i’m making my own ball dress, but it doesn’t have a zip, so it has to be a strech fabric! but i dont know of any fabrics that would be suitable for a ball dress and still be a stretch fabric??
please help me, your opinions are highly appreciated
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thank you.
i’d say the patterns on a wedding gown
Here’s an opinion from a professional designer dressmaker:USE A ZIPPER! they sell invisible zippers that are sewn into the seam and are truly impossible to see. You will not be able to buy a fabric with enough stretch for the dress to be pulled on and not rip or look like a poorly fitting sack. Many stretch fabric with the high percentage of stretch you need are athletic knit fabrics such as swimsuit nylon/spandex satin and the polyester/spandex satin, the fabric used in skating outfits and fitness competition clothes. These look good at a distance, but close up you can tell they are knits and not formal-worthy fabrics.
You can buy a stretch silk satin and stretch polyester satin. It’s a woven fabric suitable for evening wear and available at bridal and evening speciality fabric stores, but they won’t have enough stretch to make a zipper-less or other closure-less ball gown. I have used stretch silk satin and it can be difficult to work with, seams can ripple and pucker, it will stretch unevenly, and you need to test the fit in scrap fabric because needle marks will show if you need to rip out a seam. These fabric stretch about 25% at most. This is enough for a body hugging fit, provided you use zipper or other closures. It does not allow enough stretch to go over the larger parts and still give a good fit. You need a minimum of a 50% stretch, something only in sport and casual knits. Unfortunately, even if you use stretch satin for the outer shell, many linings and interfacings and other construction materials don’t have any level of stretch, so like it or not you will still need to add a zipper or some type of closure to the dress.
In fact, a ball gown is something that should be made following a commercial sewing pattern. It will tell you what fabrics you need, how to cut the pieces of fabric and how to sew them together, bone the seams for structure and how to insert a good closing system so the dress fits you well without sagging or bunching. Even if you are an intermediate level dressmaker a ball gown is still a highly advanced level project. If you have never sewn before then you have no way of knowing what all is involved in making a good looking well fitting ball gown. I tech sewing and one of my most popular courses is “Beginners in Crisis: I thought I could wing it without a pattern” and the session I finished yesterday was comprised entirely of people trying to make ball gowns, evening gowns and prom gowns without patterns. A couple tried using some instructions found on a DIY website, iinstructions that ended up being garbage.
Vogue Patterns sells many high quality ball gown patterns. They come with all the paper pattern pieces you need, lists of things you didn’t know you need such as interfacings, interlinings, underlinings, boning, stay tapes, linings etc, (an no, you can’t really make a ball gown without all that other stuff) Simplicity sells some versatile ball dresses with options for making a custom dress by adding and subtracting details. Both pattern companies also include detailed construction instructions. It’s a wise investment and you are less likely to be frustrated and disappointed, which you will be if you try to “wing it” and work without a pattern or clear instructions.
Vogue’s evening bridal and ball dresses: http://www. voguepatterns. com/list/evening_bridal_includes_designer/page-1. htm
And simplicity’s evening collection: http://www. simplicity. com/c-146-special-occasion. aspx
Putting my $0. 02 in: Listen to Linda and use a zipper. If you’re scared of zippers, buy a couple of extra and an extra quarter yard of fabric and learn to put them in, using the fabric. Interface the zipper placket area with a lightweight fusible interfacing and it’ll slide right in.
Some ways the pros put zippers in — yes, it looks fussy. Yes, it’s worth it: http://www. fashion-incubator. com/tutorials/ (under zipper tutorials).