The Impatient Sewist

If you’re still with me on this sewing journey, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was all smooth sailing. And to be honest, up until this point, it was. My satin pieces looked beautiful and the lace work went better than expected, but my luck was about to change…

The beige corset worked really well – up until the point I went to Malta for my hen and got tanned, making the edge of the corselette slightly visible again. This time I got around it by buying some anti-chafe tights and wearing those over the corselette. Not the most elegant solution but sometimes you have to know when to move on. 

The first issue I had was with the opacity of the silk. Now I had struggled with finding an ivory silk satin that was properly opaque and had decided to do two full layers of silk satin to make it as opaque as possible. When I pinned the corselette, bodice and skirt pieces together, it unfortunately became immediately clear that it was not good enough. My corselette was white and extended beyond the waistline for maximum comfort. However, the dividing line between a white underlayer and my brown skin shone through the skirt quite clearly. I tried placing an offcut of silk underneath, but even three layers of silk was not going to cut it.

Ironically, the best solution was instead of adding more white, removing some of it. I decided to remake my corselette in a beige fabric that was much closer to my skintone. Of course this meant a lot of extra sewing work, but also meant that I didn’t need to add more layers and bulk to the dress.

If I were doing this project again, I would have done one of two things. Either I would have bought a thicker white satin that was much more opaque, or I would have underlined by skirt lining with a brown skirt layer. Effectively what it comes down to is that you want each colour that is under the dress to be even, especially if you’re a person of colour. Of all the research I did online, I didn’t find any mention of how white fabric interacts with brown skin. It seems obvious to me now but it was not something I had seriously considered until I was in the depths of my project. Adding a brown underlayer to the skirt would, in my opinion, have been the best option. It may have looked a bit strange for a white dress to be brown on the inside, but I actually think that would have been quite beautiful. The shape of my dress was made exactly to my measurements and proportions, so why shouldn’t it colour be made exactly to the colour of my skin?

Construction problems

The second problem I faced was in the joining of the bodice layers. There were 6 in the total:

1. Corselette lining (satin)
2. Corselette main fabric (coutil)
3. Bodice lining (satin)
4. Bodice underlining (organza)
5. Bodice outer later (satin)
6. Lace

With hindsight, of course this was going to produce way too much bulk. However, in all my toiling I had not practiced sewing so many layers together so I happily stitched and clipped it all before realising that it was not going to work out.

Cue many round of carefully unpicking, trimming bulk, restitching, and disappointment. It was an incredibly nerve-wrecking experience because I was trimming my seam allowance very close to the stitch line which leaves very little room for error!

In the end, most of the bulk came from the thick cotton coutil of the corselette, which I trimmed near the top of the seam allowances. If I had done this project again, I would have made the top edge of the corselette slightly (~3mm) shorter than the other layers and finished it without a seam allowance at the top. Then I would have secured it to the seam allowances of the other layers on the inside.

I love my dress despite the fact it isn’t perfect. In fact, I have learned to love the imperfections too, because I would never have finished the dress by chasing complete perfection. Having let go of the idea that my dress would be perfect also helped me care less about other wedding details, because nothing will go completely to plan!