Chapter 7: The top half

Embroidery machines, I've come to find out, are a lot like kids and spouses and my cat Tiger. 

They love attention!  Wouldn't it seem reasonable that I could leave the Beast to run off a design on his own once he's all set up and chugging away while I go and make myself some lunch or throw in a load of laundry?  Think again!  I am reminded of those days when I would lay a sleeping baby in her crib and tip toe out the door only to have the wail of a demanding baby make me turn right around again. 

Embroidery machines do exactly the same.  They seem to come pre-programmed to stop the minute I walk out the door.  The Beast will come up with any number of excuses to call me back into the room.  And he's not alone in this. Even sweet Bertie the six needle does this.  They seem to get some perverse amusement from my frustration when I come back from picking up my kids from school to find that they only embroidered the first two minutes of a forty-five minute design.  In fact, I remember once getting only as far as the driveway when I heard the beep...beep...beep of a machine calling me from the sewing machine window.

But this blog is not about the trials and tribulations of life with embroidery machines.  Let's move on to patterns, as promised in the last chapter.   People often ask if there are patterns for Irish dance dresses.  The answer is yes and no.  There is the Feisdress pattern, which I used for Meaghan's first solo dress about five years ago, and the Irish Threads pattern.  And I've seen a vintage Irish Dance dress pattern with a soft A line skirt pop up now and again on Ebay.  But what I do is make my own.  Each and every customer gets their own custom dress as I fit the pattern directly on their bodies. 

I start with a basic princess line bodice. These aren't hard to find if you spend a little time looking through pattern books at the fabric store.  Don't be distracted by the pictures on the front of the pattern envelope.  Look instead at the line drawings and you'll find several princess seamed bodices.  You just have to be willing to alter what you find as you will not find anything in current pattern books that have a high neck, dropped waist, and bell sleeves. 

Here’s a trick:  look for vintage patterns online or even in your local thrift store as sometimes you can find styles from the 60's or 70's that do include those elements).  Once you've found a suitable bodice, start again looking for patterns that have a sleeve of the right sort and be ready to mix and match.  As for the skirt, well, that is going to take some ingenuity and a whole lot of big sheets of paper and a ruler.

A note on princess seamed bodices:  no, you don’t have to use them.  You could work with a darted bodice instead.  But the fit probably won’t be as nice, especially with fuller figures.  However, in cases where you want all-over embroidery, like the blue and black dress for Meaghan, you may need to forgo the princess seams. You can find darted bodices the same way as princess seamed ones.  Examine the line drawings on pattern envelopes.

Over the years I've developed a library of generally sized muslin bodice pieces.  I have some that are generally little-girl-size, generally young-teen-size, and generally fuller-figured-teen or adult size.  When I have a new client I pick the one closest to their size as a jumping off point.  I make them their own muslin bodice from the pieces in my library.  Then we have a first fitting.