The bridal blog series is back!

In each bridal blog series, you meet a new bride and I slowly post-by-post recount the process and share the behind-the-seams story of creating her one-of-a-kind custom couture wedding dress from start-to-finish. To keep the dress a surprise for the groom and guests (and because my blogging style is slow and thorough), I do not begin to tell the story until after her wedding day. To tell the story as it happened, the blurry selfie above is the only early peek you’ll get of part of her completed custom dress!

Hello Tiffany!

Last December, Tiffany said “I do!” to the love of her life, but our story began last summer when she first contacted me.

She said “Reading about your academic and professional background in design and dressmaking is such a relief. A lot of dressmakers I’ve found in the area seem to depend entirely on how long ago they picked up sewing and less on proper techniques and processes for design and dressmaking. I have so much respect for what you do and wish I had enough time to make the dress with you. Way back when in high school, I had the chance to take sewing courses. After one year of sewing classes, three dresses and a fitted jacket, I purchased a sewing machine and serger. That preview I received in those classes forever changed how I look at buying clothes, getting alterations, and making new items. Working with anyone else without your qualifications would be too much of a leap of faith for me, and I hope we can make this happen!”

How cool is she? And, needless to say, we did make it happen!…

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Though you may be itching for the beginning of a new bridal blog series (me too!), I recently worked on an unusual and special project that I really wanted to share. I made a Dior-inspired square for a surprise “Couture Quilt”!

First off, let’s establish that I am a dressmaker, not a quilter.  I have zero quilting experience. However, I thought it might be fun to share how a non-quilter couturier tackled this non-traditional project step-by-step. I fear that I’m sharing waaaay too many photos, but this teeeeeny flat dress was soooo adorable that I couldn’t help myself!

What!? Who? When? Why?

The quilt was a surprise for Judy Adamson in celebration her retirement as the director of the University of North Carolina’s Costume Production MFA program, a 3-year full-time very-intense program where I learned all about the production side of professional costuming. Most schools will offer Masters Degrees in Costume Design, but very few are focused on the people and the skills needed to turn a designer’s sketch into reality- which is much more interesting to me than design (and way more interesting to me than fashion-based education). I learned custom pattern making, custom fitting, couture sewing, dyeing, millinery… all the good stuff! (And the graduates get hired! I landed a dreamy Broadway millinery job right out of school. Graduates work for professional theatres, film, opera…  One of my classmates is Dolly Parton’s costumer…)

The program is very small. Each year, only two incoming students are accepted. (The program is also very difficult. Each year, one or both may drop out. Judy started the program in 1993. In 2001, I was the 8th graduate of the program!) The very small class size led to a very special education and very special relationships with our teachers. Most classes were taught by Judy herself. She helped turn us all into who we are today!

In April, former graduates gathered to celebrate her years being our mentor. As a surprise gift, many of us contributed a 12″x12″ custom square for a “Couture Quilt”….

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In part 1 of this Epic Photo Essay, I shared all the prep steps to get my self-drafted splatter print dress ready for stitching. (If you haven’t peeped it yet, go catch up!) In this pt 2, I’ll share how I buttoned everything up. Literally!

When sewing from your own custom patterns, there is no picture of what the end looks like and no instruction booklet to tell you exactly what step needs to happen next. Some may find this scary, but I find it fantastically freeing! The truth is, the pattern designer who wrote the instruction booklet is only ever able to give you a rough guide. They couldn’t possibly know the specifics about your unique goals, body, fabrics, tools, preferences, sewing style… There are so many variables that go into making something a success!

The way I sew is a little more like real life. There isn’t ever a clear picture of how things are going to go down. You simply keep moving forward one step at a time. You don’t know the ending until you get there. Heck, you don’t really know the next step until you get there. It’s a slow journey, but it is one where you are constantly able to evolve, evaluate, experiment, and improve.

Having no rules or instructions forces you to carefully consider the exact moment of the process that you are in. It forces you to carefully consider your specific goals/needs/ideas/desires and your specific combo of body/pattern/design/fabric etc, which in turn gives you your best chance for success! There’s a lots of puzzle-solving and everything you try might not be total success as fast as you’d like. That’s life! Might as well get in some practice with these important life-skills while doing something that you love and enjoy!

This is one of the reasons why I don’t share pics of a finished wedding dress before reaching the end of the blog story of its creation. Before the dress was completed, I didn’t know exactly how it would turn out and the bride didn’t know exactly how it would turn out, so it would be misleading to show all of you what we didn’t know. Same goes for the finished garments created in the online workshops I teach: sharing the end before registration would be a little like spoiling the end of the novel you are about to open!

