Do the Bustle!

Our last big task on our last day of dress making was to do the bustle. As usual, this proved to be more complicated and more time consuming than we imagined.

I took out Mom's wedding dress that I had worn and we examined how the bustle was created on that dress. It actually looked quite simple!  Three buttons, three loops, hidden by a layer of lace. This should be a snap!

We began with a run to Jo Ann's for buttons and something to make hanger straps and button looping out of. We chose some buttons that look pearly from the top, but have a good sturdy post to hang a loop off of.

Jenny applying the loops

Back at home, we put Stephanie into the dress. When digging out my wedding dress, I found a hoop skirt  I had worn underneath it. I suggested she try the dress on with the hoop underneath to see how that looked. It was amazing. The hoop allows the dress to hang even better. So, hoop it is.

Bustle in progress

With her in the dress, we worked on creating the bustle. The gown under the lace was relatively easy to bustle. The lace over skirt was a bit more complicated. With the pick-ups of flowers, the hem isn't even. The flowers also make it tricky for where to put a bustle, and we wanted the lace to look pretty when bustled.

We worked for about an hour with her in the dress, and then she had to run off and do other wedding related stuff, so we were left to try to work it out on our own. We put on the hanger straps so we could hang the dress while working on the bustle.  The only hanging place available was the curtain rod in the living room window.

Dress hanging in the window

We spent a couple hours on the lace over skirt's bustle. One concern we had was how to disguise the location of the buttons. After a bit of discussion and consultation, we determined we could use the extra flower petals and make the buttons into flowers. This worked with some of the buttons, but some of them are already close to flowers. They will have to stand on their own.

Next we needed to make the loops. It was difficult to know how big--or in this case, how small--the loops should be. They needed to be big enough to fit over the button but snug enough to stay on when she moves around. Once again, not as simple as it might appear. We consulted YouTube, but didn't get much help on these matters, and so were left to figure it out as we went.

In the meantime, the bride and groom arrived back at home and with the groom driving, Stephanie spotted the wedding dress in the window. They had not pulled to a complete stop when Stephanie threw her hand over Thomas's eyes to prevent him from seeing the dress. She has her priorities straight!

It was nearing five o'clock before we had the bustle done. We had positioned, sewn, removed, and repositioned flowers and loops and buttons for nearly eight hours--with lunch and a few other small dress-related tasks thrown in. Jenny tacked on the ruching panel and it looks much better now.

The bustle

But in the end, it was finally the end!  There were tears of joy and a bit of sadness that the project was over. A toast to our success, and then Jenny was on her way home to see her much neglected husband.

We decided we should have a party to celebrate the completion of the dress. Saturday, August 4th looks good. Oh, and I guess there's a wedding, then, too.

A Wedding Dress Takes Shape at Last

Jenny makes the ribbon

It was another long day of sewing for the team wedding dress. We began at 9 AM, taking advantage of the fact that the groom was off on an errand at least until 2 PM. We began by adding snaps to the back of the gown since they would hold it better than the hook and eye closures. This was not just sew them on and be done with it. There seems to be a theme of position, sew it on, remove, reposition, resew...

We discussed the need to cover the stitching, and whether to go back to the store to explore options when Jenny found some beautiful pearly colored leaf shaped buttons to sew over the top.

Once that was done, we needed to work on the ruching panel. With Stephanie in the dress, we discussed our options for what to use for the ribbon to attach the panel. Everything was brought out and considered, but in the end, we decided to make our own. Jenny cut ribbon out of the dupioni silk for me to sew together to make a bow and we discussed how to attach these to the panel.

Then it was time to attach the pick-ups and the flowers. Stephanie perched atop a footstool so we could work on the train. We began tacking up the dress in places and then attaching the flowers Jenny so carefully made. We spent time working on the shape of the train, while Stephanie patiently waited, not able to see what we were discussing.

Jenny sewing on the flowers

Flower close up

Once the back was finished, we set to work on the front. Now we allowed her to step into the shoes she will be wearing and off the stool so we could adjust the height of the gown. There were more pick-ups and flowers to attach on the front, and Stephanie stood for nearly two hours during the process!

Front with flowers

Then, it was back to working on the ruching panel. One problem was how to sew the ribbon on to the panel. We could hand sew it, but that would take time. I found a decorative ivy stitch on my machine and tested it out. Voila! A perfect way to sew the pieces together.

