pins, probably a bit too big for fine fabrics, so I knew I would need to pull out the silk pins from my stash.  However they would not even pierce the fabric.  Amazing.  At the fabric store I bought a package of each type of extra-fine pins and tried them all out, finally found one that seemed sharp enough to get through the fabric.  On the sewing machine I used a Schmetz Microtex Sharp Needle 70/10.  My metal thimble was absolutely necessary for the hand stitching, or I would have had a punctured finger in no time.  In doing some research online I learned vintage kimonos made from this type of fabric are unstitched, completely disassembled to be cleaned and then re-sewn together.  I thought that seemed unlikely but now I understand that despite being very thin and light this fabric is unbelievably strong.


Which is a long way of saying that this fabric would not gather.  Have you ever tried to gather some heavy fabric and it would not cooperate?  Despite its light weight I tried and gave up. At that point pleats seemed the only option, so I played around on the dress form with various size pleats. Final version had the center front smooth and then large pleats taking up the fullness around to the center back.

This also served to hide the seams of the 14" panels and gave the dress a hint of kimono styling which seemed fitting.  


I had basted the skirt with pleats onto the bodice and at that point realized that it needed a bit more oomph, so I underlined the whole skirt with silk organza as well.  This gave the skirt the perfect fullness and body without being too stiff.  I can't wait to try this technique again on another dress. 

For the hem I machine stitched the organza to the pink silk, inside the seam allowance, and then turned up the hem and hand stitched it to the organza so there is no hem showing on the right side.  I didn't press the hem or the pleats to keep the soft look.  The dress was completely lined in pink bridal satin, a very heavy lining that gave it even more body.  Clothes that feel good are so nice to wear, and this dress has the added treat of making that swish-swish sound that only silk on silk provides.  Lovely!

Finished dress on the form.  This photo is the best of the bunch, when I finished the dress it was a gloomy day and the lighting was less than ideal.  As it happens, I had it about 75% percent finished when my back problems struck. I did finish the dress but I wasn't working at my full speed, in fact I stopped working on it entirely for about 5 weeks. Consequently the photography was less than ideal.  But the important thing - finishing the dress - that was accomplished.  Whew!  And Susan was as sweet as could be, considering she was anxiously waiting for her wedding dress. 

Next post, photos of the wedding.  And yes, there are bicycles!

Link to the first post on this dress, how it started,  Kimono Silk wedding dress.

Second post on this dress, design and initial construction. Kimono Silk wedding dress, part 2.


Thanks for reading.  Happy Sewing,  Beth

Fabric challenge - Kimono silk wedding dress - part 2

Sometimes procrastination is my friend.  I can tell you now that I very much procrastinated when starting and then making this dress. Sometimes there are technical issues that I seem to work out in my mind and this fabric created a lot of them. So I let my thoughts marinate, or percolate, or just stew until I come up with some solutions. 

The overriding issue in this fabric was the pattern, which was large, boldly colored and repeated every 14', which was the same as the width, so it was tricky to lay out the floral elements as a design motif in the finished dress shape.  At first I tried to cut around the floral design for the bodice pieces, so that it would not be uneven or have any bull's eye effect on the bust.  After playing around with it for what seemed like hours, I finally realized that I needed to use the floral design as a focus, in fact choose where to put it instead of trying to avoid it, and then everything flowed from that. The largest single pattern piece in the bodice was the center front, so I placed the floral element in the center front, where it would be folded into the pleats and give a symmetry to the whole dress.  Even though the bodice was composed of smaller pieces, I wanted the overall look to have the same spacing in the flower pattern as the finished skirt, so I cut the midriff pieces in mostly solid pink areas of the fabric. 

Here is a look at the side, the yellow flowers on the front and back ended up matching so well at this point, with a similar match on the other side, partly due to placement when I cut out but also just luck at the size and shape of the pattern pieces. 

