EGL Halloween Dress
Current music - Matchbox 20. Currently looping on "Long Day". Although when I made this I think it was Iron Maiden.
This is my black dress I made in less than a weekend a few weekends ago. It is for halloween where I am going to dress up Elegant Gothic Lolita (EGL) style for no reason other than I decided it for no reason. Yes. The dress is actually not really the right kind of style, but I was also using it as a test of the pattern for part of the wedding dress, although the wedding dress would be longer and have sleeves and so on and so on. But the basic pattern for what is there is the same. But now I have another idea that I need to make a test dress of, because I don't think this is really going to produce the desired shape; bias cut dresses are too clingy and tend to fall in at the hem rather than spread out.
Anyway, the material is crepe-back satin and is quite static-y. I don't know the point of giving it a crepe back, but if it is to reduce static, for instance, then without it it would be producing lightning. I bought 3 or 4 metres I think, $10 a metre, but I think I only used about two. Which is weird, because I have a pattern for a very similar dress, and I bought the specified amount, minus a little bit because I wasn't making sleeves.
The dress has lace around the neck and hem, and, in many people's opinions, looks like underwear. I wore it to lunch at Mum and Dad's and I think that everyone thought I was weird, but they were much more impressed with it when found out I made it, especially when they found out I made it _yesterday_. The problem with bias-cut dresses seems to be that if the seam line is not absolutely straight then it produces weird bulges - even in places where it is supposed to curve, and even when it has those curves on the pattern. I had this problem with an evening dress I made that I will show you sometime. So I had to keep going and finding the weird bulges and finding the curved place on the seam and measuring it straight, which is hard because the material stretches in weird ways, and then sewing it straight. And then you discover another smaller curve just above or below that was being hidden by the big one and you do that one, and the next one, and some of them the curve is almost imperceptible, but the bulge is huge, and you think "This is stupid" but you sew it straight anyway and the bulge DOES disappear after all, and so on. There are still some bulgy bits, but they aren't visible most of the time so I don't care. When I first "finished" it, then wore it to lunch I discovered weird bulges under the arms, which is mostly why I didn't take pictures until this weekend, because I was so sick of it I didn't want to fix it until then. You find this a lot in sewing, you get sick of fixing a piece, even though there is only an hour, or in this case, 15 minutes, to go, but later you just fix it and, hopefully, all done. :)
Pictures: front, back, full view. I will even let you see my face in these ones. Maybe, unless I chop my head off in photoshop between now and when I post it. I hate pictures of me.
To make it a little more gothic and in style with EGL, I made the front lace up, using metal eyelets that I didn't use for any corsets. Unfortunately I made some of the holes for the eyelets a little big and they are kind of going to fall out at some stage. But, meh. This isn't exactly a wear-all-the-time dress.
And because the shoulders on most things I make do not work straight from the pattern, and since I couldn't be bothered messing with that sort of stuff, I put eyelets on the shoulder straps and tied them shut. So now they can be lengthened if needed and can sit at any angle and I don't have to worry about the fact that I apparantly have abnormal shoulders - they slope less than the standard pattern I think.
The problem with all this lacing with ribbon is that ribbon is kind of slippery and I worry that they might come undone - and then the whole dress would fall off!! That would be interesting.
What else can I say about this? The lace is sewn on by hand, and the hem is sewn up by hand as well. the seams aren't finished, just pressed open. The material doesn't really fray, just goes fluffy at the edges, because it is completely synthetic I suppose. Which reminds me - did I forget to wash it before I made the dress? I am getting better at washing before making though - I think all my Victorian stuff except the corset material was washed before made. There is a facing around the top around the dress, to just below the arms. This is useful if you are not lining something because otherwise you have to bind the edges or make sure that the folded over edges are not going to show or fray or itch too much, or whatever. The main reason though, for me, (the other ones I just thought of right now) is that otherwise it is really hard to fold the material over to hem the edges around the neck and arms, because they are curved, and it is WAY easier to make a facing, and just sew the two pieces of material together, clip the curves, turn it inside out, and voila! (well, then you should probably iron it and maybe sew it down on the insides to the hem so it doesn't work it's way up, and that is just annoying, but easier than trying to hem a curve, and neater.)
See this webpage for info on Elegant Gothic Lolita and some pictures (plus is a good site with tonnes of interesting Gothic articles. Note, I am not a "Goth" but their stuff is often fascinating).
