Sewing Ruffles and Finishing Touches

 To make the 'ruffles' to represent shrivelled/decayed flowers I started off by using gathering stitching and gathering the organza fabric with elastic, as well as pleating strips to make circular shapes but neither proved to be a success, so instead I took to pinterest to look for diy flower tutorials. I then followed a tutorial by cutting out lots of 4cm circles and sewing four folded circles to a base circle, and repeating with four more trimmed down slightly and sewn on top. After this I literally ruffled the layers and made 11 more to be sewn onto the collar and waistband.

Finally I added some beads onto the petals, tacked the petals to the bodice and voila! Here is my finished garment!

Sewing Final Garment (Part 2)

 I found sewing the insert to the bodice and petals to the waistband difficult because first of all it was very hard to get a neat finish at the point of the sweetheart neckline, and secondly because of the wire overlapping the seam, I had to sew back and forth over the wire to make sure it was held in place.

 Sewing the vent.

 

 Sewing the facing to bodice.

 

 Tacked petals to insert.

Beginning to Sew Final Garment

 Before this stage I'd already sewn the bodice and skirt, then I had to sew the petals together, cut down the seam, turn inside out, press, and sew wire next to the seam with a one toed zipper foot.

Sewing the wire into the petals was challenging because I had to bend it to the curves of the petal and make sure that the wire was as close to the seam as possible, but I'm really pleased with how they turned out.

 I also added darker brown tones to the bottom of some of the petals because some had dried lighter than others and then pinned them to the mannequin to get an idea of the placement on the waist.

 Sewing net insert seams.

Cutting and Dying Fabric for Final Garment

 I chose to use satin back dupion for the main fabric because the dress was structured and the quality of the material was suitable for my 'couture' garment.

For the petals I had to cut and dye each one individually with pigment/brusho inks and then add darker tones with acrylic paint and watercolour paint. Previous to this project I hadn't dyed fabric before so I deciced I would use this technique this time around and it proved to be time consuming but worth it in the end! I also drafting the smaller petal pattern and repeated the same steps for the five petals which would be sewn into the collar.

Final Toile

Here are photos of my final toile. I made another petal this time using lighter and thinner wire but I still wasn't happy with the size and how the petal still drooped. So I then sketched another petal pattern and compared it to the one sewn onto my garment - I finally came to a decision that the petal needed to be smaller than the one I'd just made so I drafted a final pattern. I also used a white netting for the insert which I think looked a lot nicer than the organza I'd used in my first toile.

After finishing my final toile I decided I wanted the silhouette of the skirt to be a lot more fitted, so I took in the side seams in and altered the patterns, adding a vent for ease of movement.