Making My Wedding Dress - The Skirt

Welcome back to the next installment of the Wedding Dress Saga! I've still been revisiting my muslin one day of the weekend for the last couple of weeks to get the final pattern sorted.

So last we spoke I had Simplicity 5006 made and sitting quite well all over except for a few nitpicky things. Don't despair, I haven't gone and made another pattern. Three different patterns for my bodice muslin was quite enough for me!
I've spent the most part of the time since my last Wedding Dress post focussing on the skirt for this dress. I've known all along I wanted a tea length skirt that was quite full at the hem. I was pretty sure that I could draft myself a circle skirt and that would be the end of it. Not so. It's never that simple right??
I drafted a circle skirt and popped it onto my mannequin over the top of the bodice just to see what it would look like. It sat right on that waist line you can see marked on the muslin above. Firstly I hated how short it made the mannequin look (so you could imagine it on me) and secondly there was a whole lot more volume than I could handle. Lesson learnt. Apparently circle skirts are not for me.
So I set about drafting a skirt that could do two things: sit underneath the drop waisted bodice and have lots of fullness at the hem. I didn't love the idea of having a two piece wedding dress but if I could make it look like it did in my head I was at least willing to try. I spent an entire Saturday slashing and spreading one of my favourite skirt patterns to include deep pleats that would drape and flare a little less than a circle skirt. Long story short that fabric made it's way into the bin quicker than any project fail ever has. The idea was great but there was all this bulk underneath the bodice which looked awful. I love pleats, don't get me wrong, but there's a time and place and this was not it.
The next option was to draft a three-quarter circle skirt and hope that the volume didn't look too overwhelming on my figure. The maths hurt my head a little but I could tell as soon as I hung it on the mannequin that the drape was spot on. Dreamy in fact.
I tried it on myself over the top of the bodice again and fell in love with the shape of it. It was still sitting around my natural waist which was a problem but suddenly I had a skirt shape that looked just like it did in my head.
To make the bodice a little more flattering with the skirt I marked out a line on the bodice roughly 2 inches below my natural waist. I did some more head-hurting maths and got the skirt's waist seam to fit the new dropped waist line. And boy did it look awkward. There's a lot to be said for getting proportions right on your body to make something look flattering and this was a great lesson in what doesn't work. I had to stop and pack my things up after this because I really wasn't sure what to do next.
By the time the next weekend had rolled around I'd had an idea. I thought if I spent a lot of time carefully pinning I could possibly lay the top part of the skirt flat across the bottom part of the bodice down into that U shape. If I could get this to lay flat it would make the skirt drape properly from that U shaped seam line down. Since this was what I had wanted all along it was worth a try.
And look - it worked!

Never mind the terrible selfie in my bedroom that has no wallpaper on the walls anymore. The dress fits! And the skirt drapes beautifully! And the two things came together like they were meant to!
Huzzah!
Notes on Construction - Since my last post I cut notches into all curves in the bodice like a number of you pointed out I should have done in the first place - thanks! - The giant fabric wrinkle under the bust did not go away at all after notching but I figured out the problem. I'd put the bust cups too high up in the bodice which meant there was this bit of curved fabric without anything to fill it so of course it wrinkled over itself. The bust cup on your right is in the perfect position and the one on the left needed to be dropped by another centimetre or so. You can probably tell that the wrinkle is coming from that left side. Once I got them both level that wrinkle disappeared - hooray! - By the time I tried this bodice on properly with this skirt on the weekend I'd lost enough weight that I had to pinch this in a lot around my hip bones. This, combined with notching it properly, means that side wrinkle I was getting originally has also disappeared - hooray! - I've pinned a small bit of gathered tulle as straps to see what the end result will look like and I like it. - You might not be able to tell from this angle but the skirt is probably about 4 centimetres past my kneecaps. If it were too long it would have made me look stumpy but any shorter and the dress becomes a bit too casual. This length is working for me. - I've successfully moved the zipper from the centre back to the left hand side so I can create a feature on the back of the dress. This will become a hand picked lapped zipper on the real dress. - I've already spotted what I think is the perfect fabric for my dress. Once I've got the idea for the feature on the back worked out I'll be ready to buy the real fabric.
- That skirt is about 95% draping properly so I'll be more careful with my next muslin to get that drape perfect. It's also creating a hint of a V shape rather than a U shape and is slightly off centre.
So when do I make the real dress? Good question. My measurements are changing and I don't want to distort my pattern pieces too much if I have to keep taking things in. So I'm calling this muslin stage officially over. I'm thinking about making an all new muslin in June and then cranking the real dress out in July/August. That way I can do final adjustments a week or two out from the wedding (early October).
This means I've got a couple of months to sew normal clothes for me! And if I'm organised I could sew a bunch of things to wear on my honeymoon. Watch out world, I'm back to regular sewing speed!