If you are shopping a dress of the rack then remember to consult a sails assistant about the alteration possibilities. Many store bought dresses are quite generous when it comes to chest size. Shortening the straps Many wedding gowns are made with a little bit longer straps so that they will fit a wide range of brides. A beautiful budget wedding dress — magic words that most of the brides want to hear.
Here is our 10 tips to make your basic wedding dress look like straight out of the catwalk or red carpet a. Great mix of diy and no sew tips and seamstress alterations all aimed to make you look like million bucks at your wedding day. Read all tips at from the blogpost! Waist stay is a ribbon or an elastic band that goes inside your dress and fits snug on your waist. It works miracles when it comes to keeping your dress on the right place as it prevents your gown from sliding down.
That means no more yanking your strapless dress up. You can read this and tons of more crucial wedding dress tips from our wedding dress guide. There is so much you can do to a wedding dress.
It is possible to transform the back completely: opening it up or adding more cover. Alteration goes both ways as you can have the neckline opened or closed. Cost varies a lot depending on the style you want. It always helps if you have inspiration pictures ready when you consult a seamstress. Plan your whole wedding outfit with this beautiful easy to use planner! No matter the style of your wedding dress it is usually possible to alter the back. You may want it open when some of the material is taken away.
It is also possible to build for example a lace back to a strapless gown. This is one of our favourite kind of alteration as it requires some designing eye to make a plan for the back with the bride. Altering the wedding dresses back and closure is commonly requested change to a read made dress. It has a great impact and is usually rather cost efficient.
Does your wedding dress have a zipper but you dream about a long line of buttons? Or would you rather have a corset back? Altering the closure is surprisingly common and not even a difficult alteration.
Just ask your seamstress what is possible! That is when bigger alterations come to question and it is possible to do a lot for a dress.
So, what should I do if my wedding dress is too short? You have two options. If you still have some time before your wedding, you could simply buy another dress you like. However, time and budget might not make this a good options. So the other option, depending on your dress, you could lengthen it using some lace.
Sometimes accidents happen that cause your wedding dress to be shorter than expected. Sadly this happens every once and a while, and rather than getting a new dress you may be able to lengthen the dress you already have. Here are a few ideas. Adding on to your wedding dress really all depends on the style of dress you have and the look you are going for.
Some dresses you may be able to add some lace on the bottom to look like a decorative hem. Finally, when assembling the bodice in a later step, the lining bra cups wil be hand stitched to the bra cup itself to secure everything nicely in place.
For the lace layer the basis pattern for the bodice is used. I placed the pattern pieces without seam allowance on the lace, taking into acount the arrangement of lace flowers on the panel. I made sure some flowers were almost entirely within the panel, some deliberately for a large part outside the panel, such that they can overlap the next panel and hide the seam, and some long outliers of flowers on the top and especially bottom to overlap the tule top and skirt.
I again used tea cups for weights to hold the pattern piece in place. I then traced the edge of the panel by basting with a contrasting, black, thick thread using a hand sewing needle. After taking away the pattern piece I used the rotary cutter to globally cut out the panel, cutting around all flowers that are attached to the panel, leaving them whole.
I then used embroidery scissors to carefully cut away the mesh fabric from the flowers at the edges. I repeated this for all seven panels. Then I aligned the neighbouring panels following the black basted guides and secured them with sewing pins.
I made sure the flowers that stuck out over the edge were always on top of the next panel. Then I used a thread of matching color and a needle to hand sew the overlapping lace flowers onto the next panel.
In the regions of the seams where no lace flowers were present, I machine stitched the seams, then clipping off the seam allowance as short as possible. Therefore, I cut out many loose flowers from the lace fabric and hand sewed them in the open areas.
This was a LOT of work and caused quite some frustration as progress is slow and the thread gets tangled up in knots often and gets stuck behind lace flower petals and leaves and sequins that stick out a little.
Finally, when I was actually quite close to finishing, I called some friends to help me with cutting out some more flowers from the lace and to my surprise one friend, Maartje, offered to help sewing the loose flowers into place with her wonderful sewing machine with embroidery presser foot. She helped me out finishing the lace bodice in just over a half day, which would have taken me at least another week if I had have to do it all by hand. I found it was still pretty difficult to keep the lace nice and straight and in place on this machine, so I was happy Maartje has had more practice and she did a wonderful job attaching the remaining lace flowers.
