Formal Wear: Fabric Guide

I'm so excited about this formal wear series, inspired by my experience sewing my sister's prom dress! Check it out, here, if you haven't seen it yet. Please let me know if you have any special requests. :) 

Type of Fabric
Formal wear is almost always made from pain-in-the-neck material...but if you know what you're doing, it's really not as bad as you'd think. Miranda's dress had a muslin lining, a satin waist, a lamé underskirt, and a chiffon overskirt. I will give advice for each of these...if you'd like me to do an additional post on a specific type of fabric you're interested in, let me know! :)

Muslin Lining
When choosing lining fabric, make sure you choose something simple, strong, light colored, and comfortable. It's going to be closest to the skin, so you want the person wearing it to be comfortable. That being said, the lining may be taking a bit of weight on so it's important not to choose something weak like silk. 

 
Satin Waist
We actually weren't sure what the waist would look like when we began. The first bodice I made had a lamé waist with the chiffon covering, however after stepping back and looking at it, we all agreed it'd really look better if it was broken by a different texture/color. In this case, that was the satin. Satin tends to be a bit unstructured though, so I reinforced it with featherweight interfacing. Keep in mind when choosing satin or silk that perspiration is going to show through the fabric so it's important to line it to prevent wet marks.

Gold Lamé
Lamé fabric is made from metallic fibers. Unfortunately, this means the metal in the fabric quickly dulls the scissors and needles you're using, make sure you're changing needles regularly or sharpening your scissors. It also frays quickly so it's important to wait to cut it until you're definitely ready, avoid handling it too much, and stitch as soon as possible to finish the edges so you don't have to worry anymore. 

Chiffon
The overlay was made using a chiffon. Chiffon reminds me of a softer kind of tulle. With chiffon it is important to take a few extra precautions to keep your machine from eating the delicate fabric. The most important thing you can do is to simply change needles often. (I recommend using a size 70 needle) I also found that using a presser foot designed to be used on delicate or sheer fabrics to be beneficial in preventing the eating of my fabric. Like the lamé, chiffon frays easily, see the instruction above to learn to combat this. 


Amount of Fabric
Avoid skimping too much on the amount of fabric you should buy. That being said, we did not follow our pattern instructions on this. I think the pattern was designed for a cheaper fabric, like tulle. It said I needed almost 25 yards of fabric just for the overskirt! We wound up going with 5 yds of lame (in hindsight, I'd buy 6) 10 yds of chiffon, 1 yd of satin, 3 yds of feathers (too much, but it gave me tons of wiggle room, and 6 yds of beading.

Most Importantly... 
Get to know YOUR fabric. Do you need a special foot? Does it behave a certain way after it's been sewn? Are there special care instructions? etc. You have the world wide web at your fingertips...use it! :) Also, take some time to practice various stitches and stitch sizes on scrap fabrics. 

Hope you enjoyed!

~Farm Girl Teacher