"Mother of the Groom" Dress- Burda 7118 & McCall 5893

I'm interrupting my next DVD review for a quick pattern review. I was totally going to wait until I received the formal wedding pictures but my client, Mrs. E absolutely insisted I take some pictures and post them. Isn't she so lovely!!! I had the distinct pleasure of making a Mother of the Groom ensemble for this pretty lady. She called me a few months back after being exhausted from several shopping trips and coming up empty handed. Everything she saw was either too frumpy or just didn't fit right. She needed a lovely dress to wear to her Son's wedding in 2 locations---in the U.S. And South Africa!  Well we put our heads together, brainstormed a bit and came up with an outfit we were sure would wow! Here's the final product.

 (Dress with wrap. Isn't the color simply phenomenal on her!)

 (I added a bow belt at Mrs. E's request to give a little extra back appeal)

 (Dress without the wrap. Ha, you can see my head over her shoulder in the mirror!)

We used a GORGEOUS Dupioni Silk in the color Mint Cream from JRBSilks. This stuff is luxurious and at $30/yd it should be.  I ended up interfacing all of it to give it more body and help eliminate wrinkles.

Here's the patterns......I used 2 patterns. I used Burda 7118 View D for her wrap! Went together super easy and I only interfaced one side of the wrap.

And McCall's 5893 for the dress. This dress was meant for a knit but I just changed it to work with an woven. I wanted a empire style that would flatter Mrs. E's figure. I ended up downsizing the skirt of the dress alot so it would be more fitted. I made the appropriate adjustments needed to fit it to my client. Of course I always make muslins when fitting my client so we worked through the fit issues fairly well. I used white satin of medium weight as a lining to give added body to the dress. Silk sure is really light. And I added a side zipper. The dress was super easy to put together.

I added a 3rd piece at Mrs. E's request. She wanted a belt to go with the dress to add some pizazz if she took off the wrap. I make a 3" wide belt and added pleats to give it texture. To it I added a sizable bow which I made using an online tutorial---sorry can't find it right now. Essentially the bow is a tube of fabric cinched in by a smaller tube of fabric. UBER easy!!!!  I interfaced the bow and used and additional rigid sew in interfacing to give it it's stiffness. I used the large snaps as a closure for the belt. You can see the back side/bow-side of the belt in pic above.

I LOVE the way Mrs. E's outfit came together and most importantly she LOVES IT! She absolutely LOVES it!!!  That feeling is exactly why I love to sew for other people. It's definitely work but the great results and smiles makes it worth it!!! It's cool to know one of my garments will be traveling down to South Africa to be worn on another continent:)