Ballroom Seamstress

I'm working on a new Smooth dress for Spring Showcase. The design grew out of a variety of circumstances and inspirations.

The idea first started because I was thinking that I needed to come up with some wardrobe elements for Country Western dancing. At the last Showcase, I wore my Smooth wardrobe for C/W because the country dancing came right after smooth. I wasn't sure if I'd have time to change, otherwise I could have worn jeans, but after going to a national competition in the fall, I realized that having dancesport wardrobe for country western will be essential as I go forward. I didn't relish the thought of wearing a button-down cowboy shirt, and so I wondered if I might just wear a more casual-looking bejeweled shirt with jeans. It would, at least, suffice for the meantime. 

The more I thought about this bejeweled shirt, the more I wondered, what if it had a matching skirt? I had made a smooth skirt as a separate piece previously and was quite happy with the result. Slowly but surely it came to me... if I had a smooth gown in two pieces, I could easily change out of the skirt and into jeans for C/W, or vice versa. If the skirt were detached, I could even change in a semi-public place, if need be, pulling the jeans on underneath and then taking the skirt off over the jeans once I was dressed. I didn't need a proper bodysuit for Smooth freestyles, after all, there wouldn't be any athletic choreography with my students, just syllabus material. 

The skirt design was pretty much a foregone conclusion. I would simply use the skirt pattern and method I had used before. It would be the top piece that would anchor the outfit, and it would need to be something that would look elegant for smooth, but somewhat casual for country. It would also need to work well with the jeans, color-wise. Blue was out, it would look washed out with the jeans. I didn't want to do pink, because I was already working on a pink latin dress. Green would result in almost the same problem as blue. I toyed with red, but I'm reluctant to make red dresses because red is a pretty typical dress color, and thus doesn't stand out as well in freestyles.    

After acquiring several yards of a few different colors of stretch nylon fabric on clearance at Fabric.com, I weighed my options. Clearly my best choice was a stunning goldenrod color that would stand out against the jeans, but also stand out as a smooth dress for freestyles. The only problem is that orange and yellow aren't really my colors with my fair, pink-ish skin and blond hair. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to break out the fake tanner once again.

In designing the all important detached top for this dress, I decided on an off-shoulder style. It could be potentially very easy to design, with nearly identical pattern pieces front and back. However, having a lot of fabric on the back of the dress means having all the more space to fill with rhinestones. Besides, I've never minded back-less. The problem, however, is that it couldn't be backless so far down as to expose the waistband of the separate skirt, one of the pitfalls of making dance dresses in two pieces.

The more I thought, the more I gravitated toward the idea of a drape back. It would allow most of the back to be open, but it could cut across the back high enough to cover the skirt waistband. Since the dress would be two pieces and thus would not need a bodysuit, I decided to design the drape right into the back pattern piece, rather than adding a separate piece later, sort of like a cowl neckline. The trick was creating a misshapen pattern piece for the back that would attach to a regularly proportioned piece in front. This meant melding two parts of the back pattern together, first, a stable section from the upper-hips down, and then a widened section angling each side of the top back outward to create the extra fabric in between for the drape. I played with the angles several times before finally settling on a pattern piece that looked promising. I had an excess of fabric, and I'd gotten it cheaply, so I told myself I could try again if it turned out badly.

Over the weekend, I got all the pieces of the top assembled with the straps in place. Even though I didn't have a bodysuit, I wanted built-in bra cups, so I made the front piece of the top double-layered with flesh colored fabric underneath, finishing it with an elastic rolled hem in my usual fashion. I did a non-elastic narrow hem across the drape section, and then sewed the two pieces together. The initial results were promising, but once the straps were attached, and the drape sewn onto the shoulder, I discovered that the cowl-back was quite attractive. The end result was not as dramatic a drape as I had imagined, but otherwise everything I could have hoped for. All I have left is to finish the bottom in a satin trim to match the planned ivory trim of the skirt, and of course, to add the rhinestones.

Onward and upward to the matching skirt. 

Posted by S.K. Slevinski at 01:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Twice a year, my studio hosts a student and professional Showcase in conjunction with three other studios in our area. With our Winter Showcase coming up, preparations at the studio were well underway. My schedule was filling up with extra lessons and double sessions to help my students get ready for their exhibition freestyles.

Back at home, my off hours were spent finishing up my dresses for the event. With only a few short weeks left, it was crunch time for finishing three garments of varying complexity. My project planning and time management for sewing has increased significantly since the Spring Showcase, earlier this year, when I finished only one very simple dress, and had to scrap plans for a second at the last minute.

A typical showcase demands three dance costumes for the professional instructor, in my estimation (if dancing in student routines, perhaps more). When I attended my first few showcases as a new dance instructor, I wore only one dress the whole night. Now, as I have increasing numbers of students performing freestyle dances, I want to look the part for each aspect of the exhibition.

The day starts off with Smooth Freestyles and Routines. I didn't have any routines this time around, but I did have a number of freestyles throughout the day. Last showcase, I wore a store-bought, floor-length red dress, but this time I wanted to wear something I had sewed myself. I did not, however, want to fashion an entirely new dress with bodysuit, etc. because I was already working on such a ballgown for my professional routine at Showcase (more on that later). I simply cannot wear the same gown for student freestyles as I do for my professional routine.

