Wedding Sigma-Flora
Pattern: Sleeveless bodice hack of the Sigma dress by Papercut Patterns with the skirt from the Flora Dress by By Hand London
Fabric: Cotton jacquard from B&J Fabrics
Sewn Up: Spring 2023
This is the dress I wore to officiate my brother's wedding. A bit late (they just had their three-year anniversary), some notes about this dress's journey to the altar:
Parameters: Because this was for a wedding, there were some requirements:
The wedding colors were muted: dusty blues and greens, not too bright, not too light. I needed to find just the right color fabric.
The wedding was formal. Typical ways to make dresses read more formal are to make them long, or to show more skin, or to use a floaty fabric. Neither long dresses nor plunging necklines suit me, and sadly I am allergic to silk and don't enjoy wearing synthetics. I needed to find a way to dress up this dress.
The wedding party would all be in solids. I needed to adapt my normal way of making a garment feel "like me" (sew it in a fun print) for this occasion.
Exploration: To meet the brief, I did a lot of exploring:
The photos app on my phone from February to May 2023 was filled with screencaps of fabric swatches and dress silhouettes. I realized I needed to put everything in a pile and organize it into something I could work with.
I created a moodboard of ready-to-wear dresses I had saved and pulled out common elements into a list I just re-discovered titled "what works better on me" (😆) that included: "higher cut neck, sleeveless or short sleeves, mid shin length or hi-lo rather than floor-length, simple silhouette, more structured fabric."
Then I pulled all my fabric screencaps into three basic fabric concepts: lace, solid, or subtle print (closer to the deadline, my sister-in-law, knowing my love of prints, sent me some inspo lewks in floral and said she would be happy with a print after all).
Then, I ordered many fabric samples. Of the 20+ options I waited by the mail for, none was quite right. I was extremely tempted by a stunning green and blue cotton guipure lace, which led me to have a very delightful phone conversation with Alice at Mendel Goldberg Fabrics about how incredible it was, and then to read "Bridal Couture" by Susan Khalje in its entirety while waiting my turn at jury duty. I still want to sew a lace dress someday (and now I know how, at least conceptually) but ultimately I left the lace behind, as it cost $300 per yard for a very narrow cut, and I would have needed at least three yards. I also now have a dream of visiting Mendel Goldberg next time I'm in New York, as well as a new appreciation of lace.
Fabric samples. The almost-ordered lace is on the bottom right corner
And then, a miracle: On a repeat visit to the B&J fabrics website, suddenly the perfect fabric was available. Dusty blue. Cotton. A subtle floral damask that made it read as both a solid and a print, and gave it an elegant shimmer of fanciness. I knew I had found the one!
I sent my future sister-in-law a nervous video of myself showing how it caught the light, and she gave me her blessing. Mercifully I have also learned from past mistakes and pre-washed a sample of it, only to discover that washing this fabric takes away all the beautiful shine, so this is a dry-clean-only situation.
Sewing: Due to an extremely busy time leading up to this wedding, I sewed this in four days.
I had made a v1 of the dress, so I mostly felt okay about waking up the Monday before wedding weekend with nothing sewn yet. I steadily cut and underlined my bodice pieces, cut my skirt pieces, cut my lining. I had to fly to California on Wednesday, which I did with an underlined and lined bodice folded neatly in my suitcase alongside a ziplock filled with skirt pieces, notions, and backup fabric in case of disaster.
What got packed into my suitcase
Luckily the family I was staying with had a sewing machine, so I got to finish the dress during my visit, and with the good company of my dear friend and fellow sewist Greta and her folk music playlist - plus her extremely helpful extra set of hands for final fitting adjustments.
Friday morning before I left for the wedding hotel, I had a peaceful few hours catch-stitching the hem of the dress by hand in bed. This was a lovely slow-down and very helpful as I was incredibly nervous about my upcoming 25-minute monologue.
Wearing: I absolutely loved wearing this dress, and it accompanied one of the most beautiful experiences of my life!
When you officiate a wedding, you get to look at out at a sea of faces and have love from all of them beamed directly at you. Of course it's meant for the ones getting married, but they are looking at each other - the only person directly facing all of that energy was me. I really enjoyed being up there, feeling all of that love, and standing so close to the momentous thing that was happening for my brother and sister-in-law. I also did not sob through the ceremony as I had feared.
In my dress, I felt comfortable, elegant, and like I had really met the brief! Blue but not too bright, formal but non-long, fancy but non-silk, and solid but also sneaking in a subtle print. I don't think I would change a thing about it, except maybe my shoes being a slightly more 1:1 color match with the blue.
This was one of those situations where I really felt grateful to be a sewist. I often feel that there is nothing on the whole internet that is quite right for me, and in this particular case of having so many nuanced boxes to check, I'm pretty sure that perception was true.
Sewing served the practical purpose of delivering something special to wear, and also a spiritual one - preparing me for this big life event that l will never forget.
~ Photos by my Dad three summers ago
Drawing process reel: Floor photo, pencil sketch, digital drawing
