Saturday 25 October 2014

New Look 6143 - A Vision of Lace and Silk.

The most special and important part of my life as it is for most people is watching my children grow up into their own individual selves.
My middle daughter has just finished secondary school and is now preparing for the next stage of her life.
Part of the final school activities include a whole school assembly where they celebrate their academic , sporting and community achievements , a Valedictory dinner and the final celebratory day of school ( renamed because too many pupils muck up on Muck Up Day - one year it was quick set cement in the toilets causing over $30,000 worth of damage ! )

So with only three weeks until her Valedictory dinner my daughter asked if I would sew her dress and showed me a photo. This was quite a scary challenge because I think my daughter overestimates my sewing ability and I did not want to disappoint her on a very special day and did I happen to mention I only had three weeks . So the easy part was finding a pattern and New Look 6143 was virtually exactly the same as her choice of dress - a sweetheart neckline  satin lined lace dress with three quarter sleeves.


The next part was finding fabric and the time to squeeze this in amongst study and work. So one day we travelled to Melbourne and went to Spotlight . We bought the pattern and looked at their evening fabric selections. They had a  wide selection  but I suggested we keep looking and went to Darn Cheap Fabrics. 
Now Darn Cheap fabrics sounds well tacky but they actually have lots of beautiful fabrics and we found some lace and then real silk satin - in so many colours.  Once you have felt silk satin there  is  no going back to the Spotty Poly . There happened to be a full length mirror near the satins so she held up nearly every colour with the lace to her face and finally chose a muted rose colour . 


After making a quick toile and some fitting changes the sewing started. It really is a bit intimidating 
 cutting into silk but with such limited time you just have hold your breath, cross your fingers, hope for the best and do it. 


The pattern and instructions are fine. We made some minor changes to the pattern(  apart from her personal fitting alterations ). I narrowed the sleeves so they were more slim fitting . I also finished the neckline with concealed bias binding rather than it showing and using another sewing pattern added a wide sash. 

Also because we were using the sweetheart neck line bodice I had  to make some construction changes  - the bodice was fully self lined and then hand tacked to the lace. We were both mainly happy with the finished result but I should have also shortened the bodice for her and if I make this again I would consider sewing the lace and satin skirts separately .



We had a lovely night and I will have everlasting memories of my daughter running around the room  laughing and giggling  collecting about 30 helium filled balloons at the end of the night.

9 comments:

  1. What a gorgeous dress. I am sure it was a night for her to remember.

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  2. Beautiful dress. I'm contemplating a silk dress at the moment, and am a bit intimidated.

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  3. Your daughter did not overestimate your sewing abilities! This is a very lovely dress.

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  4. A perfect dress for a celebration!

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  5. That must have been quite a stressful exercise, with such a tight deadline and fine fabrics to work with. But the finished result looks wonderful, and I am pleased you all had such a good night to remember.

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  6. What a stellar effort! The fabrics are beautiful together... you should really be pleased. You are right about Darn Cheap... they have some excellent fabrics.

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  7. Thank you for your comments. Anna my daughter did want the bodice to be very slim fitting and I wasn't able to achieve that. Still I learnt new sewing skills with this dress and all I could do was try my best. I wish she would let me photograph her face because she's a lovely young woman.

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  8. This is a lovely dress - it is elegant and comfortable and I am sure that Anna will enjoy wearing it. And even more important is the act of collaboration where you and she talked together and made plans. It is worth treasuring this experience. Lovely work.

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