The Late Night Sewist

Hi!

So it´s one week into our marriage and I finally have a little bit of time to update the blog.

I will get to the latest sewing project in a minute but I just have to say that the wedding was a dream come true! My vision from the beginning was that since we decided to have a party with friends and family (instead of just doing it in a really close family circle), it had to be simple but fun and memorable with a good band for dancing all night long.

We got all that plus some because the risk we took was choosing the date in September, where the weather is completely unpredictable in Estonia and the wedding day started with the heaviest downpour I have seen in a while and even hail!

It was raining when my dad picked me up from the hairdresser and make up and it was raining when we got to the meeting point with my fiance… and then within a few minutes the sky cleared up and the sun came out so when we walked towards the wedding venue, we didn´t need the umbrella at all! And the rest of the day was calm, warm and sunny so when we had the photos taken, we were actually looking for a shady spot with the photographer Marit Kuusk (you can see her works here)!

The photo with the pink background is taken in our soon-to-be-finished sewing room/office, because we wanted some of the wedding photos to be taken in our home to remember how it was when we tied the knot!

Anyway, many couples in Estonia live happily together and have kids without officially getting married, but we felt this was the right thing for us and it feels amazing! Also, it felt like the right thing to celebrate it with a party and it was a success as we managed to skip all the traditional games that are played in Estonian weddings (that I am not a fan of) and simply have a good time with our guests and dance!

I made a dress for the chance that I get tired of the long wedding gown (which I did not make myself, it was made for me in Riga, Latvia at Ingrida Bridal), but in the end I didn´t change during the party and wore it for the day after since we had invited our guests to take a tour of the house, to see how far we have come with it since last summer. It will be ready to move in in a few weeks so all this is very exciting.

But the dress:

The pattern is from Burdastyle 8/2014 model 116, again one of my immediate favorites at first glance, but it took me that long to make it.

The dress obviously is not a difficult one to make, but the pattern instructions are insane! I just did my own thing from the casing on, and actually did not understand initially that the casing for the waist rubber band has to be created using the seam allowance of the bodice… so I trimmed it too short and had to attach a separate piece of lining fabric to the inside to make it work. Actually it is impossible to understand it on the inside and it might look even more neat.

I also didn´t bother to turn the edge of the casing for the back opening under, I just serged it and I think it saved me from a lot of work and a lot of excessive fabric around there:

Instead of making the drawstring from the dress fabric, I bought some ribbon in the matching shade and it works even better due to its silkiness, gliding smoothly through the casing. By the way, if it is not clear, the back opening also has rubber band, so the ribbon is there only to secure the opening a little bit from opening too much.

I used iron-on hemming tape for the hem and it saved the dress because I finished it merely two hours before leaving for the hairdresser on the wedding day!

I also used a special pen this time for pattern markings and seam lines. It was supposed to fade off in a few days, but actually it didn´t! The green pen lines showed through the fabric and I desperately tried removing them with a moist towel. Initially the lines seemed to disappear but later when the dress had dried out, the bleeding marks of he green colour were still visible on close inspection. I still wore the dress and I believe no one noticed and thankfully the green was all gone after the first wash, now I just know better the next time!

As it often happens, there was no time to take the photos on the actual day after, so these pictures are taken a week later and at my parents house:

I am super satisfied with the result and I am contemplating making another one in a different fabric. I just love how simple it is, but it has this trick to it with the back opening and flowy skirt.

The shoes are actually my wedding shoes, which I did change quite soon into much more comfortable sneakers even with the wedding dress and below you can see how I wore them during our house tour. The shoes are from Dune and the sneakers from H&M:

Now that this big thing is done, I can relax a bit and hopefully enjoy sewing in the new sewing room soon!

Happy Fall, everyone!