My first dress - my wedding dress and the start of a sewing club

This summer marked the conclusion of my first dress pattern dress - my wedding dress.

The dress pattern

It was the most wonderful feeling walking around in a beautiful 50s dress that I'd made myself and for the fraction of the price of a typical wedding dress.

Christmas 2011 mum bought me a sewing machine.  To make the most of my new machine, I new I needed to start with a project.  At that time no other friends had sewing machines so I needed a simple project that I could do by myself.  A project with straight lines seemed to be the answer and so cushions were my first creations cushions-for-little-ones.  Following on from those first few cushions a few months later we moved to our new home and there were no curtains and so I made curtains for a 3 metre wide window by 2 metres length with lining.  Not an easy second project but mum gave me instructions - I would like to add that 100% machine work was done by me!  In the autumn I started a sewing class where the project was a tote bag.  I am still very proud of that tote bag with appliqué.  And then... I was at the point where I wanted to make my clothes.

You see I'm an odd shape, like so many of us are, who really fits into a single size that the shops want to fit us into anyway?  For me I have very narrow shoulders, a narrow back, nipped in waist and large-ish hips.  I'm an hour glass.  So my back and shoulders are probably about an 8, my waist a 10 and my hips a 12.  Historically this wouldn't be a problem and the hourglass shape certainly has a leaning towards those classic outfits of the 50s.  Thus explaining my love of vintage 40s and 50s dress styles!

Front of the toile

Sewing a pattern means you can custom make to fit you perfectly.  In fact, its the only way to guarantee something fits you properly unless you can afford to have all your clothes made by a professional dress maker.

Back of the toile

November 2012 I proposed to Matt. This was also around the time  when I got it in my head I wanted to learn to make clothes.  Initially I thought it would be so lovely to make my wedding dress but I hadn't followed a dress pattern before so couldn't imagine having the confidence to do something like that for my first project.  I was a complete rooky.  Then my matron of honour, Dawn suggested that she and another of my work colleagues (the lovely Janet) could help me.  The idea was born!

We started work on the dress in February - the wedding date was 20th July.  No pressure!

Sewing Team

Janet hosted our sewing soirees in her sewing room and fed us baked potatoes for sustenance.  We met every Friday after work.

Janet and Dawn taught me to cut the pattern correctly along the grain, to mark up the fabric and I made a toile with their tutoring.  A toile is a practice dress usually made out of calico or a cheap fabric to help with the fitting.  By late April I completed the toile and then Janet and Dawn checked the fitting.  This involved lots of pins - some of which got me!  Maybe it was on purpose!!

We used the toile to redo the pattern.  Janet was amazing at this.  I think she had major head aches with all the maths!  She amended the original pattern so it fitted me perfectly.  You have to decide where the stitch line should be, but once you are happy you need to add 1.5cm or 5/8" for seam allowance.  Dawn made these new pattern pieces with greaseproof paper sellotaped together (sellotape doesn't stick to it very well) but this served the purpose wonderfully.

I then got to work on the lining and then the outer dress material.  The lining was from the Birmingham Rag Market and the outer dress material was in duchess satin from Barry's Fabric.

Meanwhile Dawn and Janet worked on the petticoat together.  This was made with a soft satin lining, very stiff netting with ribbon trim at the base.  The hem measured 8 metres all the way around so there was a lot of fabric.  It looked like a very challenging piece to make.

The pressure to complete the dress in the last month before the wedding was tremendous.  At the time I was also organising the wedding single handed in the last month because Matt was working in Germany.  I didn't have much warning of this and the church hadn't been paid for, venue menus hadn't been agreed, etc.  There was a lot of running around as well as full weekends of dress making.

It was a really challenging thing to do but the sense of achievement to wear my own dress was huge.  I would have had to pay a great deal of money to get a dress that fitted me so perfectly and instead I paid £100 in materials and the other big cost was our time and energies.

Janet and Dawn didn't just teach me how to follow a dress pattern, they were there to bounce ideas off and ears to my tales of the stresses and strains of planning a wedding.  They gave me a lot - not just time, Janet's husband Graham making us cups of coffee, baked potatoes, knowledge but tremendous support in so many ways.

If you are considering making a dress and organising a wedding all in 6 months, consider it carefully.  It was intensive and very tiring.   You need some dress making friends to work with too ;)

After we'd spent six months together working on the dress, we didn't want to stop sewing together so we are continuing to meet.  We meet on Fridays in Janet's sewing room.  We've got a new member of the sewing team too, Cynthia.  We're all working on our own projects now. Dawn's making a variety of clothes for her niece, Cynthia's making a top for her grand daughter, Janet's making a coat and me?  Well I'm making my next dress.  A 1940s tea dress - I want to put all that new knowledge to good use and also expand my wardrobe with another classic!