[Liesl Gibson]

I think French seams would be great for this dress, especially in silk. Silk has a tendancy toward seam slippage, and a French seam would discourage this from happening. You might want to trim the seams near the facing and the hem, but otherwise it should work well.

Can’t wait to see them!

[E1izabeth]

I have to second Liesl’s suggestion for the bubble dress. Even though it is OOP I still see it available on line here and there at different sites. I think it would be wonderful in the shangtung or dupoini since those silks have nice body to them. The minute you mentioned your fabric choice I started thinking bubble dress. How fun to sew flower girl dresses!

[Anonymous]

I’ve used silk to make my seven year old’s dresses for a while now. It’s actually very easy to sew with, especially dupioni and tafetta. I don’t have pictures of her Christmas dress online but this year, I used ivory dupioni from Joann’s because the fabric I originally ordered was thinner than I expected (silk batiste which I should have known) and I didn’t have time to do another online order.

Usually, I go through http://www.silkbaron.com. They have so many colors and I’ve never had a problem with ordering, shipping, color accuracy, etc. Their prices are very good as well.

Dupioni needs a good seam finish though. French seams would be a great option because pinking them probably will not suffice, not if you want them to last. I used the silk batiste I ordered to line the dress and it came together beautifully. The latter fabric I bought from http://www.baltazor.com and I have gotten great customer service from them as well.

Good Luck!

[scgoble]

The flower girl dresses are finished! Well, except for attaching the buttons. I had to first try it on my daughter this morning since my French seams took up more than the 1/2″ called for (I should have cut the pieces a little bigger because I know I’m bad at precise measurements like that). So, I knew that I would need to attach the buttons in just the right spot to make up for that slightly smaller chest measurement.

Long story short, I will have photos to post soon! I think they are wonderful, but I am biased. 🙂

[Justine J]

OOOOOO – post them asap!!!! Can’t wait to see them!

[scgoble]

Here is a close-up of the tie: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22395843@N08/5415178334/. There are a couple more on my site as well: scgoble.blogspot.com. It’s so dark and rainy here today I wasn’t able to get outside and get a shot of the entire thing.

I did have a couple issues, mostly related to my badly measured French seams. I was left with a bodice facing that was a little bit wider than the dress, so my inelegant solution was to just make a pleat-within-a-pleat to take up the slack. I was also left with weird junctions at the top/sleeves when I attached the different panels.

As with my practice dress, I still didn’t do a good job with the shoulder seams. They look pretty terrible from the inside, but I suppose (hope) that’s in a place no one will notice!

[scgoble]

The dress shop surprised us with a call last week saying the bridesmaid dresses were in. If you’re interested, here are me (left) and my youngest sister modeling them. Please forgive our dishevelment (is that a word?) – we had just survived a 2-year-old’s birthday party. They will need some alterations (mostly for me in the ahem, top region) but it is certainly the cutest bridesmaid dress I’ve ever worn. I have had some doozies.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22395843@N08/5428068865/

[Willanna]

Hi there–hope someone is still checking this thread! I am attempting to make a flower girl dress for my 2-year-old using the Bubble Dress pattern. I am planning to use white silk dupioni for the dress and white poly-cotton batiste for the lining. However, when I received the silk in the mail, it is quite wrinkled. I’m sure the iron will help with that, but I’m wondering how wrinkled it will become with wearing and am trying to decide if I need to underline it. I’m a fairly novice seamstress so underlining gives me the heebie-jeebies, but I don’t want my daughter looking too wrinkly in the wedding.

Any advice?

[Nicole]

Silk does crease,but I think that is part of its charm,like linen.

There is an iron on product that will add body to fabric(It is like a fine interfacing,cannot remember its name),but whether this will affect your ‘bubble’.

[Violaisabelle]

Are you planning to have your daughter wear this dress just a few times or many times? If you are thinking you want her to wear this dress many times, after the wedding, I would first treat your fabric the way you plan to clean it, after the dress is made up. If you plan to dry clean this dress, then you really ought to dry clean your fabric first, before cutting into it.

If you are wanting to keep the stiffness of the fabric, you will have to accept wrinkles as part of the product. I really don’t think underlining it will prevent the wrinkling from happening, if that’s your hope.

Ideally, you would keep your daughter out of her dress, until shortly before the wedding, provided the pictures are after the ceremony. If the pictures are before the ceremony, and the pictures are at a different location than the church, you may want to have clothes she can change into, keeping her dress from getting soiled or wrinkled.

Personally, I treat my linen and silk differently. I do not want to have to dry clean my clothes, I don’t like the chemicals. I am not recommending this for your project, but as a side note, I always wash my silk in cold water, in a front loading machine, then I hang it to dry and when it’s mostly dried, I will take an iron to it. When you wash dupioni, you will lose a bit of the stiffness, which is why I am guessing you would not want to do that with your project. Same for linen, I was in really hot water, dry in hot dryer, and then once the garment is made, I wash and hang to dry. I don’t like the stiff feel of linen. I like it softer.

Have fun with the project! I look forward to seeing the pretty dress you make up.

Carol

[scgoble]

Our girls wore their dresses this past weekend and while they looked great for the ceremony, it wasn’t very long until they looked like a crumpled mess! I agree with Carol that you’ll want to keep her out of it until just before she needs it for pics or walking down the aisle. If I did it over again, I would make another dress for them to wear at the reception, since the photographer continued to take photos throughout the night and I’m sure it will look like they just rolled out of bed!

My dress was made of the same silk as the flower girls, but while mine got “charmingly” creased, 2-year-olds are a whole other story! LOL

[Tamara]

I had a look at your photos and the dress turned out beautiful – I love the colour accent. An extra dress for little girls is always handy for special occasions – we had a little apron to go over the dress my daughter wore when she was flowergirl at just 2 years. Unfortunately, she was offered chocolate cake from a ‘caring’ family member before the photos were taken and needless to say I was not a happy mum.

I know some people make the flowergirl dress in a duplicate – one for the ceremony in special fabric like silk and another in more casual type fabric such as cotton.

[Nicole]

I figure if you ask a toddler to be in a wedding,you get what you get!(by the end of the night)!

Giving cake to a flower girl BEFORE the photos,oooh,that would have made me fritzy!

[scgoble]

Funny that you say that… the “coordinator” (I put that in quotes because she was less than competent) gave the girls chocolate candy before the ceremony even started! One promptly got it on her dress, of course. I was so trying to not get stressed about anything that day, but that little move really stretched my patience.

I pulled my daughter’s dress from our laundry pile last night (yes, it has been almost two weeks, don’t judge 😉 ) and it is so filthy I don’t know if it will ever come clean! Oh well, like Nicole said, that’s what you get with a toddler in a wedding!

[scgoble]

Hey guys – just thought you all might like to see a tidbit of the flower girl and bridesmaid dresses in action. Here is the slideshow the photographer put together.

http://www.zielenbach.com/amanda-and-heath/