Then, a brilliant idea or maybe an obsessive compulsion took over, and I decided to sew the hem on the train with that decorative stitch. This added another couple hours onto the work, but I think it was worth it.

Jenny was working on the straps when I decided to sew the hem, so she set to work on the headband. Long after I had caved to exhaustion, she was still hand sewing the pearls on the headband!

Jenny making the headband

Adding the ivy stitch to the hem

We have to finish the straps, sew dress hanging loops, figure out how to attach the bustle, and iron the dress. That really seems like it!

The Time for Losing Hope Has Long Since Passed

Tuesday was another long day of sewing on the dress. The hand sewing takes much longer, and there are often times when only one person can be working on the dress, so it slows the process down quite a bit. We worked for ten hours, mostly non-stop.

There were lots of little details to be worked out!

We found ourselves stumped once again and turned to our couture books for guidance, and made one phone call to our mother, an experienced seamstress, as well. Teresa provided us with a dramatic reading from the couture book while Jenny acted out the instructions to help us understand them better. Once we understood what was needed, we began sewing with a new energy. It really is just a matter of time!

Teresa's dramatic reading of the couture book

We worked at sewing hook and eye closures on the dress. These little beasties are difficult to sew on, especially when it is important they not be seen. They are small, difficult to hold in place when sewing, and tricky to position correctly. It took several attempts just to get two of them in place, and more than one pricked finger in the process.

Hooks and eyes and buttons

Jenny never stops sewing!

We needed to reposition a couple buttons to make sure everything was straight. We gave up on putting more hook and eye closures on and I went out and bought snaps while Jenny continued sewing. We should have bought the alcohol version of snaps as well. Jenny was a bit disappointed when I returned with only metal snaps for sewing.

We sewed the lining down to the dress to make it less likely to pull up and reinforced a few seams.

At the end of the evening, we began looking at how to do the pick-ups on the dress. We used the red clips to hold the dress up in various places to see how it will look. It was difficult because with Stephanie in the dress, she couldn't see what we were doing, so we had to take quick photos and show her our plans off the camera. I'm sure there will be a bit of adjusting to do when we get that far.

Pick-up positioning

It sounds like we don't have much to do: the pick-ups, the ruching, the snaps (and a couple more hooks and eyes), but it is amazing how long each step can take. By 8 o'clock, we'd been working for 10 hours, and so decided to pack it up for another day.

What Sort of Puckery Is This?

Today's sewing marathon began quite well. We sent Thomas down to his cave to avoid seeing the dress, and got to work on the train.

Thomas in his man cave

We found some lace to put on the train to cover up the seam and it looks like it was meant to be there all the time. This lace was something we'd bought much earlier and then changed our minds about using, then tried to find different ways to use. We had thought about putting on the lining, putting it on the straps, putting around vases, and then put it away all together. It was resurrected today and put to good use.
 

Flowers on the train

Then, we got back to the button looping. It all seemed so easy, so nearly in hand! We had sewn the looping on last time we'd worked on the dress. We wanted to see if it was laid out correctly, so Steph got into the dress for us to see.

And then we found a pucker. The annoying pucker was due to the lace over-skirt not matching up quite right. It was a little difference, but led to a large pucker down the train.

Sewing on the buttons

We thought maybe all we needed to rip out was a little of the looping over the skirt, but that annoying pucker would not go away, so Jenny was forced to take it off all the way down. Once that was resewn, it was time to put the buttons on. Still relatively early, we could get this done with daylight to spare.

Daylight spared no one, however. The buttons proved trickier than we'd expected. We sewed, removed, repositioned, resewed, removed, repositioned, and resewed till after 8 PM. One problem was that puckers would appear if the buttons were not positioned exactly right.

Another unexpected problem was that we had more loops for buttons than buttons; eight more, in fact. However, we didn't notice this deficiency until we'd sewn on several buttons. I was sewing on one end, Jenny on the other. We'd meet in the middle of the looping. Or not.

With two buttons left, I went looking for the missing eight, and realized we were short. This meant removing eight of the ones we'd already sewn and moving them up to the gap in the middle. Sewing on each button was more time consuming than it would seem. Finally they were all sewn on. We will wait until tomorrow to see if we placed them all correctly, or if we need to remove, reposition, and resew any.

Rest Day Recap

To continue the theme of the Tour de France for just one more post, since today is a rest day on the Tour, I thought I'd recap our stages of the wedding dress project.

Stage 1: We made Stephanie's Mini-me. Jenny found a tutorial blog and sent us a link. We used an old t-shirt and paper tape that we bought at Staples. This dress form proved immensely helpful in the project.

