Custom Made: 1920s Inpired Petal Dress

A couple of days before I left for Savannah I was working on finishing this dress.  This is the second, custom made garment that was auctioned off at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art's Fundraiser Gala.  As I met with the 2^nd woman to go over what she wanted, she told me that she was looking for something with a nod to the 1920s/30s.  She's getting married in October and the theme of her wedding is based from that era, and she was hoping on possibly wearing this as a reception dress.  So of course my mind immediately went to the gorgeous petal technique that I saw on the dress that Daisy was wearing in her opening scene of The Great Gatsby.  I fell in love with that technique right away on screen, and I had been wanting try my own spin on it for a while now. 

I drafted the pattern according to the woman's measurements.  The dress is made from chiffon and the lining from satin.  The lining is a completely separate dress from the overlay.  I find that whenever I make a dress from chiffon it's nice to have the option to choose between different colored slips. 

Every seam on the dress is finished off by either using a french seam, or by hand sewing the seams shut.  Chiffon tends to fray easily after a couple of wears and if all the seams are closed the garment will last much longer.  Each petal was hand cut and the edges on all the petals had to be slightly melted using a cigarette lighter to keep them from fraying.  After all the petal edges were sealed I started pinning and hand sewing each petal individually to the dress.  Many hours of hand sewing went into this dress, but it was such a fun dress to work on!  I'd like to play around with embellishing different garments with petals as well.     

All photos take by myself

I just ordered a new sewing machine the other day for my apartment here in Savannah.  It should be arriving tomorrow which I'm extremely excited about.  I'm partnering with a local boutique from Fort Wayne that's going to be selling my garments when I come back home on break.  I'm hoping in my free time to spend as much time as I can sewing between classes.

Also as a side note - I've put new photo prints for sale in my Etsy shop!  I'll be adding new clothes as well within the next week or two.  I have a whole week before classes start so I'm hoping to focus more time into my Etsy shop this week. 

  

I hope your Monday is wonderful and much more to come this week!