DIY Olive Taffeta Gown

I am over the moon to finally share this DREAM DIY olive Taffeta gown with you. This has been undoubtedly the most fulfilling experience I have ever had. If I could frame this dress and display it on the wall at my home’s front entrance, I totally would.

I will walk you through the process from the start to the end, making it crystal clear for those of you interested in making this Taffeta gown.

Fabric:

I used an olive stretch Taffeta fabric gifted to me kindly from Zelouf Fabrics in exchange for a review post. I love the slight amount of stretch that this fabric has (~5%), which made it comfortable and forgiving especially around the waistband. The colour and quality of the fabric was quite luxurious and the lustrous sheen is stunning in person. What I loved most was how lightweight this fabric is compared to other Taffeta fabrics I have seen, making this DIY olive Taffeta gown summer appropriate as well.

Design:

I started this project by going through every single pattern I had, followed by browsing the internet for buying a Taffeta-appropriate pattern. However, my heart was not quite into any of the patterns I came across. So I decided to sit down and sketch what I would truly wanted to make this beautiful fabric into, regardless of pattern availability. And here is the final design. A bra style bodice with spaghetti straps attached with a front midriff to a low high gathered skirt. I fell in love right away. I knew this design would do this fabric justice. (you can find more of my illustrations here).

Self-drafting process:

BODICE:

To start off, I used an RTW dress to trace the cups (inner and outer pieces), as well as the front and back midriffs. You can trace any bra-style clothing you have: bodysuits, swimsuits, or even bikini tops. Remember this is only to help you get started! This RTW dress fits me perfectly, but it is in a knit fabric, so I traced around the seams about 0.5″ extra onto the paper to account for my not-so-stretchy Taffeta (only about 5%). So depending on the fit of the garment you are tracing, you may want to make adjustments as you trace, followed by adding the seam allowance later on when cutting your muslin.

I started off with the below toile pieces (left image) to make the first muslin and I hit the first failure! I am only including this to emphasize the importance of making muslins, especially when you are self drafting. As you can see in the right image below, I didn’t account for the front midriff so the back piece is much shorter! Plus the cup size in this fabric (woven versus a knit in the RTW dress) needed further adjustments.

So I went back to my pattern pieces to extend the back midriff and take in from the inner and outer cup pieces. During the adjustment process, a lightbulb went on in my head and I realized that I could just cut from the outer cup to create a triangle, whereby eliminating the need to attach the back midriff to the cups. Instead I could just sew the back midriff as is to the front midriff. See image below! I

So my next toile looked like below. Sometimes mistakes are a detour to put you on the right path!

At this fitting stage, I realized the cups were sitting quite flat in this woven fabric, so I needed to give the cups some shape and make them snug on the top to provide extra coverage. At first I took in from the top half of the middle seam but that created gaping on the outer cup. So I decided to create pleats and gathers to create more of a cone shape. The way I did that was to open up in the middle of each inner and outer cup by about 3/4″ and then extend each side of the bottom seam by about 1″ to account for the gathers.

Here is how the bodice turned out!! Note the pleat in the centre of each inner and outer piece in addition to the smaller gathers on the seam. I was so happy with how it turned out.

LOW HIGH SKIRT:

Self drafting the low high skirt was super easy. I didn’t even make a toile for this (dare I say!) as it was a simple math that you can’t really screw up with proper calculations!

I break it down into three steps:

Step 1. Folding the fabric properly

Note: once we cover the 3rd step below (skirt front and back), you will know how long you need these edges to be to achieve the proper length that you want

Step 2. Waist calculation

Now that you have your folds lining properly, you need to measure and cut the waistline. The way you do it is to measure your natural waist and then multiply that by 2 (or 1.5 depending on how many folds/gathers you want on the waist). I wanted to go with a highly gathered waist so I multiplied my waist by 2 (26″ x 2 = 52″). That number is now the circumference of a circle (See image below!). You will then divide that number (52″) by 3.14 (pie), which gives you the diameter of the circle but we want the radius! (just when you thought you can escape math, eh?) So you will divide that by 2 and that will be the measurement you need to cut the waist as shown below:

And voila! You are now good for the waist!

Step 3. Skirt front and back measurement.

This is very simple: measure the length of the skirt you want for the front as well as for the back! Mark the front length on the centre front (top/folded layer) and mark the back length on the bottom open-edge layer. Next, find the middle point between the front and back length and that will be where the front and back lengths will meet. Take a look at the below image if that helps make it more clear.

Note: when cutting your fabric, be careful to only cut the top/folded layer for the front! If you accidentally cut both top and bottom layers then you will end up with the same exact length for your skirt front and back! So first cut the top folded layer until you reach that mid point. Next, cut the bottom layer from that mid point all the way to the length of the back skirt as shown below!

All that’s left to do is to sew the skirt to the bodice and add a zipper! And of course, hemming the skirt, which takes forever (so prepare for that with some good podcast or music!)

I am so overjoyed and proud of how this DIY olive Taffeta gown turned out after three weeks! Of all the dresses I have made, this one is undoubtedly the most special to me. I brought an idea to life by solely relying on my sewing skills, and that has been so rewarding. My hope is to have inspired you to take a leap to modify, design and self draft any garment that your heart desires. The worse thing that can happen is that it takes you more trials to get exactly what you want and you will learn a ton during the process (not the worse thing, is it). I know that trust muscle of mine is only getting stronger after this wonderful experience.

Thank you to all of you who sent me so many encouraging messages on Instagram along the sewing process. I hope you enjoyed the tutorials and love this glamorous DIY olive Taffeta gown as much as I do.

Cheers to many more sketch-to-reality projects,

With love,

Ava