After wracking my brain about the possibilities, the fabric available and the patterns in my collection, I decided that I would fashion a black skirt. I used as my base the Simplicity New Look Pattern 6461. I had used this pattern in the past to make a short pink skirt, and I liked how it turned out. With eight flared skirt sections, it has a lot of movement, and the opportunity to add godets for even more movement. The long skirt pattern pieces are separate from the short ones, so I still had them in their entirety, fresh and ready to go. Still and all, the pattern for the long skirt wasn't as long as I wanted, so I used the extension markers to add about 7 inches to the pattern pieces. 

Next, I contemplated what fabric to use. I had several yards of black lycra in stock, but I was worried that it might be too thin for a long skirt, and besides, it had been over $5 a yard on sale; long skirts eat up and awful lot of fabric and so I wanted something more economical. I settled quickly on black ponte double knit. It has a little stretch and a lot of drape, and I had several yards I had bought at Joann with a 50% off coupon. For the godets I ordered some Nylon Chiffon Tricot from Fabric.com in matching black. I've worked with this Chiffon before, and I like it for a number of reasons, but it also has some downsides. On the positive side, it's easy to work with, frays very little, boasts a subtly glossy sheen and has a nice drape. It's hardy for being as sheer as it is. On the downside, it has a moderate propensity to snag, wrinkles easily and is just a little bit too sheer for my tastes. The sheerness wasn't an issue in my aforementioned ballgown, since it has an underskirt, but in the black skirt, it looks almost like there's nothing between my skirt sections when I spin around. Not the worst thing in the world; the godets don't go higher than mid-thigh, and I've seen long dancesport dresses made specifically with open skirt sections for leggy smooth dances, like the tango. 

All in all, the skirt was coming together well, though I worried that it might be a problem for tango. While the godets made the skirt full on the bottom, the cut is slim to mid thigh at the top. As smooth dances go, the tango is a bit different because it requires a fair bit of leg interweaving with one's partner. I have at least one student doing ganchos (hooking your partner's leg with your own) in his freestyle and I didn't want the skirt to get in the way. Luckily, before I attached the godets, I found myself in a conversation at the studio with some of our longtime students about dancewear and learned a great tip. One student with a lot of competition experience mentioned that most smooth skirts his teachers have worn over the years have a slit up the skirt. I paid attention on the next episode of Dancing with the Stars, and sure enough, all of the smooth skirts I saw that night had one, or more, slits.

I sewed the upper areas of the skirt sections together down to where the godets were marked to start. I picked a place on the left side of the skirt where I wanted the slit to be, and attached the godet to the skirt on one side. I sewed a narrow hem on the godet and skirt section left open, thus creating the slit. I sewed in the godets to the remaining openings and the skirt was complete, save for the waist and the hem.

That was, until I tried it on in the mirror. The heaviness of the double knit ponte with the light, unstructured chiffon produced a droopy, shapeless column, not at all the flowing ballgown skirt I'd envisioned. Finishing the hem would give it some shape, I knew, but would a simple narrow hem be enough to give it the lift and profile I wanted?

I had seen a wire hem on practice skirts around the studio, and so I resolved to figure out how to use this technique to add body to my droopy skirt. After a fair bit of googling I discovered a message forum conversation about making wire hems. The process seemed potentially tricky, and the recommendations for using fishing wire made me uneasy since it was not a product sold at my local fabric store and I would have to choose from a number of different weights and colors. Within that discussion, however, came a recommendation from one of the participants for using horsehair braid to give skirts shape. This product, on the other hand, was readily available at the Joann, so I went to the store to investigate the next day.

Contrary to my mental image of braided horse tails, I found that horsehair braid is a polyester mesh. Joann had it in store by the yard in either one inch or half inch sizes. The one inch seemed like overkill, so I went with the half inch. Because I had a coupon, I decided to stock up and get 8 yards. Good thing I did because my skirt ended up using nearly seven of them. The braid is wily, hard to keep wound for storage, but that's precisely what makes it stand up to the weight of a long skirt. I found it easy to work with because it is flat like a ribbon. What I didn't anticipate (but probably should have) was that it didn't look terribly attractive under the chiffon. I had planned to roll it up in the hem, but doing so exposed the raw edge of the chiffon on the right side of the finished skirt.    

What to do? I didn't want to have to wait until Monday to get bias tape from the fabric store, but I was close to done and didn't want to have to go to the effort of making my own trim. In the end, however, I was swayed by the fact that if I fashioned my own trim, I could use satin fabric, which would be a lot more attractive than matte store-bought bias tape; as an added bonus, I could get it done before the weekend was over. It turned out to be well worth the effort (unlike another attempt at trim that I tried later on my ball gown), and even without a bias tape maker of the correct size, the trim was easy to make. I cut two and a half inch wide bias strips of the satin fabric I had in my stores, then I ironed it in half, and finally tucked each side in as far as the fold, and ironed it that way. Voila! I had my own homemade, three-quarter inch satin bias tape. I sewed the horsehair to the inside of the raw edge of the skirt and then covered it up by sewing on the bias trim. The final effect was better than I could have hoped for.

The waistband was last to be finished. I sewed inch-wide elastic onto the edge of the waistband, rolled it under and sewed it again. For the finished dress I paired it with a hot pink bodice I had made for a bridesmaid's dress earlier in the year. With satin and boning, it wasn't exactly dancewear proper, but I knew I'd only be using it to dance with students in predominantly closed routines, so flexibility of the bodice section wasn't a huge concern.     

Posted by S.K. Slevinski at 03:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)