Custom Katastrophic Silk Chiffon Gown

I just finished an unusual project for myself- designing and sewing a formal gown for a client!  It's such a change from my normal design work of knitwear for every day, but it's interesting and exciting to get to use really rich and beautiful materials, like the silk chiffon and silk velvet I used in this project!  

Here are my sketches for the idea of the dress which I created after meeting with my client and looking at some pictures together of what she liked.  I first wanted to make sure I was a good fit for her as a designer.  Luckily I really liked her inspiration pics and it was easy for us to come up with something we both could get excited about.  You can see some variations, some of which I'd like to start as a jumping off point for other custom dresses:

I really love drawing and it's one of my strong points, so naturally in my design process I rely a lot on my drawings, which is where I make most of the design decisions.  This time since I haven't ever worked with this kind of fabric before I wasn't sure how the design would translate to the finish piece, so it was a bit of an experiment.

Suit no. 1

Today was a pretty awesome day. I delivered my first custom tailored suit to my client, Keegan, who will be wearing it tomorrow as he delivers his graduation thesis. It's a euphoric feeling to have finished this project. I had a very short time frame to create this suit (I had to work 12 hour days almost every day last week to get it done, and that does not include the time I spent researching and reading up on how to actually draft and construct a suit, or the time spent drafting the pattern, and the two preliminary muslins made to establish the fit). I knew this was going to be the hardest thing I'd attempted, but I've been wanting to learn to do menswear for a long time, and I also have wanted to learn to make pants. Nothing motivates like a deadline, though, so I took on this project to force me to get into those areas. It was definitely hell week for me, but I was right in believing once I was through it, it would be entirely worth it.