✿ custom qipao journey part 3 ✿ (Patreon)

Hi everyone! Happy AAPI Heritage month!! So over the weekend, I got the update from Annie that my qipao was almost done and ready to ship but... unfortunately I had some major issues with it regarding the scallop edge bias and incorrect pattern placement. Since I hadn't gotten any update before the dress was finished which could have helped resolve these issues ahead of time, she kindly offered to remake the dress with the tailors according to my notes. I'm really grateful for Annie and the qipao studio's patience and support in helping me through the dress-making process!  ;___;

Through this experience on both our ends, I feel that I could have made a more specific reference guide to help the tailors with pattern placement, and it would have helped to have a check-in or two before the tailors cut and sewed the dress together to make sure the pattern placement was correct.   

Here is the new mockup / draw-over I did with proper pattern placement and scallop edge bias on the top!

This is the reference guide with keynotes!

Annie sent me another photo with the remake dress template to approve. I circled the tiny flower in black as a note, to ask if it would show on the sweetheart neckline or not. I was also worried if the bunny on the left side would get cut off because of the bust darts! She reassured me the little flower wouldn't show up, and we needed to move the pattern slightly right in order to avoid the bunny being cut off from the bust dart. 

After getting photos of the backside of the dress as well, I felt like the pattern looked super busy, so I did a revised mockup using the other pattern (I designed 2 fabric patterns for this dress, one for the TOP and one for the DRESS portion)! 

Because there are waist darts and bust darts on the dress, it's not possible for the dress mockup to be exact but because the TOP pattern is more spread out I think it won't be as busy with fewer cut-offs! 

We ended up needing to reorder fabric to create the backside, so I'll be waiting for a few days before they can begin remaking the dress. 

Overall, I've learned a lot about pattern making through this custom qipao process! Depending on the style of dress, if your qipao includes bust darts and waist darts, I would recommend making a pattern that is smaller, spread out, and will still look pretty seamless even if parts get cut off! 

Excited to share the final dress once it's complete~ Thank you all for joining me on this custom qipao journey!

♡,

Cam