Ballroom dress blog along
- Thread starter mindputtee
- Start date
mindputtee
Forum Master
Haha no, it's fine, I kind of wanted this to be a general dance dress making thread anyway, I just thought I'd lead it with my experience. You could always add chiffon one layer at a time until you have the right balance of look and weight. I know these dresses can get ridiculously heavy, you don't want to start yourself out behind.
There's the promise of free time tonight to sew! Hopefully I'll have a working bodysuit by the end of tonight and pictures to show for it! Once I'm past the body suit I get to get into the more fun parts like the parts you actually see. Good foundations make for a good final product though.
dancerdol
Member
Hi Joe- if you watch a Smooth dress fly up almost parallel to the floor when a dancer turns - this effect isn't accidental by the designer. The balanced weight of the dress, underskirt, any boning on hem etc. are all designed to help the dress fly up and out. Slits on a smooth dress help to decrease the drag of the weight of a full circle (or double circle) skirt by giving the dress more lift as the split opens out. I have one dress that dances completely differently once I added splits on every seam of the skirt at different heights and dropped the skirt over a full circle chiffon underskirt.
mindputtee
Forum Master
I made a mock up of the bodysuit in the stretch white fabric, but I'm not going to post any pictures of it because a. I didn't take any and b. the fabric doesn't make it look very good. The white stretch fabric was a little bit lighter weight than the lycra so it showed any little imperfections more obviously. It was a very useful exercise and helped me realize some things I needed to change before cutting it out of the lycra. So I cut apart the white leotard and traced it to make some patterns! Yay!
Front
Side/back
After making some observations on the original pattern, I made adjustments and redrew it. On the left is the cut apart white leotard piece, on the right is the redrawn pattern.
In lycra!
After realizing that I had forgotten to include seam allowance (eep!) I cut out the pieces in the lycra and pinned and basted the majority of it together. And now it's living on a dress form in my family room (thanks Joe!).
It's inside out because it still needs a little bit of adjusting in the front for perfect fit. I also left the crotch open because I haven't entirely decided how I want to work it, I'm planning to do snaps but haven't decided how long I want to make the legs go down, I'm thinking a boyshort instead of the typical leotard cut because I think they are more comfortable. Also because by the time I got to this point it was 12:30 am and I had to leave for class at 7 am the next morning. It's still in the adjusting stages, my motto is you can always cut more off but you definitely can't cut less.
Front
Side/back
After making some observations on the original pattern, I made adjustments and redrew it. On the left is the cut apart white leotard piece, on the right is the redrawn pattern.
In lycra!
After realizing that I had forgotten to include seam allowance (eep!) I cut out the pieces in the lycra and pinned and basted the majority of it together. And now it's living on a dress form in my family room (thanks Joe!).
It's inside out because it still needs a little bit of adjusting in the front for perfect fit. I also left the crotch open because I haven't entirely decided how I want to work it, I'm planning to do snaps but haven't decided how long I want to make the legs go down, I'm thinking a boyshort instead of the typical leotard cut because I think they are more comfortable. Also because by the time I got to this point it was 12:30 am and I had to leave for class at 7 am the next morning. It's still in the adjusting stages, my motto is you can always cut more off but you definitely can't cut less.
mindputtee
Forum Master
Elastic is evil. Completely evil. I'm working on finishing the armholes/neckline of the leotard and I think I've spent something like 6 hours putting in elastic and taking it back out because it wasn't the way I wanted it. Gahhh... So I decided to take a break from working on the leotard and start on the skirts. I have 2 quarters (out of 6) of the first layer of the two layer skirt cut. I'm going to take tomorrow off though and not sew at all because I'm approaching frustration point and when I pass frustration point I start to do sloppy work.
canismajor41
Active Member
Mindupttee - I made a dress recently and had the same frustration with elastic. I tried all methods and found this way to be the easiest (it also provided the best fit and look.) I practiced a while until I had a feel for how much tension/stretch to put in the elastic and then I was good to go. The only thing I did differently is that I did a zig zag stitch on both sides. Good luck!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOlQp83HstU
Thanks for posting that!
mindputtee
Forum Master
Thanks! I'd been doing something relatively similar, but kept getting the tension wrong. I forgot to account for the fact that the fabric is being pulled and stretched a little bit as I sew as well as the elastic. I think I might also want to use 3/8" elastic instead of the 1/4" I've been using cause it has less potential to cut into my skin.
canismajor41
Active Member
3/8" is what I used too.