The Mini-Steph

Stage 2: Stephanie and I went pattern shopping. She also drew a pattern of the dress for us to work from. We ended up with four patterns, only two of them would come in handy in the end. We also looked at fabrics and found ivory bridal silk dupioni that looked lovely. At $25 a yard, I would wait for a coupon to buy it.

The Main Pattern

Stage 3: Stephanie was back in California, and I set to work making muslin number 1. I found some cheap polyester fabric in ivory, and set to work making the complicated top from one of the patterns. We still had no idea what we wanted to do with the back, so I made crisscross straps and a ribbon. I sent her a picture of the dress, and she didn't burst into tears, so that was a good start.

First Fake Dress

Stage 4: Fake dress number 2: We had changed the pattern, and I wasn't sure how all of it would work together, so we bought some fabric closer in stiffness to the dupioni we planned to use. The stuff was nasty though. It feels like vinyl.

Second Fake Dress

Stage 5: We found that working at school was the best solution to our space issue. The lighting was good, the tables amazingly helpful. We could lay out all the fabric to cut it without trouble. The day had come to cut out the actual pattern pieces. This is difficult to do while holding your breath, but we managed.

Let the Cutting Begin!

Stage 6: We began piecing the dress together. Piecing, sewing, ripping, resewing, re-ripping... There was much learning at this stage.

We learned we should have underlined the entire dress because it is nicer to work with. We learned we should inspect every piece of dupioni for runs before we buy it at the store. We learned that the clips we bought were the best investment ever. We learned that it takes many hands holding the fabric while sewing on the machine and that dupioni frays quickly.

Holding the Fabric while Sewing

Stage 7: We moved our work space to my living room with mixed results. The lighting and space to work with are terrible here. We had to set up lights all around the room, and one light provided unwelcome heat to the room in the sweltering summer heat.  Every available space was used for the dress, and it still wasn't enough space.

Stage 8: The dress is pieced together and awaiting final touches. The hardest part of this process is having to put it away still unfinished while we take care of our other obligations.
Stage 9 awaits. We hope to get the finishing touches done in our next get together.

If Phil Liggett Made the Commentary on Our Sewing

 When watching the Tour de France, it is very easy to imagine Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen commentating on our progress.  Phil: "It's amazing to see the dedication in these two women."

Paul: "I agree. You don't see that every day."

Phil: "She's dancing on the sewing machine pedal like an angel."

Jenny sewing on the button looping

Paul: "They're off and running."

Phil: "She's sewing like a woman possessed!"

Then, a clear stoppage in the action as we realize yet again, we've ignored our inner voices and done something we will regret.

Phil: "Oh, no! It looks like a crash! Quite the pile up with mistakes! They really made a mess of that one! Some serious seam ripping is in store! They're going to need to dig deep into their suitcase of courage before this is over."

Paul: "But they've picked themselves up and are right back at it, Phil. These two women never lose heart."

Ripping yet another seam

Later, as our giddiness increased when we got to actually (and finally!) sewing on the button looping, I can hear Phil saying: "They're quite giddy, those two. Look at her dancing around the room with that needle in a most immodest way!"

In some ways, it feels a little like coming full circle to be working on the dress during the Tour. When we found the plans for making the dress form, the couple who demonstrated how to make it were making hers while watching the Tour.

We spent a lot of time working on the button looping and tidying up the scalloped edging on the lace. By the time Jenny had to leave, that was all we had accomplished. We still have the buttons to sew on, hook and eye closures to find and sew, the ruching to figure out, and the pick-ups to apply.

We will get together soon, and hopefully be able to finish our marathon race of sewing.

Marathon of Sewing

Positioning the lace over-skirt

Thursday was a marathon day of sewing on the dress. With the Tour de France in the background, we started the day with Jenny finishing hand sewing the gown's hem. Stephanie and I worked on the construction of the straps in the meantime.

Once the hem was done (beautifully stitched!) We started work on finishing the lace over-skirt. We needed to applique the scallops to the train, and that took quite a bit of doing and redoing. There is so much fabric to work with, and nowhere in the house to lay it all out, it felt impossible to see what we were doing. I found myself wishing we were back in my classroom using the tables--not to mention the lighting in the classroom is ten times better. We manufactured a raised pouf out of a footstool, pillows and the table. This gave us some height to lay out the lace on so we could see what we were doing.