Lest you think that things always go well here at Casa SunnyGal, I had a moment of horror when I had the entire dress basted together for a fitting.  Something I didn't notice when I was cutting out the bodice pieces, but there was a very slight color difference between the first yard of the bolt and the silk further inside the roll.  Maybe inside the roll it was completely protected and the first part faded over the years.  In any case, when I started the dress I was trying to conserve yardage since we weren't sure how full or long the skirt was to be, so I cut the bodice pieces from the first part of the roll.  I cut out the entire bodice, hand stitched each piece with silk organza underlining, and then sewed 5 lengths together to make the skirt.  As soon as I had finished the bodice (including basting in the zipper) I noticed that the midriff portion was a bit yellowed.  No one else could really see it, until I pointed it out, and then everyone could see it.  (everyone being my usual gang of style consultants, including sis, mom and assorted friends).

It may not appear that horrifying here, but look at how yucky and yellowish the piece on the left is, especially where it was seamed to the upper bodice and skirt.  I could see it miles away, just taunting me.  And to think that this was the first time I did a silk organza underlining.  All hand stitched.  So much work.  Sob . . .       The silk organza was lovely to work with, I ordered it from Fashion Sewing Supply, and you will see in the next post I ended up using it for the entire dress.   

That is the pink satin lining you see peeking out at the top of the strap. Since the fabric was 14" wide something had to give, so I pieced the top of the shoulders together with the pink silk fabric.  Call it a design element or something. In the scheme of things it worked out fine.

So I did the fitting.  Did not mention it to Susan.  She did not notice at all.  Anyway I knew I was going to take it all apart and re-do the midriff portions.  Which I did. So much better . . sigh of relief and lesson learned, scrutinize those vintage fabrics carefully in all types of light.

Next post, skirt portion and finished dress.  I will try to post this weekend and I do have some fantastic wedding photos to share.  

I am currently working on about a zillion (only slight exaggeration) projects but making great progress on a silk charmeuse shirt - with hidden button placket that is turning out very nicely :)

Happy Weekend Sewing,  Beth


Here is a link to the next post in this series.

Fabric challenge – Kimono silk wedding dress

Sometimes a project comes along that delights me from the beginning.  I was contacted last year by Susan, who found me on the web and asked if I would be interested in making a wedding dress for her using some Japanese kimono silk.  We talked briefly on the phone and then decided to meet in person so she could show me the fabric and talk about possibilities.  Once in a while you meet a person and have an instant connection. That night she decided to have me design and make her dress.  Talk about faith – I have never made a wedding dress before, but faith is her business, so to speak, as she is a hospital chaplain. She had a roll of kimono silk which she received as a gift many years ago when her family lived briefly in Japan.  Pink floral silk, 14 inches wide!  Very beautiful but certainly unusual for a wedding dress.  I was shaken a bit by this fabric challenge, but she told me she and her fiance were committed to a green lifestyle as much as possible, her words were “we are having a casual hippie wedding in Golden Gate Park” and she liked the idea of using this vintage fabric instead of buying something new.  So challenge accepted and I got to work on the design. 

First task was to measure the roll and see how much I had to work with.  Once I unrolled the bolt I was really struck by the quality of the fabric. 

Here is a closer look at the end of the fabric.  The length of fabric was folded in the center and rolled on a 1" dowel. There were a series of colors on the end which seemed to be hand painted.  The gold stamp in the lower left corner says "Daikey Kyoto".

That sent me to the web to do some research and I came to the conclusion that this fabric was hand painted in the Yuzen Dye method. The artist creates the outline of the design on the plain white silk fabric, then goes over it with a rice-paste resist which acts as a barrier to contain the colored dyes.  The colors are painted on and then it is heated to affix the design.  One of the final steps is to add the background color. The fabric is heated several times during this process to make it colorfast.  I have simplified this greatly and found some very interesting websites describing this method, Yuzen Dyeing at Ishida Mansen Koujo, Kyoto and Kyoto Yuzen Dyeing.  If you are interested in textiles they are worth reading. 

So onto the dress design.  Creating the skirt portion seemed quite possible, using the fabric lengthwise but the bodice was a puzzle.  And there was the pattern to consider.  The floral motifs were quite large, about 12 inches across and I didn't want them to look uneven.  In the end I cut out the front bodice piece across one of the floral sections and then cut out each piece based on that.  A couple of additional challenges to note, Susan is tall, 5'8" with a long torso, and she wanted to be able to enter the wedding ceremony on a bicycle.  Other than that it was up to me.  And as things turned out, she was a dream client who loved every detail I chose.  What more could a dressmaker ask for?  

