AUTUMN BRIDE

It has being a year since my last post. What a year it has being! One I can’t wait to leave behind. Like many people, this economy has dragged me down and all my time was taken trying to keep up.

I have not made a single thing all this time, although I try to make something for myself to keep my mind away, but it did not happen [why is it so hard to make something for yourself when you are a guy?] Never the less, the greatest give to “man” is it time… this too should pass.

One of my cousins is getting married this month, and of course I’m making her dress…

I’m posting some pics of her last fitting and other of the dress before the fitting. Later I will post detail pics of the process.

Front photo of the bride trying the dress. The dress has a scooped neckline, dropped waistline with cap sleeves. The bodice of the dress is made of emprodery tull with sequens, beads and flowers

The lower part of the dress is made of Silk Satin Organza, with appliques of the bodice fabric on the top. Vertical ruffles in differnts lenghts all over the skirt

Back look of the dress in the mannequin















Front look of the dress

you could see on this pic that side seams had not being closed. The seams will be sewn after last fitting







The wedding is in two weeks, I'd post more pics after the wedding

BEADING SAMPLE II

The beading sample for the Wedding dress is almost done. I’m satisfied with the beading; but not with the bias strips, I don’t think I like them as much. I might play with it a bit more to see if I will use them at all.




Here is a pic of the appliqué petal on the flower.
To make the appliqué petals, after they were embroidered the petals were glue on the back to give them body. After the glue had dried, the petals were cut out and the edge sewn to a very fine wire.


The petals were appliquéd on top of the already beaded flower. This gave me the 3-dimensional “Feel” that I was looking for. I’m very glad to see how it came out.

After seeing the beading and knowing that I’m satisfied with it, I think I will go ahead and start working on the dress.

BEADING

Embroidery, specially beaded work had always fascinated it me. My early memories of it are from the gowns and costumes that were paraded on carnivals and Patriot’s Saints feasts. I still have some pictures of some of those dresses, from the time I was part of the Saint Joseph feast. I was dress as a sultan, that year the theme as the Middle-east.

I never formally took classes on beading or embroidery, but it was easy for me to pick it up once I found, or my mother found someone that new now to do it.

My mother found a lady that taught “Telar” beading or “Tambour Beading”. I saw her do it a couple of times, and realized that it was just like crocheting but with a fabric in between.
I was familiar with crocheting, my mother was an expert. [I still have some of her work]. She would crochet a table cloth in a night; she was fast… really fast.

Being familiar with the chain stitch [crochet] I knew it would be easy for me to get the hand of tambour beading, just need it the tambour needle, and practice.

Here are some pics of one of my early designs. I’m lucky I still have it; I was still practicing and playing with different beads and sequins.

I took a pic of the back, to give you an idea of how it looks. When you are working on a frame with tambour embroidery, most of the work is done on the wrong side of the fabric; this makes it and ideal method for working on velvets and other fabrics with a difficult surface

This is a beaded work done for sample dress I made in NYC. The dress was part of the “Empire dress” collection; the ribbon was beaded, not in velvet as the E.D. It was made out of silk organza with the “white on white” beaded work and the bow were in the front, not the back as on the Empire Dress.

The Bow knot

Testing the design and bead














the Empire dress

Details of beaded bodice

Today it is easier for anyone with a computer and the internet to learn or get ideas of how Tambour beading is done.

On my research I found these videos and blog that show in details how the tambour embroidery is done.

embroideryaddict
This is a great blog. Virginie shows lots a beautiful work and how to’s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-R70JQPbGc

This video shows the needle’s movement.

“La Maison Lesage” in Paris…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQbXu_rtBVQ

BEADING SAMPLE

After few weeks of resting, I stared working on a beaded sample that I might use for a wedding dress.
I knew I wanted to use all white and clear bead, sequins and purls. The idea was a white on white embroidery.

After some research [on the net and some of my embroidery design collection] I came up with this sketch.

I trace the sketch to silk organza, got my frame out and went to work.

While making the sampler I realized I did not like the design. It was not giving me the “feeling” I was looking for… back to the drawing table I went. When I was happy with the drawing, I took it over to the frame and with a dressmaker pencil I traced it over the old design.

Here is a pic of the work in progress on the frame.

The little petals that are free standing on the side are going to be cut-out and appliqué over some of the flowers.

This pic shows the embroidery almost done, I like the way it is coming out.

So far I have used;
Sequins- white and iridescent white size 2mm
Bugle beads-white and iridescent white size 2
Seed beads- white
Purls-white
Rhinestones- Square sew on Crystal Swarovski