Dress Mash-Up: Vogue 8943, Simplicity 1194 and Simplicity 8470

I tried a mash-up of three different patterns:

 Simplicity 1194 ( a re-issue from the 50's),  Simplicity 8470 (a vintage pattern) and finally, Vogue 8943 (currently available).

Why all of the mashing? My goal has been to create a pattern for a wedding dress. Here is my inspiration.

Isn't it lovely?

I picked up some lace that has a beautiful edge on it and I  want a full skirt (tea length) but it can't be a circle skirt or the edge of the lace would be lost.  I tried pleats, but they didn't look good with my  lace.  I also tried to make a mock-up of a gathered skirt, but no matter how much I try, each time I make a gathered skirt, I hate it.  I like gathered skirts on other people, but on me... so very bad.

This is the mash-up with some cheap black satin and black lace.  My idea was to make a dress I could wear again, but it really looks more like a costume.  (Black Widow Bride!)

I can't tie a decent bow.  Not even after watching YouTube tutorials.  Don't judge.

This dress is actually two separate dresses.   The first is a satin dress with Simplicity 1194 for the bodice.  The only modification I made was to remove the straps and make it strapless.

For the skirt, I used Simplicity 8470 because it has panels for the skirt like pie pieces... which allow for a straight edge on the hem but no gathers or pleats.  Yaaaaaayyy!  I had thought of this before, but it wasn't until I saw it in the pattern that I really believed it would work.

Taaa daa.  I won't need to do this with my final satin skirt - I can just make a 3/4 circle or full circle skirt with it the normal way, but it was nice to see it work.


For the lace layer, I also used Simplicity 8470 for the skirt and Vogue 8943 for the bodice without any modifications.  Without much work at all, the darts in the bodice and the seam lines in the skirt panels lined up.  Huh. 

(I drew the red lines with Photoshop.  The photo makes it look like they might be part of the fabric.)

For the final version, I think I will make two changes - I'll make the two wide center front and center back panels into two pieces each and make them even wider towards the hem so that the skirt is  fuller.  I'll be wearing a crinoline for it so I can get my fairy tale princess on. I wasn't going to, but when else will I get to wear a huge dress without inviting stares and pointing? 

Only two three more weeks until the wedding. It is sneaking up on me.  Dresses!  Favors!  Photographer! Guest list!  Menus!  Plates!  Wine! Table rental! I don't actually talk about much else these days.  I have a friend who assured me that I would be interesting again after the wedding. 

For no good reason, here is a picture of a bunch of different flavors of panna cotta that we made.  We invited people over for a tasting party to see which one they liked best and we will serve the winning combination at the wedding. 

After seven little mini-desserts each, the winner was lemon panna cotta with tart lemon jelly, a square of sweet raspberry coulis jelly and candied orange peel on top.  

I learned that pistachios and flowers are terrible on panna cotta (bad texture combination), candied ginger tastes good with passion fruit but not lemon and that spun sugar melts in the jelly and only looks cool for a couple of minutes.  Which makes sense, but I wanted that to not be true.

Thanks for reading.  I swear, I will talk about non-wedding stuff again in the future.