Once we got the scallops figured out, we hand tacked them on just in case they still needed adjusting and we sewed the skirt to the gown. We did get a bit carried away with the length of the train and needed to rethink our design. For a bit, the idea of a cathedral length train seemed like a great one, until we saw Stephanie's expression, and we knew we were taking it a bit too far.

Positioning the handmade straps

This required more redoing, and we had Stephanie in and out of the dress several times to see if the lace was going on correctly, if the length of the train was good, if the shape of the train was good, and if the skirt was in the correct position on the gown.

The straps were positioned and repositioned several times as well.

The dress was closer to done that it has ever been!  All we need to do now is: sew on the button looping and buttons, sew on some hook and eye closures to be extra-double careful, tidy up the scalloped hem, create the ruching and figure out where that goes on and how, tidy up how the straps are sew on, tack down the lining in places, create the pick-ups, sew on the flowers, and create a bustle for the train. Okay, that's still a lot, but it's a lot of little stuff. We are so close! 

Confident that we could do much of it tomorrow, we packed up our sewing and released the groom from captivity in the family room.

Strange Magic

We've got a strange magic working when we work on the wedding dress. With ELO playing in the background, we've kept our spirits up despite the lack of progress we'd hoped to make on Wednesday.

Jenny arrived Wednesday morning and we got to work right away. We sent the groom into hiding in the family room so to avoid any bad luck inducing sightings of the dress.

We got Stephanie into the dress to see what needed to be done to the back and discovered it was too big. What the heck!? In fact, it was exactly the-two-pieces-we'd-worked-so hard-to add-into-the-back too big. Remember how we spent so much time adding those pieces into the back when we tried it on Stephanie's mini-me and it was surprisingly too small? Remember all the stress and worry that the dress wouldn't fit because we'd left out crucial pieces?

With a laugh and a sigh, we set to work taking out the two added back pieces and resizing the back to fit. This highlighted the danger of basing our measurements on Stephanie's mini-me instead of the genuine article. This took much of the morning, and then we headed out to the flower meeting to discuss the wedding flowers--which we will also be making ourselves. We are nothing if not stubborn and tenacious! And maybe optimistic about our own abilities?

There was not as much progress on the dress as we would have liked on Wednesday. But we keep inching along toward our goal.

Made With Love In Every Stitch

 This dress will be a gown even Sponge Bob's grandma would appreciate.

Don't Be Frayed!  Everything Will Be OK.

We spent Jenny's last day of her visit working on the hem of the dress. We began by sewing a seam along the edge to keep things from fraying. 

Then we ironed, and ironed, and ironed the hem into place.  Jenny worried about the lining hem fraying away on us, so we ironed that edge as well while we were at it.

Ironing Away

Seven hours later...
We had finally ironed the hem, and pinned the lining down, and I was able to sew the lining hem into place.  This went quite quickly as the lining is much smaller than the gown.

Hand Sewing the Hem

Then Jenny set to work hand sewing the hem. We had used the wonderful red clips we bought early on into the project to clip the gown hem down rather than use pins. Pins are scary. We don't want to snag the down and cause a run. That would be very bad, especially at this point in the project.

These clips have been worth their weight in gold. Well, maybe not actually gold, given the price per ounce, but they were kind of pricey, and we debated buying them. We think this was one of the best purchases we made. That and the dupioni.
Seven hours later...

Listening to Los Straight Jackets

Jenny was still hemming the dress when it came time for her to leave. She didn't want to go with the hem not finished, but family duties prevail this time.


We packed up our gear and clipped the dress to Stephanie's Mini-me. We brought it down to the family room where it can hang undisturbed in relative dark and dry conditions for a couple weeks until we are all together again.

It's looking better each time.
Even before the added overskirt of lace, this
is already a beautiful dress. We cannot wait to get back at it in a week and a half!

The Back of the Dress and those Amazing Clips

Dress by Ikea

You know how when you are building a shelf from Ikea and you get to the end and there's a piece left over, and you stare at it uneasily, thinking, Huh! I wonder what that piece is for! Maybe they threw in an extra?

Our work today was much like that.

We made slow progress at first, mostly in the wrong direction.  We were still struggling with the back pieces, and trying to make it work. This is always a bad sign, but we refused to read it for quite some time.

We sewed the back to the lining just like we had done with the other side before we'd given up for the night. Flipped it over, and dang! It wasn't right. Ripped out the seams, pieced it together anew after much deliberation and flipping of the dress over to see what we had done on the other side.