To go with this dress there will also be:
This is my black dress I made in less than a weekend a few weekends ago. It is for halloween where I am going to dress up Elegant Gothic Lolita (EGL) style for no reason other than I decided it for no reason. Yes. The dress is actually not really the right kind of style, but I was also using it as a test of the pattern for part of the wedding dress, although the wedding dress would be longer and have sleeves and so on and so on. But the basic pattern for what is there is the same. But now I have another idea that I need to make a test dress of, because I don't think this is really going to produce the desired shape; bias cut dresses are too clingy and tend to fall in at the hem rather than spread out.
Anyway, the material is crepe-back satin and is quite static-y. I don't know the point of giving it a crepe back, but if it is to reduce static, for instance, then without it it would be producing lightning. I bought 3 or 4 metres I think, $10 a metre, but I think I only used about two. Which is weird, because I have a pattern for a very similar dress, and I bought the specified amount, minus a little bit because I wasn't making sleeves.
The dress has lace around the neck and hem, and, in many people's opinions, looks like underwear. I wore it to lunch at Mum and Dad's and I think that everyone thought I was weird, but they were much more impressed with it when found out I made it, especially when they found out I made it _yesterday_. The problem with bias-cut dresses seems to be that if the seam line is not absolutely straight then it produces weird bulges - even in places where it is supposed to curve, and even when it has those curves on the pattern. I had this problem with an evening dress I made that I will show you sometime. So I had to keep going and finding the weird bulges and finding the curved place on the seam and measuring it straight, which is hard because the material stretches in weird ways, and then sewing it straight. And then you discover another smaller curve just above or below that was being hidden by the big one and you do that one, and the next one, and some of them the curve is almost imperceptible, but the bulge is huge, and you think "This is stupid" but you sew it straight anyway and the bulge DOES disappear after all, and so on. There are still some bulgy bits, but they aren't visible most of the time so I don't care. When I first "finished" it, then wore it to lunch I discovered weird bulges under the arms, which is mostly why I didn't take pictures until this weekend, because I was so sick of it I didn't want to fix it until then. You find this a lot in sewing, you get sick of fixing a piece, even though there is only an hour, or in this case, 15 minutes, to go, but later you just fix it and, hopefully, all done. :)Pictures: front, back, full view. I will even let you see my face in these ones. Maybe, unless I chop my head off in photoshop between now and when I post it. I hate pictures of me.
To make it a little more gothic and in style with EGL, I made the front lace up, using metal eyelets that I didn't use for any corsets. Unfortunately I made some of the holes for the eyelets a little big and they are kind of going to fall out at some stage. But, meh. This isn't exactly a wear-all-the-time dress.
And because the shoulders on most things I make do not work straight from the pattern, and since I couldn't be bothered messing with that sort of stuff, I put eyelets on the shoulder straps and tied them shut. So now they can be lengthened if needed and can sit at any angle and I don't have to worry about the fact that I apparantly have abnormal shoulders - they slope less than the standard pattern I think.The problem with all this lacing with ribbon is that ribbon is kind of slippery and I worry that they might come undone - and then the whole dress would fall off!! That would be interesting.
What else can I say about this? The lace is sewn on by hand, and the hem is sewn up by hand as well. the seams aren't finished, just pressed open. The material doesn't really fray, just goes fluffy at the edges, because it is completely synthetic I suppose. Which reminds me - did I forget to wash it before I made the dress? I am getting better at washing before making though - I think all my Victorian stuff except the corset material was washed before made. There is a facing around the top around the dress, to just below the arms. This is useful if you are not lining something because otherwise you have to bind the edges or make sure that the folded over edges are not going to show or fray or itch too much, or whatever. The main reason though, for me, (the other ones I just thought of right now) is that otherwise it is really hard to fold the material over to hem the edges around the neck and arms, because they are curved, and it is WAY easier to make a facing, and just sew the two pieces of material together, clip the curves, turn it inside out, and voila! (well, then you should probably iron it and maybe sew it down on the insides to the hem so it doesn't work it's way up, and that is just annoying, but easier than trying to hem a curve, and neater.)
See this webpage for info on Elegant Gothic Lolita and some pictures (plus is a good site with tonnes of interesting Gothic articles. Note, I am not a "Goth" but their stuff is often fascinating).
To go with this dress there will also be:
- an appropriate headdress
- a blouse with lace (mostly made except for the lace cos I had to make my Victorian chemise first to see how much lace I had left over - made that yesterday...)
- some kind of chunky shoes/boots
- black or fishnet tights
- maybe gloves, a choker or necklace thing that works with the blouse (ie. probably none)
- ...?? I might try out my Victorian hair-style for this too. Since the EGL look is semi-Victorian.
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