The dying process has finally begun! It looks pretty good right now, but we’ll see how it goes after all the excess dye has come out. These pieces are the cotton sateen of the Flame dress. They have super intense colors that I’m very excited about!

Also, all the cutouts have been lasercut from final fabric and they look beautiful! I will put up some pictures soon!

Welp, the first bit of final fabric is cut! It’s even been sewn! I’ve finished as much as I can with the Flame dress before dying should be done. I got a chance to fit it on my model as well who graciously stopped by the studio this morning and it fits her even more fantastically than I hoped! It was wonderful.

Anyways, the body of the Fleet dress has also been cut from my Cotton sateen and I’m sewing together what I can of that dress without the chiffon. Unfortunately I’ll have to piece dye more of that dress. This is much different than Flame which will be garment dyed so most of the pieces are already sewn.

I’ve also settled on a color scheme for the line which will be fairly sequential. Flame is going to have a purple undertone added to the darkest parts of the red gradient in the top of the dress. Fleet will now be purple and green, Flutter will be staying green and have small additions of blue, and Float will stay the same blue and white it’s always been! I have a little more figuring out to do with Fleet but other than that I’d say I’m pretty sure of how the rest of the garments will pan out.

The very full dress on my model! Now fitted to her with a corset-like support piece inside. Strapless dresses require that kins of extra support to stay up. Unfortunately I still don’t feel comfortable with how it sits, so I’ll be adding small spaghetti straps. These will also allow me to do more with the ornate detailing that sits on top of the dress!

I’ve also cut the points off the front flare panels to make it easier to walk in! Leaving these points in the back will make for a really lovely train as well!

I’ve now changed the godets in the Fleet dress to more match the Float dress! They’re very full and add a really dynamic shape to the dress since the flare sits lower on the hip. This makes the bottom of the dress really move from the point where the godets start but then keeps the top of the dress nice and fitted! I suppose the photos really isn’t the most flattering, but you can see the smaller godet to the left of the really large one in the center!

I’ve also decided that this dress will be mostly purple with some green additions. Now just to figure out how that will all fit together..

These are the progress shots from the Float dress! The first two images are what it looked like at the review with one test flare set into the seam, but since then I’ve talked to a classmate who gave me some great advice about creating more fullness and making them really dramatic. So here are the before and after shots! The front panels will keep the same fullness in the godets but be cut up so my model can walk more easily, the back will stay the same so it has a train of sorts to it. It’s a very heavy dress right now so the entire top half will be structured with interfacing and boning between the final fabric and lining so it stays strong. I’m feeling really good about this one now and it’s VERY dramatic so it’s going to change a lot in the new color scheme I’ll be working on this week for the whole line.

Phew~ Now my patterns and test garments are complete and handed in. These photos here are the Fleet dress. It’s gone through a lot of iterations from the asymmetrical twist sleeve, back to the basic look that I posted a while ago, to this new look now. It has a similar V-cut neckline in the back as the Flame and godet details like the Float. The godets will be much more full since the pattern has changed to add A LOT of fullness. There will be no godets in the front or back center panels, only off to the sides. I’m also working with how to finish the chiffon pieces since right now they’re all unfinished. I’m leaning towards a merrow stitch for all. Unfortunately I’ll need to be more careful with how I lay the seams since right now the skirt is about a half inch off. Something to keep an eye on next time! The zipper will also be transitioned to the back of the dress instead of the side as well.

This is the lovely Andrea modeling the Flutter dress! It only needs a few more tweaks and it’s all set! :)

After the review I had a lot of thinking to do about Fleet and Float so I focused on getting Flutter done this weekend. I had reworked the pattern for fitting and to add more width to the skirt last Tuesday so I cut everything out and purchased chiffon for the cape-sleeve. I love the way the extra fullness in the skirt ended up. It’s exactly what I was hoping for. This dress isn’t fit to April so it will look a little different on Andrea. I hope to get it on her soon! I realize this dress also needs an iron badly.. It was a late night, so I’ll get to that before I take my next pictures.

I’ve reworked Fleet now and will be draping the new dress today. The biggest change coming is some color developments. I feel like my color palette is too broad so I’m going to narrow it down and rework some elements to make them more cohesive.

Experiments with accessorizing for the senior line, but I think they’re too rough for the line so I guess I just made a new bracelet for myself! The first is adjustable, made with washers, and made of a leather lace. The second I made to wrap a few times, made with hex nuts, and look like tassels at the ends!

I don’t think photos of my laser cut pieces will really show just how amazing they are, so I took some video of them being laser cut. It took 21 minutes to cut all this out! The test pieces are actually too small so I’ll have to be sure to resize the pieces once I get closer to needing them. Sorry if the camera got a little shakey, I actually recorded the whole thing and I was kind of a spectacle since all the architecture students have apparently never seen an apparel design student before. Now they want me to bring in one of my dresses for a demo to show what can really be done with the laser cutters.

This was done with a polyester/acetate blend with a polyester fusible interfacing.

Music (c) Fast Car - Tracy Chapman (Kina Grannis & Boyce Avenue acoustic cover)