From Godet Skirt to Flower Petal Dress: Planning Stage

Inspiration is weird. Sometimes it comes from the weirdest of places. Other times it might come from somewhere you’d expect, like Pinterest or somebody else’s blog, but once it has been processed through the weirdness in one’s brain, ends up as a bonkers idea.

This is what happened to me a few weeks ago.

Julie from Sum of Their Stories shared a picture from Crafts A La Mode. A petal from a beautiful flower had been transformed into a little petal dress on a piece of white card, complete with hanger.

It’s a genius idea, and there are several things that could be done with it. The most crazy idea I had was to make a dress like the one she had made, but out of fabric and that I could wear, rather than a little picture that I could use in some other way.

Obviously a dress like that was going to be something special, not the kind of thing I could wear to raid the co op for milk and bananas, or for generally galumphing around my little bit of Norfolk.

So when hubby informed me that he had some kind of dinner and dancing thing to which partners were also invited, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to make a mad dress and wear it.

Unfortunately, communication broke down over when the dinner and dancing actually was. It’s possible that hubby originally gave me the wrong date. It’s equally possible that I wasn’t listening, got into a muddle or instantly forgot what he’d said.

The dinner dance thing was last month and the crazy dress did not get made. When hubby told me the correct date, either for the first or second time, it was sooner than I had thought, and there wasn’t long enough.

But I’ve decided to go ahead and make the dress anyway. I considered just making the skirt, but I’m going to go with the full dress idea and wear it to the co op to buy milk and bananas. There’s always the option of dressing it down with a cardi.

It’s still all at the planning stage, but I have pattern pieces, fabric and a plan!

Inspiration

As I’ve said, the inspiration for this dress comes from a flower petal dress made by Linda from Crafts A La Mode. I particularly like the shape of the petal, so I want to capture that in the skirt of the dress. I’m going to simplify the top half, but it will have straps and be green. The skirt will be pink like the flower.

Fabric

I’m going to try something floaty. I’ve bought some lovely 2 tone chiffon in three different colours. A fabric that would stick out a bit more might result in something more structural, but I’m going for inspired by the petal dress rather than the same as it. I might try making another version of the dress in something firmer if I haven’t run out of stream by the time I’ve finished this one.

Obviously, chiffon is going to need lining, so I’ve got some habotai silk in pale gold for the top half and pink for the skirt.

I bought the fabric from Remnant House in Harrogate. This isn’t an affiliate link! They have a lovely choice of fabric, the website is easy to negotiate and it arrived quickly.

I’ve never sewn with chiffon before! It is on the list of trickier fabrics, so I’m going to use stabiliser on the seams, sew French seams and a rolled hem, something else I have never tried!

Pattern

Godets lend themselves quite nicely to the shape of the skirt. This was one of the reasons why I revisited the godet skirt tutorial to make a new version (the original disintegrated to the point where I had run out of safety pins!).

I’ve redrawn the pattern pieces to change the shape of the hem. I’ve added a curve outwards to the triangle, and an inwards curve to the rectangular piece. Making a toile will allow me to see whether this will work, or whether the curves need to be the other way round.

For the bodice, I’m going to draft the pattern in the same way I did for this sundress.

Process For Making a Flower Petal Dress

These are the steps for how I will make the dress.

1. Check that the modified godet skirt pattern works how I want it to.
2. Redraft the bodice of the sundress.
3. Make the skirt from the chiffon.
4. Make the bodice in the chiffon.
5. Make the bodice lining.
6. Make the skirt in the lining, 5 cm shorter. I don’t want the lining to be visible below the hem of the skirt.
7. Sew the shoulder straps.
8. Sew the dress to the lining along the top edge. Hand sew the waist seams to the lining.
9. Put the zip in, on the inside of the lining.
10. Position the shoulder straps and sew them to the inside the dress

Now all I have to do is make it!