So don’t let the selfie-sneak-peek above fool you! This post begins after all the designing, pattern drafting, mockup making, mockup fitting, fitting corrections, construction sampling, and underlining. All of the pieces of my new dress were still flat, with all the custom shaping and fancy finishing waiting to be added….

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I made a dress! For myself! And I took a bazillion photos! And I’m excited to share them with you!

My passion is helping others look great. Unless I’m heading to a wedding where I made the bride’s dress or I’m self-sewing on-camera for one of my online workshops, I’m firmly in the camp of ‘the dressmaker has no clothes’.

As a self-employed business owner, I have approximately 9 years of work on my To-Do List at all times. A few months ago, I was feeling so far underneath it that I was dragging along and feeling totally uninspired. To try to snap myself out of it, I looked around my studio for inspiration. The most inspiring thing I found was the fabric you see above: a colorful splatter print rayon from Mulberry Silks!

So instead of tackling my List, I decided to take some time to make something for myself!

And since a casual-ish dress for myself is much simpler than my bridal designs, and I know ya’ll love behind-the-seams process peeks as much as I love sharing them, I took photos of almost every step along the way! 417 photos to be exact… which I edited down to approximately 75…  I was very tempted to keep editing out bits of the story until an Instagram poll significantly favored sharing EVERYTHING… So… I hope you enjoy this epically photo-filled double-feature!…

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I’ve been blogging for TEN YEARS now, ya’ll!

In “My 10 Year Blogiversary pt. 1”, I share links to each bridal blog series that I’ve created over the past decade. If you follow along in order, you’ll see a clear evolution in my business, my skills, my writing, and my photography.

But not all of my blog posts follow a wedding dress’s progress, which brings me to pt. 2! In this, my #288th post, I’ll share a round-up of my most popular posts on other topics! There are retrospective posts, posts about sewing techniques and tools, posts about clothes I’ve made for myself, personal posts, and more…  Thanks so much for following along!

Origins and Evolutions

While each bridal blog series is linear and chronological, the other posts on my blog are a little more random. I’ll try to loosely thread them together by topic, starting with ones that share a little more about me and what I do.
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Ten years ago this week, I published my first blog post!

The Backstory

After making my (now)husband’s sister’s wedding dress and then his other sister’s wedding dress,  I made my own wedding dress. My friend Jonathan brought a woman named Leah as his date to my wedding and they got engaged not long afterwards. Leah remembered that I made my dress and wondered if I might make her a custom wedding dress too.

At the time, I had left my career in theatrical costuming to move back to North Carolina. I’m grateful for my time working on Broadway shows in New York City, sooo glad I did it, but am even more glad that I am not still doing it. I’ve discovered that I need a slower pace than New York and theatre, so I left them both and haven’t looked back.

When Leah asked if I’d make her wedding dress, I was working as a custom museum-quality picture frame artisan but I had a home sewing room and I had a blast making those 3 custom wedding dresses. Her request made me wonder… could  a custom wedding dress side-hustle be a thing for me?…

I decided to agree to create a custom wedding dress for Leah IF, along the way, she would help me figure out how the process could become a business. Though I did not know Leah well at all (which is funny to think about since I now consider her a dear friend!), I had a feeling she would be a really smart and savvy collaborator (and I was right!). Also- Jonathan’s parents were both lawyers in my county and offered to help me with contracts etc…

…so we all happily said yes to me making the dress and my small business was born!

Early on in our dressmaking and business-creating process, Leah (who is a writer) suggested that I start a blog.…

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It’s finally time to share about Deborah’s wedding day! HOORAY!

Deborah and Blake were married in November 2017 at a church in Greensboro, NC with the reception at a nearby resort with a gorgeous ballroom. My husband Charles and I were invited and had a fabulous time! It was such an honor to work with Deborah to create her one-of-a-kind custom wedding dress and a true pleasure to witness the big event and join the party!

The talented Mike Micciche was the wedding day photographer. You may notice that this post is a little less ‘photo-filled’ than my usual wedding day posts, but Mike limited me to only a few logo-branded images and I respect his wishes. His first offer was to choose 3-5 (How could I ever choose!? These photos were so gorgeous ya’ll! And I’m so used to being offered dozens…), but I was eventually able to talk him into allowing me to share the 9 beautiful (branded) shots you’ll see in this post! Mike also created an online photo slideshow (which I will share!) and I was also able to fill in with a few photos taken with my phone. After months of following her blog story, I hope this final post will give your Full Wedding Day Fix!

But enough chit chat! Let’s get to it!
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