More Ballroom Bustles

This gown is bustled in the Ballroom style using buttons for it's 2 anchor points.

Step-by-Step instructions for creating this bustle and others are on the Beautiful Bustles DVD.

This gown is basically the same with 2 button anchor points, but they are set lower and an extra loop is made in the center to attach to a zipper button for extra support. The bride wanted to showcase the lovely embroidery of the train.

This gown has a nice waist decoration to hide the bustle points so I used hooks instead of buttons. They are a little more stable than the satin covered buttons and you can make the loops on the train smaller and therefore less noticeable when the bustle is not up.

Though this is not the way I do it, here's a link to a site with sep-by-step instructions on how to make a Ballroom bustle:
http://www.sewdeb.com/bustle1.html

This gown has a small band at the waist seam that we decided could nicely hide white hooks. I normally prefer to use covered buttons when there is no big bow to hide the hooks but this worked out nicely.

 

Here are 2 pictures of the back of the gown before and after bustle rigging. The hooks are there but they are mostly tucked under the band of beading.

 

This Ballroom bustle is lovely.

Step-by-Step instructions for creating this bustle and others are on the Beautiful Bustles DVD.

This is the same 4 pointed Ballroom bustle but on a gown with decoration on the train. This bustle displays the decoration nicely.

Step-by-Step instructions for creating this bustle and others are on the Beautiful Bustles DVD.

 

This gown has two skirts. The train is formed on only the underskirt. This provides a unique opportunity to hide the bustle riggings for the train under the top skirt.

This gown posses an interesting bustling problem. The crinoline slip also has a train - a big one with lots of netting.

 

Once the crinoline is bustled, we can design the gown's train bustle. Using the Ballroom style we set the points on the lower skirt tier, totally hidden under the upper tier.

We decided to bustle the crinoline slip separate from the gown in a mock of the french style described below. Here the loops and ties are rigged on the top of the crinoline.

The result is an incredibly lovely and totally unnoticeable bustle.

 

This gown is much the same situation as above but I'm going to bustle this gown in several layers.

Because of the shape of the train, I used 3 pick-up point on the first layer to hold up the sides of the train.

One the second layer only 2 point were needed because the center was already sewn near where I needed it to be.

The third layer needed only one point to hold up the very end of the train.

This gown also has many layers but it is a little different from the others above in that the top layer will also need bustling. The tulle layers will be bustled together with the lining under the lace layer. Then the lace layer will have a one point pick-up that will create a pretty effect.

 

The underlayers need many points to get all that tulle up evenly. The eyes need to be sewn carefully to the tulle. I use white eyelets as backers to support the tulle because it is very delicate and mostly holes.

 

Once the tulle is rigged up, the top lace layer can be neatly bustled so the lace tendrils do not drag on the floor.

 

This gown presents a couple bustling issues. It could be easily done with a one point pick-up style, but that did not display the decoration at the edge of the train well. And, the sheer chiffon top layer makes hiding riggings even harder than usual. This 3 point Ballroom Bustle with rigging twist was a great solution that the brides loved.

Here's a close-up of the rigged bustle. You can see the riggings here. Most brides don't object to the riggings showing once the bustle is rigged. The difficult trick is hiding the riggings when the train is down for the ceremony.

Here is the secret to hiding the riggings. The hooks are sewn inside the french seam so they don't show at all when the train is down. Before rigging the bustle, the hook is pushed to the outside of the seam so the loops, that are sewn a the bustle points, can be hung on them.