Can anyone recommend a good source of standard/smooth gown patterns? I hope to make my own gown this summer. So far, I've seen www.dancesportballgowns.com with a pattern manual and guide for ~$70 total.

Has anyone tried making their own costumes/practicewear? What has been your experience? Any tips, advice, or places to purchase materials/pattern guides/etc would be really appreciated.

Thanks so much!!!
Louise

I've been making my own dresses, and dresses for friends, for about 5 years now. I've put some notes on my own personal web site at

http://www.lagassa.com/gowns/stepbystep.html

and

http://www.lagassa.com/gowns/

I haven't updated these in a while, so they aren't perfect, but they'll give you an idea of how to get started.

I really like basing my gowns off of Kwik*Sew patterns (you can buy them online at www.sewingpatterns.com). My favorites are

2514
3272
2931
2601

Ronald wrote:
"And you are the first person I have run into so willing to share information."

You are very welcome. When I was starting out I got very very annoyed that people who knew about gown making treated it as some huge state secret. I was like "get a life...." There's plenty of people out there too busy or too fumble-fingered to make their own gowns, so it's not like spreading the knowledge around is going to kill anyone's chances of trying to get a little business making dresses for others.

But I will tell you what will kill that business: you can now buy gowns from Hong Kong on eBay for under $300. These are brand new. One person I know loved hers, another hated hers and had to basically take it apart and re-sew it to get it to fit right. Personally, I believe that great fit is the key to a great dress, and that's why it's better to work with someone who you can actually see in person -- or work with someone with years of HIGH QUALITY mail-order service like the "big" names like Chrisanne, Dore', Randall, and so on. I personally won't do mail order because I have to see the person in the dress to check the fit, I simply don't have the experience that the big name designers have.

Anyway, I love talking about sewing, feel free to ask questions around here any time and I'll do my best to answer!

You can also take a peek at some of the things I've made over the years at

http://www.lagassa.com/dsi/cgi/liveframe.cgi/design
http://www.dancesportimage.com/cgi/liveframe.cgi/action

I really just do this for fun and for a creative outfit and to help out some of my friends, so the dresses are on the simple side and the pictures aren't too fabulous, but still I'm kind of proud of my work....

Ronald wrote:
"And yes, a few people need to get a life with their state secrets attitude.(shall I name, names, I've meet representatives from a lot of these big name companies at competitions)"

Well, I can't reallly blame the big-name people for that. I was really referring to other people who sew just for themselves or a few people (like you and I do) who refused to share information. Like it wouldn't have killed this one woman I asked to tell me where she got her fabric. I saw her in a dress at a competition, complimented her on her dress, and because I recognized the fabric as being from Chrisanne I asked her if it was a Chrisanne dress. She said no, she made it, and since at the time I didn't know people could order their own fabric directly from Chrisanne I asked her how she got the fabric. And she answered "I'm not going to tell you." And she wasn't joking either! That episode is partially what has prompted me to to share what information and experience I've gained over the years.