According to the sketchers, I think it is better to make two pieces instead of one. After deciding the general orientation, I started working. First of all, I made pattern of top by following the steps of sketches, paper pattern and muslin, and I also did the paper pattern for the dress. I faced two problem, which is how to cut the collar and where to put the darts. For the collar, I searched online and tried different cuts many times on dressing form and real body to make it looks flat, but actually a little curvy to fit the neck well. Searching the tech of folding darts didn't work this time, because my design of top is unusual. I need discovered a new way based on the principle that don't influence the painted pattern to much. Finally, I created two little darts besides the chest, and two darts one the zipper line, which are totally invisible but works well at tightening the wait and fitting the back line.
Next is painting the top pattern. I did hand drawing sketches, reflecting image and filling the general color by Photoshop. But the colors on Photoshop were not good, because they are fluorescent. So I painted the watercolor version. When I applied onto real fabric, I have think of silk paints. Actually, I found a good type of paints, but I finally decide use watercolor, because I own more colors and I am more familiar with watercolor. I used very pale blue color to paint the outline, and then painted by wanted color. Unfortunately, the pattern that came out looked like Chinese spring festival painting rather than undersea creature. I tried to fix it by adding a bluish background, but it still didn't look good.
So I needed start over again. This time, I looked really detail into the images of Physalia physalis, also considered the color of ocean that I would apply on dress. After designing, I tried different method to paint first: 1. dry painting; 2. wet painting; 3. painted on water; 4.add water on painting; 5. painted after another color dry. Even though I did carefully for this time, I still haven't solve a problem, which is there would a layer of white on the pattern after it became dry. It is one weakness of watercolor used on fabric.
For the dress, I dyed it by ink. Three colors -- blue, red and black -- can render on each other, so the fabric could seems in one color, but some parts are purplish and some parts are bluish. Same problem that the color would become pale after dry. So I dyed it, dried it, dyed again, dried again, dyed third times, and dried third times...
My deign of pattern on dress are continuing similar patter as top on the bottom side, but creating dotted pattern for the front and back of the dress. The dotted pattern is inspired from jellyfish. It looks pretty nice by itself, but not that good when combining with the top. Therefore, I changed to a new way that is using pearl instead.
The arrangement of pearls is another problem, I organized them experimentally on Photoshop to find a best way. Then I used the pins to locate them and sewed the real one by hands.
When I dyed the veil, neither watercolor or ink worked, since they could not keep on gauze. So I went to buy the dye. The gauze originally is pink, so I took the bright blue to make ultramarine blue. The first dyeing was not successful, the color could be washed off. Then I searched the method online and successed for the second times.
I think for this project, the most difficult parts are colors and darts. From this project, I experimented a lot and learned a lot.
