You Can Tell It's Made by an Engineer

It's time to get cracking on the wedding dress. Self-imposed deadline of the end of March for the bodice, and I've got crazy school deadlines in there too. It's time to ban myself from any other projects*. In the interest of pushing myself to keep making progress, I'm going to try to post progress updates. That way it won't feel like such a big project, when there are little milestones along the way.

* excepting the dress I'm making for our engagement pictures, which is almost finished anyways.

So below is the draft of what I want the dress to look like. This was a test version that I used to try out a bunch of different techniques, so it's sloppy and the colors aren't right, but you get the idea.

In order to make sure the sides are symmetric, I gave myself a grid to work off of. I couldn't find any skinny tape that wouldn't leave a sticky residue on poor Gertrude, so I just pinned ribbons. I think it's my engineering side coming through - I always feel more comfortable working on graph paper!

Next steps: 

1) Lay out strips of scrap fabric to outline where the final strips will go.

2) Make a couple dummy strips (good thing I hoard charmeuse remnants!), properly interfaced and everything, and practice hand sewing. If the hand sewing doesn't look quite right, I've already practiced doing it by machine, but I think the wedding dress is an appropriate place to take the time to do hand work! 

I'm thinking I need to wear gloves to avoid staining/mussing the silk. Latex gloves probably aren't very comfy but may do the trick. Besides, then I can look like a deranged scientist while sewing my dress! 

Finished! With the part no one will see...

The underlayer of the wedding dress is complete! Every time I walk by I get caught by how much I love the silhouette - that's probably a good thing, huh?

OK, it's only 98% there. The skirt probably needs an iron, but it'll need one soon before the wedding, so that can wait. Then the exposed elastic in the back needs to be finished (probably with bra hooks), but I want to adjust the fit later when I'm the same size I will be for the wedding. I learned my lesson after painstakingly fitting the corset, then losing 10 pounds! Of course, I'm slowly gaining that back, so I'll probably be back there come wedding time. At least the lace-up back gives some fit flexibility. 

The details: The (under) skirt was finished long (a year) ago, so I'll not talk about that. The corset I talked about previously,* but since then I have finally added silk-taffeta bias binding on the top and bottom edges and included eyelets for lacing. The right side of the bias binding is actually on the inside - I figured no one will see the outside once it's covered with the charmeuse stripes. I think the taffeta will give some good strength over the boning, and hopefully the ends won't end up poking through the lighter weight silk. 

* Seriously? That was in November? Oh man do I ever need to get cracking on this thing!

Now I just need to try it on and make sure it fits, though I'm not sure what I'll do if it doesn't. Then it can get relegated to a closet while I use Gertrude** to arrange the woven stripes and hand sew them. I set myself a goal of the end of January to finish the corset, and I only missed by a day, so I'm setting another goal: end of March to have all the stripes assembled. That'll leave May for the skirt (easy peasey, even with a trip to Montreal thrown in there) and June for the halter straps. Doable but I will have to buckle down and work on the dress instead of all my other fun projects!

** the dummy

Pendrell

Confession: I finished the blouse almost two weeks ago but just haven't had a moment to write it up. Too busy starting the next project! I did still wear it out the next day, so at least it's been worn if not documented. The pics* are of the blouse straight out of the laundry, so it's not perfectly pressed or anything.

* Also, this is not a fabric suited to JPEG compression!

I made a resolution to try out at least one new technique with each project, and on this one I did two. I used Kenneth King's technique to stay the neckline with silk organza, which seems to have worked well so far, but it's really time that will tell if the neckline droops. This did create one slight problem, or at least expose it - I have a giant head! My head could barely fit through the neckhole. Staying the neckline prevents it from stretching out of shape, but that means it couldn't stretch around my head. So I had to try another technique: I added a bias-bound keyhole opening at the back (documented here).

I'm pretty pleased with the result, not it the least because it makes the blouse wearable! Not bad for a first attempt at a new technique. Next time I may use a button instead of the ties, just because it's hard to tie a bow behind your head.

The one other fancy (but not new) technique I used was hand-sewing the hem. A machine sewn hem would stand out way too much on this fabric, especially when I plan on wearing it untucked. So I hand-stitched, making sure the stitches all fell in the black part of the pattern. Pretty invisible, no?

I used one of Joann's shiny polyester** fabrics. I have a weakness for these fabrics, since they feel so smooth and nice on the bolt. Wearing them is another matter. Still, I wanted a relatively cheap fabric to test out the Pendrell pattern before committing to almost 3 yards of expensive charmeuse.

** "Simply silky" they say, I say simply unbreathable.

Can't see it on the dummy pics (obv), but I think I would have been well served to do an FBA. The fabric flows well but doesn't drape, if that makes sense, so I get these folds in the princess seams above the bust. I think I could resolve this just by effectively darting out the excess and incorporating it into the seam. Of course, that is basically what an FBA would do - reduce the width above the bust. Next time!

I cut a size 8 for the bust and waist*** and a 6 for the hips. I think I should have left it at the 8 the whole way - it looks a little straight and boxy. I hemmed it to a good length for wearing untucked, since I never tuck anything in, so it's a little too short to stay tucked. It does look good tucked in tho, so the next one may stay an inch longer.

*** Since any smaller waist size wouldn't fit over the bust to put it on!

I'm not sure how the draped sleeves look on me - my hips and shoulders are pretty much even, and my shoulders are pretty prominent, so the drape adds a bit much to their size. It may just take some getting used to, though - the first time I wore boots with tights I thought it looked off, and now I'm practically living in that outfit this winter. I can see how this is a very flattering pattern for pear shapes - it adds oomph to the top/shoulders without being obvious about it.

All in all, the Pendrell is a fun pattern, and it sewed up nice and quickly. I need to wear it a few more times before I can decide on the draped sleeve, but if I get used to it, I will be knocking out a few more of these!