It all started with a great idea and best intentions on my part! Ever since I found out I am going to go to a wedding I decided to make my outfit and I was on a mission to find the best patterns to make my out fit!  And it did not take me long to decide to make the Corset Gown from  The Great British Sewing Bee Fashion with Fabric by Claire –Louise Hardie!  

So I shared my plans with lovely Lisa, from White Tree Fabrics , who kindly send me all that I needed to make my outfit – fabric, zipper, thread, ribbon and bias tape. She did not send me the eyelets and metal boning for the corset as I already these in my stash!  It all arrived in no time! But I had months before the wedding ,I took my time.

I chose to work with black satin duchess for corset and the underskirt and for the outer layer of the skirt I chose purple chiffon!!  Nothing out of the usual there! I already made the corset – here are my thought on it – when I tested the fit of it, so I know the corset would not give me any grief!  I was so relaxed about it that  I let Bella help me!

To make the chiffon behave and work with it easier, before I cut it, I used liquid stiffener on it! And once it dried I cut into it!

For the skirt! I decided to used my own layout when cutting and since I used the pattern for my Walkaway dress, which I shortened to fit my height.  This resulted with me having a lot of left over fabric. I told myself at the time – this is a good thing, if I mess it up I still have enough to  change the plan.

As you can imagine it did go bad! I hated the skirt! Now I know why not many people like making circle skirts! They are a pain when you have to  hem them!  I did not get that far! I decided to try it on first! And it looked horrible on me! it creates all that bulk on my waist that one would think  I do not have a waist! And I cannot have that! Then I got my scissors and started cutting! Unfortunately I cannot find the skirt to show you my ‘master’ work on it! I was so disappointed! I have learnt that for my body shape  its safer to  stick with pencil skirts! I look so much better in them! I was so happy at this stage I had so much fabric

I was so happy at this stage I had so much fabric left! So I started thinking again! What skirt can I made to go with  the corset? In the end I went for the Manhattan skirt pattern from Capital Chic! A favourite of mine and I could incorporate both fabrics!  I make the skirt twice more, only blogged about it once though here.  For this outfit I decided to do the view B and add a vent!  I decided to underline most pieces with the chiffon for the contrast!

Then, considering it was an autumn wedding, I decided that I will need some chill cover! And, since I still had quite a lot of fabric left, I decided to make the  Kimono woven jacket from the GBSB last book as well! I did not make this one before, but, since I had good experiences with other projects in the book, I thought what can go  wrong! LOL.  The plan was to make the main body in chiffon  and the facings in duchess satin.  Nothing out of the ordinary there! However, one of two things happened: I did something wrong – more likely – or there is something wrong with the pattern as the facing looks horrible at the neck! I also had to  create a pleat to make the main body fit into it! Now this makes me think I must have sewed it in wrong! Ups….  But here is the whole outfit!

The bad news is that in the end I decided to go with the backup outfit  as it did not feel right to me! I did my best! But it just felt off to me!  Here is the outfit I chose. What do you think?

This was a good thing as when I sewed the corset, because I was working with satin, some of the channels for the corset we not totally closed and while on a night out in the club,  the boning came out! Luckily I was able to hide it well.  I am now trying to fix it to sew the darn things closed!

And I remind you that you can use the following code:  ATTICK to get a 20% discount from WhiteTree Fabrics

Here are the supplies I used for this outfit:

· main fabric for corset back duchess satin – 0.5 m

· skirt overlay fabric purple chiffon5m

· underskirt skirt fabric duchess satin 5m

· black satin ribbon 2.5 m :

· 5 mm – eyelets

· matching thread

· metal boning

purple invisible zip – 23cm long,

· black satin bias binding of 1/2″ wide when folded in the project.