Draped Chiffon Posh Frock

Quite some time ago I found this beautiful piece of fabric at my local discount fabric store.  It has a black background with teal paisley motifs all over it with small pops of pink and mustard flowers just for some contrast.  I loved the design on the fabric but I wasn't too sure about the fabric itself.  Its a chiffon type material but I have no idea of the fabric content.  But I'm pretty sure it's a poly of some kind.  Now I don't normally like to use poly woven fabrics - I generally prefer to wear either cotton or rayon, and I don't normally wear things made out of a delicate chiffon fabric but for this print I made an exception.

So I bought the fabric but then was never quite sure what to make out of it and so it sat in my stash for many years.

Then, coming home from my latest holiday having not sewn anything for 5 weeks, I looked at the contests running on the Pattern Review website and saw that there was currently a "Draped Garment" contest running.  I thought that this might be a good time to use my beautiful chiffon fabric - It lends itself well to draping and I figured I could hopefully draft something without too many seams so if it didn't work I could still salvage some of the fabric.

Ok now to figure out what to make....Growing up my family watched a 1970's British comedy show called "The Good Life"  In this show the next door neighbour Margot Leadbetter was a very sophisticated woman who wore some really fabulous clothes.  A lot of these were flowy chiffon type dresses and I always wanted one of those dresses to swan around in. 

Something really flowy with lots of pleats and drapes and a deep V neckline - so that was the general image that I was aiming for with my draped dress.

The first thing I had to do was try and get my dress form to match my figure at the moment - easier said than done.  The basic form was adjusted to as close as possible then I added a bra and padded out the chest area and finally I put my moulage on that I made a while back and padded it out with some extra padding to try and approximate my actual shape - It's close but still not quite exactly me.

Then I took my fabric and  started wrapping it around my form.

 I pinned the fabric to the form in a couple of places starting at the neck/shoulders, the waist and the underarms.
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And then started added adding pick ups here, pleats there etc  to try and get the sort of shape I was looking for

I'd try something and it wouldn't quite work.

So I'd take it apart and try again.

At this point I hadn't touched the fabric with scissors at all.

No armholes!

 But when I got one pleat arrangement that I liked

 I hand basted all the pleats in place

 

 And went ahead and cut out the armhole.

But now I had a problem.  There were so many pleats on top of pleats that when I went to sew it together I'd have to take out one lot of basting to get to the one underneath and it pretty much just fell apart. 

And so I had to start all over again.

I started again from scratch - this time machine basting each pleat in place before moving on to the next - but I got to a certain point and it just wasn't working - there was just so much bulk all sitting on top of my stomach - so it sat in the corner for a couple of days before I once again took it all out and started over.  Thankfully third time was a charm.  I tried to keep the pleats and darts simple this time and managed to get the dress somewhat close to what I was trying for.

I added four pleats/darts over the top of the bust to get the bust shaping I wanted. 

 A pleat at each side and french darts under the bust for waist shaping.

 And two darts on each side of the back for back shaping.

Each pleat and dart was hand basted then I used a washable marker to mark each of them.

I then tried to match the darts on each side so they were symmetrical.  Finally I actually sewed each dart/pleat then serged them so that I didn't have all the bulk.

The next big step was to get the center front seam sewn - this was tricky as I had to match all the pleats/darts and get it to fit nicely over my breasts - This is where I really wished that my dress form was an exact replica as I really struggled to get this pinned and sewn neatly.

 
The back darts I left uncut as they were not as bulky as the front. and the sides were only sewn/serged at the top 3-4 inches.

Once I had all my darts and pleats in place it was time to finish the armhole and neckline.

For the armhole I cut facings to match another sleeveless top that I like the armhole on using a piece of scrap rayon (I didn't have any pieces of my actual fabric and this was the closest in colour and weight.)

I then laid the facing rights sides together around the armhole over the top of the dress and pinned it in place shaping the armhole opening to match.

The facing was then turned to the inside, understitched, then trimmed down and turned under and stitched in place like a binding.

To finish the neckline I simply turned under the edge twice and stitched in place.

The back V was then sewn together  just above my bra strap (The dress has to be practical) and the remainder to the back neckline allowed to drape as it wants.

I had to add two darts at the shoulders to get the back neckline to sit beautifully.

Finally the bottom was cut off - the length was dictated by the shortest length of the draped fabric - and was finished with a  narrow hem.

And now I have a beautiful drapy, flowy dress.

From this rather wordy post the process sounds pretty straight forward, but this project seemed to take forever to finish.  In reality I've probably only been working on it for a week or 2, but that's a long time for me.  I'm glad its finally done and I can work on something else for a change.  It's a good thing that this was done to meet a contest deadline otherwise it never would have gotten finished.

And for anyone who is a member of the Pattern Review website head on over and vote in the Draping Contest.