Here is a look at the first muslin design. I made it in pink cotton so we could get an idea how it would look in the final fabric.  I cut out 14 inch wide panels and sewed 5 together to create the skirt to replicate the actual fabric.  For the bodice, I needed pieces that could be fit on the fabric width with the pattern in a horizontal orientation.   Not too promising when I finished this but when does a cotton muslin look good?  For the bodice portion I did use a pattern, New Look 6002.

The fit was just about right, I shortened the midriff portion a bit as I had lengthened it too much but otherwise it was good.  I had some doubts about the gathered skirt but that request for a bicycle-friendly design kept that for now.  As it turned out I changed that which you will see in my next post.  Until then,

Happy sewing,  Beth

Here is a link to the next post in this series.

Actually made some separates!

When it comes to dresses or tailored items I have no end of inspiration and ideas but as for separates - I rarely sew them.  And yet I look in my closet for something to wear.  I am trying to remedy that lately, a recent project was this shirt and I am about ready to use some blue silk charmeuse on a long sleeve shirt, hopefully before December is over.  But in the meantime I did make this knit top and denim skirt.  According to my photographer, I am a blinker - so this photo was the best of the bunch.

The top is the ubiquitous Jalie scarf-collar top, and I do feel that as usual I am the last person in the sewing universe to make a popular pattern.  Fabric is a rayon knit from Stone Mountain in Berkeley which I bought on a rainy Sunday shopping excursion with Jean of JKaori Designs. Not sure I will make that top again, the tie is a bit flip-floppy for me and it is kind of distinctive.  However the Jalie pattern fits well and I can see using it as a starting point for other tops.

The skirt is black denim with maybe 4% lycra which I am starting to think is too much stretch. Plus I have my hands in the pockets, creating some creases across the front which are really not there. I used Simplicity 2152 but the pockets are nothing like the pattern where the pockets are sewn on the outside of the skirt, albeit into the seams.   
I wanted the pockets to be inside the side fronts, plus I eliminated the pocket trim.  
Here is a closer look at the pockets.  As it turned out the pocket placement is much higher and nearer the waistband than on the original pattern design.

For the inside of the waistband I used a different fabric, I wanted something less bulky than the denim but not slippery, so that it would stay on the waist.  I have always found that skirts lined all the way to the waistband have an annoying tendency to rotate around and then my center front is somewhere on the side.  Or maybe that is just me? But to counter that I used this cotton fabric scrap and then lined the skirt portion in satin, as I wanted to be able to wear tights in the winter and I don't like it when the denim sticks to tights.  Whew, that is a lot of thinking about the inside of a skirt.  Oh well, the fun of sewing, you can do whatever you want! 

As evidenced when I made this dress last year - with the mix and match lining.

I have a feeling I will probably wear this skirt a lot more in the summer than now. . . is it spring yet?   And see in the first photo - we do get some autumn color here in CA.  

Happy Fall Sewing, Beth

Quick Baby Dress Project

Last week I had some fun making a little outfit to give as a baby shower gift.  While I like the surprise of hearing the answer to "boy or girl" when the baby is born that surpise rarely happens now, I think in the past year I have only known one family that waited for the big reveal.   For sewing it is useful to  know in advance, but I always think the suspense is fun.  Oh well, when I hear baby girl I know it is time to get sewing.


Here is the 2-piece outfit.   Simple dress from a New Look pattern. The dress is a cotton T-shirt knit with pink flowers, lemons and oranges.  The jacket is a T-shirt rib knit.

I used bias trim on the dress neckline and then made bias strips of the print fabric to bind the jacket edges.

The flower is the selvedge gathered into a flower with a fabric covered button. For the jacket I used a the front and back pattern pieces for a shirt in a vintage baby pattern, mostly to get the sleeve opening right.  I know there are zillions of cute baby clothes to buy at stores from Target to Saks, but it is fun to whip up something handmade.  

However - fabric shopping for childrens' clothing in a hurry - not so easy.  This was the only cute t-shirt knit fabric at the local Joann's store.  I always vow never to return but of course need something quickly like a zipper or thread. But really - their selection is so limited.  