Taking my turn at seam rippping

Sewed again, flipped again, swore again. No matter how many different ways we tried to sew it, it always came out wrong. I lost count on the number of times. Jenny thinks it was six. Noon came and went, and we had not had a break, but the problem seemed so fixable if we could only understand what was wrong.

We stuffed Stephanie's model with batting to give her more firmness, and put her into the dress to see if we could figure it out. And then it hit us. Both of us at the same time, without a word to the other, realized the problem. We were missing pieces on the back!

The Missing Pieces

On Tuesday, when we were unpacking all of the pieces from when we'd packed up in early June, we found a piece of fabric and discussed what it was for. Huh! I wonder where this goes!  Maybe it was a test piece? Maybe it was extra? We had discussed way back when the need to add panels to the back. We'd cut out the pieces. We'd underlined them. They were italicized, even. But then we'd had to pack everything up and tuck it all away until this week.

Somehow in the packing and unpacking, we forgot that we never attached those back pieces.  Suddenly everything fell into place. All the trouble we'd been going through to piece the back together was because we were doing it wrong!  Lesson learned: if something refuses to work, there's probably a reason.  Second lesson learned: do not ignore those nagging feelings about that extra piece that probably goes somewhere. It does.

In the end, we made very good progress. We pieced together the back--not without some seam ripping and resewing, but we've come to expect that at this point. Jenny hand basted some of the back seams and then hand basted the train to the back of the dress. We found some ribbon we thought might look good on the back, although Jenny's going to make some from the extra silk, so this ribbon was just to test the idea.

And now it looks gorgeous, although it is a bit askew on our Mini-Steph.

Dress back with test ribbon

Tomorrow we plan to hem the dress and hand baste on the lace overskirt. We shall see!

Good St. Anne & The Dragons

On the first morning of this marathon sewing session things were not going well. Thread tension was too tight. The standard presser foot was exchanged for a zipper foot to create less drag on the material and therefor create less pulling/puckering of material. The new footie had a different feel - much more responsive to the sewer's every little move. I compare it to the learning curve one faces when switching from a slow, heavy, clunky Huffy bike to a speedy, lightweight racer bike like my Motobecane. A few crashes until you learn how to handle it.

The hardworking machine

At some point we both started heartily wishing for a patron saint of seamstresses, and decided to look for one when we broke for lunch. We would trudge along without our helpful saint until then.

At lunchtime we cast our google net and came up with St. Anne. Awesome! Feeling good about our new found patroness, we returned to the dress.

And wouldn't you know it! Our efforts have been noticeably more successful ever since we've become mindful of our good saint. I hope she continues to smile on our endeavor.
 

The dress front

It just so happens that on Wednesday we were not giddy with progress. Not until about 7 pm that is, when we hung the dress from a curtain rod and could really see the amazing progress and gorgeousness of the dress. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Got off to a bit of a late start. Actually overslept. Dang! Quick bite of toast and slurp of coffee and off to slay a dragon, maybe two! Who knows, maybe St. Anne helps in that area as well?

Dragon Number One: Lining! Personally, I've been afraid of the great hulking Lining Dragon ever since I realized skillful installation of said dragon was integral to the success of the dress. We had dodged the dragon so far, but today we had to tame him and render him useful.

I'll have you know that we successfully joined the lining to the dress! After a couple attempts, of course. We had decided at our last marathon get-together in early June that the lining needed to be put in wrong side out, which is to say, finished side showing where the pickups in the lace and skirt would be. Sewing the lining in went really really well. Until we turned the work around to see how the outer dress would look. Hmmm. Wrong side lining means seams don't show at the bottom of the dress. Which is good! But they do show at the top of the dress; not acceptable at all. Sigh.

We had been quite confident of the workability our plan at this point. To the extent that we had sewn the main seam and the stay-stitching in teeny-length stitches. Hence the job of ripping out those smug little bastiches took longer than it might have, had we been a little less sure of ourselves.

We are nothing if not lesson-learners, and our lesson had been learned. Proceed with caution and large stitches until certain of a good outcome.

The dress back modeled by Teresa

It really is amazing how much material goes into the making of a wedding dress. When you dive into the process you find you have made three dresses - the dress, the underlining for the dress, and the lining for the dress. And in our case, we have an additional overskirt of the prettiest lace you ever saw. Bridal dot lace. I am being completely spoiled working with such high quality materials - I don't think I ever want to go back to cotton or synthetic materials. Dupioni and beautiful lace for me from now on!

