The making of a couture lace dress (Part 1)

One of my new resolutions is to do more blog posts so everyone can see what I'm up to and to share a bit of behind-the-scenes at the Dressmakers Academy.

Right now, I am working on sewing a lace dress for a client, and I think it is great to share the process of making the dress. I will use couture techniques to make the lace seams invisible and since my last free couture sewing masterclass, I noticed a lot of you are interested in these techniques , so I hope you will enjoy this blogpost!

For this client, I have made a dress before, and we decided that I would use that pattern as the base for this new dress. It will be a dress made out of a gold/silver lace with a mauve satin fashion fabric as a layer under the lace. The neckline and sleeves will be made out of lace only.
​As I made the previous pattern more than a year ago, I made an appointment with the client to take measurements again, to see if there are some changes. There was not much difference in size but the first dress was made out of stretch material, this one will be without the stretch so as a precaution, I have added seam allowances of 2 cm wide to the dress. This will give enough room for scaling if needed.

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Next, I made some fabric samples to check the cotton I will use as an extra underlining. So in order to see how the cotton will feel and give extra structure, I make samples of all layers together and just feel what works best for me.

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A trick to make your paper pattern without wrinkles is to iron is. Just be careful if you have used plastic tape, because it will melt and stick to your iron.
I also iron the satin so I can place it nice and neat on the cutting table. Next, I place the paper patterns on the fabric and use weights to keep them in place. With my tailors chalk I add a 2 cm seam allowance around the pattern pieces, except in the neckline and armcye. There I add 1.5 cm.
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To be continued!