I have been working with fabric, making clothing, for 50 years and am quite comfortable with this medium. I decided to attempt to use all the skills I had acquired over all those years using paper instead of fabric. I quickly found that there was a definite learning curve.

In construction of the dress, “Blessings” I learned that sewing on the paper, silk sanwa, is like sewing a cloud. It would dissolve in my hands while I was stitching it. I had to keep my hands powdered because any moisture would cause the paper to simply disappear.

I’ve never seen anyone do what I am attempting to do, so there are no classes for me to attend, nobody to share short cuts with me.
I can drape fabric over my dress form and see where I need to cut a pattern into the particular fabric. But paper…..it’s a whole new thing to figure out.
Paper doesn’t drape. Paper has no bias. Paper speaks it’s own language and I’ve had to learn it’s language because it is not going to comply with any rules of fabric. My goal is to make the paper appear as fabric.

(This photo is of a fabric dress I designed and made next to one of my paper creations. It shows the true size of my Couture Confections dresses)

Paper allows no mistakes. An erroneous stitch. I can’t gently tug the stitch out and resew the seam. There is no forgiveness. The holes of my mistake will stay in the paper. An accidental fold, that fold is there to stay.

Some of the Couture Confections you see on my website have been constructed and completely reconstructed 2 or even 3 times. But, when it is right I can do my happy dance!