On the fabric front - I just ordered a few things including a blue silk charmeuse to use for the shirt I am planning, as well as some black denim and olive corduroy for skirts and a couple of jersey knits. Yesterday I started playing around with the sloper from the Pattern Magic book, as I really want to try the twist top for starters.  

Now can I vent about Project Runway?  I alway watch every episode of that show but I think this year I am not feeling the love for any of the participants so I am not wild about them or the show. The challenges have been so strange. Clothes for guys in a band?  Really?  Although the judges have had some hilarious comments this season, thank you Mr. Kors. The finale . . . of course I will watch but not exactly inspiring.  On to Project Runway All-Stars in 2012, hope that is more entertaining.

Seeking the perfect shirt - first try with McCall 5522

After my last project, the women's shirt made from Liberty of London cotton fabric, I have it in my head to make myself a silk blouse or two.  I have a couple of purchased blouses in silk charmeuse which has a touch of lycra and they feel good to wear.  So I figured I should test out a pattern, or two or three, until I find something just right to use before I cut into some lovely silk.


This is my first test with McCall's 5522 which I think is out of print but probably available.
The fabric I bought last summer at Joann's, turned out to be a "what was I thinking" but usable. I was distracted by the colors and the geometric print, less than enamored with the slippery shiny poly-ness of it.  But it makes a good stand in as a test fabric for a silk charmeuse shirt.

Here is the pattern envelope, you can't really see the seaming in this print, but it has quite a few pattern pieces.  I liked that it has a stand collar, and the collar itself is a nice shape.  I am not so crazy about that underbust seam and the princess seam below. Perhaps in a cotton lawn or a sheer georgette fabric it might work out better. But then probably not something I would wear.   I had very little fabric, so made do with short sleeves.  Maybe because there is no stretch in this fabric, and I am getting very used to having a touch of Lycra in almost every fabric, but it seems a tiny bit tight across the upper back.  I think I will try another shirt pattern, probably one with a darted front and more easy fit will be better for charmeuse.

For the collar I used a technique that I posted about some time ago, which was a new to me method for attaching the collar and stand to the shirt. It worked like a dream and I have used every since.  Here is that post., shown on a cotton shirt I made for someone else.

This is how I will wear it this winter, sort of a homage to my dear dad, who was a cashmere sweater and saddle shoes kind of guy. Not a fancy dresser, mostly a traditionalist, with a liking for Harris tweed, freshly polished shoes and someone who really noticed the fabrics in clothes.  I happened to have the perfect color cashmere sweater in my drawer- now where are my saddle shoes?

Liberty of London shirt - finished

I just realized today that I hadn't posted any pictures of the finished blouse.  I made this blouse for someone who bought the fabric when traveling in London earlier this year. To recreate her blouse, I made a pattern from a ready-to-wear shirt she had, and then made a test version in gingham.  After that I had my unexpected break from sewing - so this one has been in the works for a while.  Here is the finished blouse. This fabric is a dream to work with, so crisp and yet lightweight.  Now I see why these cottons are famous.

I just noticed in the blog post title I called it a shirt, yet in previous posts I called it a blouse.

Which is it?  Is there a difference?  I always think of a shirt as a button-down or menswear style, with no darts.   Now I have to do some research on that.  Any ideas?  How do you distinguish between a shirt and a blouse?

Inside is all french seams except for the armholes which I serged.  The back yoke is clean finished on the inside, with no seams showing.  Difficult to see in the photo below as the fabric  is very similar inside and out, but a nice way to do a shirt which has a back yoke.

To do this, you sew the yoke facing to the yoke along the bottom seam, and then lay it open on that seam, as in the photo above right.   then roll the fronts and back of the blouse up, and sew the yoke shoulder seams.  Then you pull the front and backs through the center, basically turning the yoke right side out, and viola, your yoke is enclosed and no seams are showing inside.  Another 3-dimensional puzzle for sewers.  There are a lot of those in garment making, aren't there?


Another view, of the collar and the front pocket, where I matched the stripe effect so it disappears into the print.



All in all, I am glad to have made a blouse and/or shirt, it has been years.  Inspired by this project  I just made one for myself, different pattern, which I will post soon.


Today's garden photo, a penstemon which is still flowering, and the hummingbirds are still coming around to enjoy its purpley goodness. 


Happy October sewing,
Beth