Bracken Crafts- 100 garments: Making the toille for the TVW dress

So I was looking at something on Pattern Review when someone mentions the fact Burda has not so far copied or made a similar dress to The Vampires Wife (TVW) dresses. Must admit I have also been waiting for this and in the end I am up for a challenge, so I spent quite some time looking at every dress on the Burdastyle.com website and came to the conclusion this is actually correct.

TVW has french bust darts, back darts to the waist, central back zip, puffed sleeves ( various lengths) and frills at wrist and skirt.

There is also a princess version with front frills and neck frills (Cate dress) but I did not really think I would wear that becaues frills are not really normally my thing so that Cate dress is a bit over frilly for someone like me, so anyway, I set about finding the right pattern – preferably without having to move darts or horror of horrors start with a basic block and make my own! I have done this but its been many many years and I really do not think I am up to that at the moment. TVW skirts have no darts and they are not too full but do have enough fabric width to walk easily and the frills are obviously just frills. I think probably having written this before I attempt to make this dress that the frills are where the movement comes from.

Anyway in the end thats the way I have taken this project. I ended up making blocks! I even bought a book to help me. See the previous post here for the making of my blocks - and Winifred Aldrich's book will be essential too. Or unless you know how to do this it will be. Mind you I am sure there will be You tube videos as well, but for me I prefer to not have to keep re-watching the video and replaying etc and just to use a book. There must be some good websites out there too which show in detail how to make your own block.

So what to use to make this dress? I want something very cheap, because this is the point I put to the test the observation by a reader of my blog that I may need a FBA. Or at least if not cheap, my fabric must come from my stash. I am still not convinced of this FBA but ready to adapt if needed so this will mean two dresses or at least two bodices need making to get this right. And I really would like a TVW dress in my wardrobe even if it’s a DIY version.

I have some bright turquoise chintz type of cotton which I reckon would be a good mock up for a more expensive/luxurious version in my second dress. I also have lots of velvet.. This should also give me a summer and a winter version. Assuming of course it will be worth bothering to repeat this exercise!

But first I need a toile so I decided to use some very nice but not really my style floral curtain fabric. I have meters of this - no idea how many but lots - half a roll or so that I bought on a whim from ebay, and it will not matter if I make mistakes and need to redo. There is plenty of fabric to play.with. Its actually quite similar to some of TVW prints too. Floral with a gold pattern behind the flowers and cotton chintz so could make a decent summer dress. You never know I may even like it in this fabric!

So here we go!

The basic front bodice block:

I cut out the original bodice blocks then retraced the front and changed the darts to French darts from the side seam since that seems to be how TVW does this. Then cut this out with a full inch ( 2.5cm seam allowance for adjustments since I suspect this is not going to work first time. Now assuming it fits I can adjust this pattern and change the darts to French Darts but here I made the decision to skip forward and go straight with french darts and miss out the normal bodice muslin.
Move darts = French dart

So now I cut my fabric. First front on fold

Then the back. made a mistake here because I cut it on the seam so had to cut a new version with extra seam allowance for the zip to be inserted. decided the unfitted version ( 2 piece pattern just omits the shoulder dart at the back so instead of removing this I just ignored it. perhaps I should have gone for the unfitted 2 piece version of the block in the first place?

Well never mind I am going to make this up even if it does not work and I have to go back and start again.

I also decided that my skirt block is not right so I re-did this as an A-line skirt to floor length following directions from the book.

Then I sectioned this on the paper to allow for the 4 different skirt lengths and frills so should I do them in the future I will have a reasonabl;e idea where to cut the fabric to. I originally thought TVW had 3 skirt versions but when investigating on The Vampires Wife website the birthday dress is shorter. Well I may as well have a go at making one of each - assuming I can do this of course and that I like them. My reckoning is if the full length dress fits then the rest should be easier to get right so my toile is going to be the long version of this dress.

Any you know this project has made a lovely change from my recent obsession with using all my stretch fabrics and making exercise clothing so this is a very welcome challenge to set myself.

And here is the first version of the toile made in curtain fabric:

These are the muslins of the pieces:

Bodice

side seam darts

The bodice just went together really well. I couldn’t believe it really. I had allowed a huge seam allowance but hardly needed to adjust anything. I did have to adjust the sleeve head by about 0.5 cm but that is my only adjustment so after sewing I cut off the excess seam allowances. Because this is just a toile I never bothered to overlock the edges of the seams – may come to regret that if I decide to wear this.

sleeve

Next I should now add pleats or gathers at sleeve head - I found Mimi Gs video useful here too though she uses a different technique and hers is for stretch fabric not woven but the end result is the same - I will use Mimi Gs version to adapt my block for my sleeve not Winifred Aldrich's version since it makes more sense to me. However at this point I stopped. To ensure everything actually fits properly I made a fitted sleeve rather than the gathered TVW sleeves so in this especially my dress is very different.

No point making changes to the basic sleeve if it does not ft. I found this the hardest bit to draft so decided to stick with a toile of the basic sleeve for this version then alter it for my next toile. I decided I had to do this because in all the blocks the one I thought was most suspect was the sleeve because I found this the hardest to draw. Anyway except for the slight adjustment at the sleeve head it fits better than most commercial patterns to the amazing extent that my partner must have actually managed to measure me correctly and I have really managed to make these blocks and it actually does fit me. Version 2 has to have a different sleeve – proper TVW style so that’s something I will need to sort out this week.