To give the dress some support I added boning to the bodice. I decided that it was enough to place boning only along the seams of the bodice and one in the center of the front panel, which makes a total of 9 bones. The bones that go on the back of the dress, next to the corset lacing, must not bend sideways when the lacing is tightened and therefore I decided to use spring steel boning, since this only bends forwards and backwards.
It is possible to buy this type of boning by the meter, so that you can cut it to the right length yourself. However, spring steel is hardened and therefore difficult to cut.
Thereore, I bought pre-made spring steel boning at the right length with finished ends dipped in some polymer I believe. For the rest of the boning it is actually convenient and more comfortable if they bend in multiple directions. Therefore, I used spiral steel boning for the rest of the boning. This I actually bought by the meter and cut to length myself using cutting pliers and measuring tape. The ends now contain sharp wire ends which might pinch through the fabric and ruin the dress and hurt me while wearing it.
So I secured matching end caps to the ends using the pliers. To accomodate the boning in the dress, I attached boning tunnels to the structure layer of the bodice. You could buy ready-to-use boning tunnels, however, they did not sell the appropriate size for my boning at the store I bought everything for my dress. Therefore, I used bias tape and made my own tunnels. I actually used two layers of bias tape and sewed them on the seams of the bodice with two lines of stitching, far enough apart to fit the bones, but not to far apart, such that the bones do not have wiggle room.
The bones go underneath NOT in between the two layers of bias tape. Hence, the boning is covered from one side by the cotton fabric of the structure layer and on the other side by two layers of bias tape, which both are strong enough to hold the boning.
Therefore, the boning ends at the lower stomach, just above the bending point of the body when sitting down. After inserting the boning in the tunnels, the tunnels are closed off just above and below the bones by machine stitching back and forth a couple of times.
The lace itself, but also the loops and the lacing panel are made from the same satin fabric that is used for the satin layer of the bodice that is visible through the lace.
I started by making the loops. I reinforced the satin with the same iron-on interfacing I also used for the bodice. Then I cut strips of about 2 cm wide on the bias i. Since the loops consist of only small lengths of satin straps, I used a leftover piece of fabric and cut multiple strips, rather than making one long strip from a new region of the fabric.
Then I sewed tunnels out of the strips, placing the good sides together. I placed a cord in between and used the zipper foot on my sewing machine to ensure an even width of the tunnel along the entire length and from strap to strap.
I inverted the tunnels using a loop turner tool, which really made life easy. This way I finished a number of straps, more than enough to make all the loops from. The loops will be subject to quite a lot of force when the lacing is tightened and need to be secured very well to the dress. Also, it is easier to first sew all the loops together on some strip and sew this entire strip to the dress, than it is to sew all the loops on the dress separately. To provide extra security, I sewed the loops on some strips of rigilene boning.
This is a plastic type of boning which allows to sew through. I marked where the loops needed to go and started sewing loop by loop. It cost quite some effort to keep the loops in place while sewing, because they are rather thick and the pressure foot tends to push the straps away and it is not possible to use sewing pins. I ended up re-doing some loops and in the end they are still not perfectly sized and shaped, but after all the effort I was happy with the result.
I sewed over the entire strip three more times to make sure the loops were secured. I then sewed the strips with loops to the structure layer of the bodice, along with the tunnels for for the spring steel boning previous step. Next I had to make the corset lace itself. Basically, the technique is the same as for the loop straps, but now I cut out two long diagonals from a new piece of fabric.
I connected the two pieces on the bias , such that the seam accomodates stretching of the lace. Again I sewed a tunnel using the cord and zipper foot, but now I turned it with the cord itself, since the lace was to long almost 4 meters to use the loop turner. Finally I created a lacing panel to go behind the lacing, again from satin. I used the rigilene boning to make sure it stays in shape when the lacing is tightened. I attached it to the lining layer of the bodice.
Assembling the bodice was the most difficult step in the entire process of making this wedding dress and drove me to several mental breakdowns. Luckily, before I started making the dress, I had several help lines offered to me and I consulted all of them in this process. The pattern I bought had an option for such a yoke and I used the pattern piece for this. I think in the end I started over making the yoke three or four times.
This was not the difficult part, however. Joining all three bodice layers with the yoke in between at the top edge, which is curved due to the sweetheart neckline, is what caused me much headache. The tulle kept crumbling together and getting caught in the seam.
In the end I carefully pinned the yoke to the reinforcement layer only, while I was wearing it, to determine the correct position.
