Natalie Christening Gown pt. 1 : Prep work

I am very excited to be able to join Esther's blog. As she mentioned, I am costume designer by trade but  currently have taken some time off to raise my girls. Before children, I worked as a university professor teaching costume design, theatre technology, and special effects makeup. I have recently started to dabble in tutu making and have done some freelance work in that area. Hopefully, my posts will be of interest.

So right now I am working on a Christening/blessing gown for baby #3. I decided to go the heirloom route. The pattern is from Sew Beautiful issue 135 March/April 2011, the Natalie Christening Gown. I have never done anything heirloom before except for making some 19th century women's blouses for various theatrical productions. Materials I am using are silk dupioni, French cotton laces, silk ribbon and glass beads. I haven't bought all the lace yet but will need to soon. The cost of this project is a bit on the expensive side. I think the cost of the laces will end up being the most expensive items. I goal is to have this finished by the end of the month.

Below are some pics of what I have done so far (Hopefully, you can make out the details, photographing white is tricky).

 Center Front panel traced onto fabric using pencil (This is marking cutting lines so no worries of it showing through once sewn). Center front is marked using a disappearing ink pen.

I chose to pencil mark the embroidery pattern.

Detail of finished ribbon embroidery. Still debating on adding more but will look at it when the dress is sewn together. 

What is a fabric converter?

Fabric or textile converters may not be a term some are familiar with. Fabric or textile converters are factories that embroidery, dye, print, flock, bead, pleat, etc. fabric. They may specialize in one area and simply call themselves embroiderers or printers, or they may provide multiple types of conversions. A fabric converter takes specially prepared or greige (pronounced grey) fabric and converts it into finished goods.

There are various forms of greige goods. Generally greige goods are fabrics that come right off the loom. Some have been minimally processed, not processed at all, or the yarns have been processed prior to weaving or knitting. There are various types of finishes that depend on the desired outcome. There are finishes that prepare the fabric for printing or dying. Other finishes enhance the fabric's qualities, such as singeing, desizing, scouring, bleaching, calendaring, and many more. These are finishes done to the fabric prior to printing, dying, or embroidering and so they are still called greige goods by some. Since these finishes do finish the fabric to some degree, they are technically called by other names. There are various acronyms and labels for the different types of "greige" goods and it all becomes kind of fuzzy (or grey, heh) for me. In any event, greige goods are warehoused until an order comes in to print (or whatever) the fabric. Printing and embroidering are some of the fabric conversions done at the very last stage of fabric manufacturing.

Springtime Lilacs Dress

The story of this design is rather simple. I picked up the fabric in New York city in April 2001. I was in love with lavendar at the time, but lost interest when I got home. Five years later, I finally was inspired to turn this into a baby sundress. I had developed a line of beautiful baby clothes with hand embroidery at my last employer. Unfortunately that line was dropped. I am now bringing it back with the embroidery design on this dress. I added a matching hat as an accessory.

Dress description: One of a kind. Size 3 mo. Bias ties for straps. 2 inch deep hem (can easily be lengthened). The skirt has a full 60" sweep. 100% Linen. Dry Clean. The dress is exactly the same in the back, minus embroidery. Made in USA.

A close-up of the embroidery on the dress and hat.