Sewing Room - Creating a long formal princess gown / ballgown - Princess Tessy - Sewing | ||
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Sewing a Princess Gown / Ballgown / Formal Gown
This page has a little about creating a Princess Gown. This one was made of royal blue satin using New Look pattern 6030 with
a little custom lengthening for the tall Happy World Princess. Fabric & Things: Around 7 meters of fabric, plus bodice lining fabric (0.7m) and optional skirt lining. Optional large back bow and bow tails is another 3 meters of fabric plus netting inside the bow. Zipper, one or a few tiny plastic snap buttons for the bow, and quite a lot of thread. 
So there is a little heap of things needed to create a nice long flowing ballgown. Forgotten to mention the bodice
also needs interfacing, and pattern suggests boning aswell. While boning does help shape the bodice, the plastic
will eventually try to escape at the edges. That may depend on used boning or how it is done, but after having two of my
own gowns made with boning i decided to skip it.
Leaving out boning is a little bit less to sew aswell, but my reason for not bothering is after
a few washes the boning became a problem.
Then there is the question of fitting the gown to the person wearing it. This is all about the bodice for this design,
if the waist, bust and length of bodice is ok the skirt is no worry as it hangs freely from waist down. Hip size
is likely only part of sizing if noticeably larger than the waist size used when choosing pattern size.For myself being extra tall, i quickly found the pattern marks above waistline mentioning what they are about. Shorten or lengthen here. And so i did just that with all four pattern pieces for making up the dress bodice. I carefully copied the pattern pieces to a kind of fabric/paper used for custom pattern making, extending the length between the marked lines. Along with doing that comes a need to also lengthen and adjust the curvy lines ment to follow waist and such. That is not easy and in fact i will admit my first pattern edit for this blue gown was not perfect. It ended up a bit too little curved inwards to waist because i was afraid i would end up with a really tight waist. I did however simply pick up the scissor and make inward curve for waist a little more defined for the next gown. And that ended up better. If i need flawless tailormade gowns i go see a tailor, on my own i just do my best and while not always perfect it will be wearable. If it was not good enough for a Princess nobody would see me wearing what i create. 
Onward to actually begin creating the gown. First thing when sewing always is the cutting out fabric pieces and all that,
here are my four custom bodice parts and two pieces for extending dress outside fabric a little inside too. This is the
lining fabric with i picked a darker blue because i thought that would be nicer than exactly the same blue of the outside.
That choice isnt exactly important, but lining and interfacing should match the colour.Wich bring this page onwards to the interfacing, i picked a dark iron-on interfacing for this gown. Satin is usually not much transparent at all, but i still use white interfacing for any light coloured gown and black for darker colours.  Even if few or anyone sees interfacing i know what i used when creating, and i care about every little part of my creations. Interfacing
is ironed onto the lining, never the dress fabric. Interfacing helps stiffen up the bodice a little, and also adds a
bit of warmth. Interfacing is not really required but i think it adds not just a third layer of fabric but a layer of
quality aswell. Not all shop bought gowns will have this layer wether they need it or not, could be a case of
saving some production cost but i prefer having this layer in my dresses. There are many different types of interfacing
from thin and slinky to quite thick and stiff, white or black, sew on or iron on.Moving on to cutting the pieces from dress fabric, my customized bodice parts, some for facing, the big skirt panels, the draping and shoulder strap casing. Seeing this anyone realises that a long flowing gown skirt is what demands a lot of fabric, the bodice and shoulder draping is not requiring several meters of fabric. Most innocent as far as using up fabric might be the little rose sewn to draping front near completion. I dont count the shoulder straps, in fact those are not really even needed if the bodice fits well enough. The straps are good for hanging dresses in wardrobe though so i dont skip them.  I usually spend a few hours cutting out all dress pieces carefully, doing this part with care makes for a good result. A lot of people think the sewing it all together is the main thing, but cutting pieces properly is at least half of the important-ness factor. The other half of sewing ofcourse is the sewing. I start with the bodice, sewing lining pieces together pressing the seams ofcourse and generally being careful to make these curvy seams end up the way they should. After the lining (and the ironed-on interfacing) are sewn together it is the same procedure for the bodice outside. There is also something called stay-stiching done following the top edge of bodice outside. Anyway these are probably the most important seams on the gown and so i spend time doing them slowly.  When all the bodice parts are sewn together, excepting ofcourse the mid back where a zipper will be put in later, bodice outside and lining are not sewn together. Not yet anyway. Because most gowns will have sleeves, or as in this case a draping around shoulders and those cant just be sewn on outside. So bodice remains in two parts for a while. Then i create the facing parts, these three are kind of extensions of the outside fabric, sewn onto the top of inside bodice. This will make it look like the gowns outside fabric is on the inside too, in case some tall gentleman gets a glimpse down ones cleavage or something like that.  These parts too are not
always found on shop-bought gowns but are a sign if quality in my opinion. Another sign of quality comes later, something you will barely find
on mass-produced prom dresses or such anywhere. Next comes a bit of work on the skirt. Sewing skirt pieces together so far i have not bothered to line it aswell and so i trim the insides rough edges by hand like a serger machine would. Except by hand, because i have no such machine maybe i should get one. This does take time and a serger would do it a lot faster, but i sure dont leave visible rough edges uncared for. Oh look, the curious snooping little garfield webmaster sneaks right into my sewing project. I had to bribe him with some cookies to let me do the sewing alone. 