I then marked with basting thread where the seam needed to go and placed a staystitch. Then I very carefully attached the yoke only to the satin layer, so that I could see what I was doing, rather than the tulle being covered by all the other layers. Then I attached the other two layers, carefully pulling away the tulle yoke from being caught in the needle.
Then I understitched the top edge and cut away parts of the seam allowance of all layers to make the top edge less thick. Besides, the undesired wrinkles can be masked later by some lace flowers I want to place on the yoke and the issue will be solved. Joining the layers in the back was easier. I topstitched the reinforcement and satin layer together just beside the lacing loops and I installed an invisible zipper beneath the lacing.
Later I slip stitched by hand the lining to the zipper tape and beside the lacing loops. I had never installed an invisible zipper before and I bought one extra to practice. But with the invisible zipper foot and the clear instructions from the YouTube videos by Made to Sew and Professor Pincushion it was actually not that hard!
I wanted the dress to be quite poofy and therefore I decided to make multiple layers of circle skirts. The outer layers are made of tulle, for an extra poofy effect and because I like the look of tulle skirts. Bridal tulle comes in very large widths, which makes it possible to cut the entire circle of about 2,5 meters in diameter in one piece from the fabric.
For the layers from the other fabrics satin, lining and organza I needed to cut two half circles and join them. To cut the circles I folded the fabric in such way that I only needed to cut one eighth of the circle. I did not make the backside longer than the front side this time, however, since I made the skirts long enough to make a small train in the back anyway. Then I cut out the circles. For the satin, lining and organza I then joined the two half circles by a straight machine stitch.
For the satin the half skirt was cut in such a way from the fabric that the straight edges aligned with the fabric edge and therefore did not need finishing in some way. The seams of the lining fabric, however, were serged to prevent fraying and for the organza I used a French seam.
First we measured what the size of the center holes needed to be by measuring the circumference of the bottom of the bodice. We then measured, marked and cut out the holes from all layers of the skirts. The lining layer of the skirts was directly attached to the lining layer of the bodice, by pinning the skirt to the bodice while I was wearing it. After taking off the dress I machine sewed it to the bodice. The other layers of skirt where first attached to eachother, two by two layers at the time.
The organza was directly attached to the satin. For two of the tulle layers the center hole was made larger, such that it could be gathered at the top to create more poofyness. After all six layers satin, organza, four layers of tulle where attached to eachother, they were clamped to the satin and structure layers of the bodice using sewing clips.
Before sewing the skirts to the bodice, I carefully tried on the dress one more time to check if everything was clamped symetrically. This was the case and I sewed everything together with two rounds of straight stitches for extra security. For hemming the skirt I again asked my mother in law and my friend Maartje to help me. They needed to pin the skirts to the correct length, layer by layer, while I was wearing the dress and standing on a table.
The back of the skirts was left longer than the front to create a small train. Maartje used her serger to make a nice rolled hem finish to the lining and organza layer. Also the satin layer was serged, but a regular hem was made with the sewing machine. The tulle layers were just cut to length, no hem was necessary. The final stage of making my wedding dress was to attach the lace layer to the the bodice and to make covered buttons to close the yoke.
The buttons were made by cutting small circles from a piece of satin fabric using a cilinder shaped flashlight as a template for the circles. Then I made a basting stitch around the circle, not too close to the edge to prevent fraying. The thread is pulled, such that the satin circle forms some sort of sachet, in which one part of the button is placed. Then the other part of the button is put in place to close the covered button.
The button can not be sewn directly to the tulle yoke, so a small strip of satin is attached first on both ends of the yoke. On one side the buttons are sewn, on the other side small loops of elastic band are sewn that can be slipped over the button to close the yoke. The lace is attached by first pinning it in place and then handstitching the lace to the satin layer of the bodice on all edges: the top edge, the bottom edge and the edges along the lacing loops and zipper. The remaining task was to hand sew the lace outliers to the tulle yoke and the tulle top skirt.
Also some extra loose lace flowers were cut out and sewn on the yoke to hide the shoulder seams and to fill open spaces. Furthermore, I made sure to attach some pieces of lace at the weak spots of the tulle yoke, for example at the armpits and at the edge of the open area above the corset lacing, to provide some extra strength at these locations.
Finally, after months of sewing, literally with blood, sweat and tears, the dress was finally finished! I am very happy with the result and I proudly wore the dress on our wedding day! Absolutely amazing job. Gorgeous dress. Gorgeous bride. I have been sewing for several years and would still not take on a project that big.
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