An evening gown, part 1: Inspiration

I posted the muslin I had made for my evening wear class at Salt Lake Community College a few months ago when I was just starting, but let me tell you I never thought that gown would end up where it is today. This project has been the most challenging and rewarding to date. I love how my gown turned out, and I can't wait for you to see it!

I had scribbled down a gown about a year ago that I thought would be a great bridal gown for my little sister some day, and for some reason when I started my first week of classes at SLCC, this gown was stuck in my head. Originally I was thinking it would be a black silk chiffon over some sort of gold charmeuse, with black beaded lace on the hem, neckline, sleeve hem, and lace.

I bought this lace trim from Mood when I was in New York City over new year's. It spoke to me, and I knew I needed to find some way to use it on my dress. The roses measured about 2" in diameter. I loved how it wasn't beaded and very casual looking- it would be great to to mix with a more fancy, beaded lace.

My evening wear class, which is now completed, was a very free environment. My teacher, Eugene (who is a sewing genius with crazy experience), really let us do anything we wanted. We didn't need to have boning, or a full length gown, nada. We could do whatever we wanted. As I had never done boning before, I knew I wanted to try it with this gown. I think I may take the class again in a couple semesters and do something without boning, like a simple church dress, to see what other techniques I could learn from Eugene. He really is great, and I highly recommend any seamstress or seamster to take his class.

So i had the idea, and the lace, and the sketch. But to be honest, the development of the gown is on-going. The gown that hangs in my closet now is much different than the sketch-- editing is a very important and full-o-learning process. Eugene helped out a lot of this. Like a regular Tim Gunn!

The next part was the muslin, which I've blogged about a little bit already. I'll re-hash that tomorrow though. Don't want anybody missing anything!