The tiny picture there is the shoulder straps, quite narrow of a useful length with elastic inside. Good for hanging the
gown away or if wanted kept on shoulders while wearing the dress. Anyway, after sewing all the skirt pieces together leaving part of center back seam partly open for zipper later in goes gathering threads. Those are rather loosely sewn on both sides of where the future actual bodice-to-skirt seam will be. Longest stitches machine allows, and preferrably use a thread totally contrasting to the dress because it will be removed later. Then comes a part i find sometimes really frustrating, gathering the skirt to fit the bodice. It is not really difficult, but ends up so much threads and things i just dont like it much. Pull on the gathering threads to assist evenly gathering the skirt fabric to fit the length around lower end of bodice. I use a lot of pins to make all this stay put until i sew it in place. Then remove the gathering threads and it is done, a nicely gathered skirt. Now the gathered skirt is sewn to bodice outside, and so time to create the draping. This is also a little tricky. The draping is made up of two parts, cut on the diagonal to have a little stretch. They are sewn together, then the section that will be around arms is neatly finished while leaving the rest sewn together only to later be sewn onto bodice. No picture to try and show that but to not have a totally boring strange flat draping it has to be gathered too. The sewing pattern has markings for where to fold and that, it is just yet another part of creation to be careful doing. The center front seam? Yes that one gets to be thick there are many fabric layers folded and gathered at the center front including where the two sides were put together. Good idea here i think is to secure the draping folds sewing a tiny little bit on the side of the previous center front seam. To avoid a broken needle.  Finally this begins to look like something wearable! I did not take pictures of all things to complete a gown, but it is a long project for me and getting this far i will typically be on day two of sewing. The draping is sewn to top of bodice, the shoulder straps aswell and those being elastic takes a little care to not mistakenly sew through in error. Actually as i write this page i dont remember the exact order of things...  but the order
is important or all the pieces just wont end up as a nice ballgown. Right side picture the lining is in place and left to do should be the back bow and tails, zipper and center front rose. I had pictures of creating the back bow but only three and they were boring ones. It is basically turning squareish fabric pieces into a bow. Stiff netting is inside the bow to help it from drooping. Droopyness is also an issue if wearing the gown a lot and so laundering it many times. I had to add two new tiny snap buttons to make bow less droopy after a while. Small bows are easier to keep from drooping ofcourse, and so i do prefer those but this gown ended up with a big bow and the long tails hanging down too. 
And finally here is one thing of quality i have not seen in most shop bought gowns, not of the more common
brands anyway. Hand sewn seams. The two short back edges of draping needs it near top of zipper. Obviously the front flower
is made with some hand sewing, and attached to draping with hand sewing. Most hand sewing is required around the waistline
and around the zipper though... neatly finishing where lining meets the gathered skirt and such. It is possible to just plan
differently and machine sew lining right along with dress outside when attaching a skirt. I often see rough bodice seams
inside brands like Loralie and whatever, it is just the quicker mass production way to sew things. The outside
result is the same, but sewing instructions for this gown said this is the way to do it. And so this is how i have
done it so far. I do like the sense of finished quality it
adds, wich is why i am thinking about also completely lining skirts on my future home created gowns too. Not because it adds
warmth for legs, but because i know if the inside of my dresses are finished the time consuming careful way or the fast factory way.
I usually reserve two days to finish a gown, but i dont hurry and hug-breaks are part of each project.
The finished result of this sewing project. Gown sizing and pricing for those in a shopping mood. |
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