Gaudy as a Butterfly

Fluttery butterfly mesh meets textured stretch taffeta sleeves in this cutesy pink creation, finished just in time for Valentine's Day.

The Concept

I always promise that I won't buy fabric when I travel. This promise is broken every time. I have taken to bringing another carry-on with enough room for fabric, because I know myself. This whimsical fabric was acquired on one of my jaunts to New York. The new fabrics that hit the market tend to show up in the shops of New York first before popping up in Los Angeles. Butterflies was something I had never seen before and I had to have it. I had no idea what I was going to make so I erred on the side of caution and only got about a yard.

So what stunning concept did I want to use this for? There were a few ideas I wanted to play with. I had never done a gathered tulle skirt. I had never done textured sleeves. I decided this was the dress I could pull all this together on. I had bought just enough fabric for maybe a bodi-con dress. So I settled on a short dress, with an open front to show some leg and then a longer layered train.

The Build

Happily this fabric had a little stretch in it and I didn't frustrate myself too much putting it together. It was incredibly hard to match the pinks however. I ended up redoing the body. The fabric I had first chosen was too cheap, even if it matched the mesh perfectly. I found some stretch taffeta that I liked a lot better. Here was the final result.

Structured Ruffle Sleeves

This was wholly the most exciting part of the dress. I literally had no idea where to start. I was building a ruffle sleeve but how to get that fabulous volume and structure. An extensive internet search lead me down a Nigerian seamstress tangent. I found a lot of really badass techniques for gowns, which I can't wait to implement later, but that's a digression for another time.

I learned these sleeves required crinoline, one of my favorite things to use. To keep their body I had to line the ruffles with crinoline. Between With Ijeoma and LarryB Threads lovely channels on YouTube I got it straightened out what I was supposed to do; cut out a few large circles and sew crinoline along the edge. I hand sewed these circles onto the shoulders of the bodi-con dress, moving them until I got the shape that I wanted. Not bad for a first try.

Crinoline (aka horsehair braid) for the win! This versatile netting that is now manufactured from nylon or polyester is used to stiffen all sorts of fashion elements.

The Tulle Madness

I bought a humble 6 yards of matching tulle and thought I would be fine with a layered bustle. Turned out that after cutting the actual skirt, the only thing left over was enough to layer the hem of the skirt. So back downtown I went and picked up a roll of 40 yards for the skirt.

I learned it takes over 40 yards of tulle to do a layered skirt and over 10 hrs to sew it.

I decided to quadruple up the tulle so it was thicker. I didn't have a gathering foot either so that was another learning curve. I tried and quickly figured out that I don't have the patience to do it by hand. Happily there was an easy way to accomplish my task. I put the tension on the bobbin all the way up and sewed for three hours to gather all the 40 yards of tulle.

Next I pinned everything on my 1/3 of circle skirt for the bustle. This was the preliminary test and immediately I knew it would not be enough. It was way too thin.

A few more rows later I had this lovely full bustle. It has a tie for the waist. It took another 3 hours to zig-zag all these layers on. Through the whole process I was just happy that I was doing less than half a circle for this project. This was almost a skirt that seemed to go on forever and ever. The relief when I got done was definitely a lot.

In the end all of my hard work paid off. The cutesy fluffy sleeves and the fluffy bustle are everything. I would suggest to my future self to put a zipper in things, even though I know she won't listen. It was definitely an ordeal getting this on and off.