Dragon Number Two: Working on essentially three dresses at once means it's really easy to get mixed up on which piece gets sewn where, or even which piece is the dress and which is the lining. Sorting out this mass of material takes up a good bit of our time, and thus qualifies as our second dragon.

Lots of layers of fabric

Dragon Number Three, and perhaps our most fearsome dragon of all: For reasons we did not yet  understand, we had become very confused at the end of our work session, and were feeling really frustrated - why couldn't we replicate a seam that we had just done on the opposite side? We were absolutely unable to think straight enough to figure out how to sew this particular seam again, and decided to quit sewing for the day, sleep on the problem, come at it fresh tomorrow morning. We were probably tired. We'd been sewing for about 8 hours already. Time to break for the evening.

We decided we needed to be able to see how the dress looked hanging up - how did it drape, was it looking like we hoped it would look? So we went to a lower level of the house to look for a good place to hang the wedding dress. Coming upstairs again we became aware of Dragon Number Three: a strong natural gas smell; the oven had been turned on but the pilot light hadn't lit - and we were being gassed.

Lots of opening windows, getting outside to fresh air, putting things away for the day. Once our heads were clear, we came back inside and hung the dress and that's when we felt positively giddy over our progress. Three dragons slain!

We are making a couture wedding dress! And it is turning out beautifully.

What to Do About these Annoying Puckers?

Jenny and I were back at the dressmaking today. We decided to work from home rather than take everything to school because it would save time and we wouldn't have to pack everything up. I bought a six foot folding table just for the project. That should be big enough, right?

Our Cramped Working Conditions

We got started around 9 AM and began working backwards almost from the beginning. Not intentionally. We'd left off trying to sew the underlining to the train and having to stop when the machine refused to play nice. We started with a fresh bobbin, tested a practice piece and we were off! Yay!

But then, we found the pieces still would not match up. They were still coming out uneven. Back to the seam rippers. We found that the space we were working in was much smaller than we'd gotten used to. We kept stubbing our toes on chairs or footstools, and one six foot table was not really enough. Every available space was being used to hold something.

After a few more times of the sew a little, rip a little game, we had one piece together. I decided it might work better to take the train apart to do the other side of the underlining. Back to ripping apart, but this time with the intention of moving forward faster.

That seemed to work, and the second piece came together much better than the first. Yay! It was now noon, and we'd been at it for three hours. We finally had the train together.

The Lace Overskirt--Temporarily Positioned as a Shawl

For some reason that seemed to make sense at the time, I thought that sewing the underlining seam to the bottom of the train would be better left to after the dress was constructed. How silly! We had sewed the train together and then realized that I should have sewed that last seam before we pieced it together. Now it was much harder to sew and we spent much time working it out and ironing the seams.

In the end it worked out, but probably took a lot longer than it would have if I'd done it right the first time. I learned that fixing a mistake is the long road back from a short cut.  I also learned that I shouldn't rest my arm on a hot iron. Unfortunately, I had to learn it twice. As Jenny points out, I'm an experiential learner!

We began looking at how to sew the lining into the dress, and have a plan, but first we need to sew all the seams so that they don't fray. Unfortunately, the sewing machine refuses to do zigzag stitches anymore without seriously puckering the fabric. Much discussion and adjusting of the machine to remove the puckers led us to using a straight stitch instead. We will need to buy more thread before we are through, but we have a clear idea of what needs to be done, at least.

In the end, we needed to pack everything up because there is absolutely no room to leave anything out in this small house. But it was nice to work from home rather than drive in to work.  We could say at the end of the day that we were farther than we'd ever been.

Long-Distance W.O.W. (Work On Wedding) or When Jekyll & Hyde Make Couture Wedding Pieces

Mary & I have plans to work on Stephanie's wedding dress this week, hoping to put it all together this time, and do final fitting adjustments when Stephanie is here again. Great!

Wait, that means I need to have fabric & pearl flowers made up to actually sew on the dress. I don't have any ready. Dang!

So I went fabric shopping, taking along snatches of the dupioni and lace that we're using on Stephanie's gown. It took a couple visits to a couple different stores till I found fabric to match the color of Stephanie's dupioni, and some of the original lace - really pretty scalloped edges, lots of roses and leaves for cut outs. Great!

Over the next couple days I cut out fabric circles and made as many of the fabric & pearl flowers as I had pearls for. Great!

Ran out of pearls. Dang!

Thinking about how many more flowers we may need, I ordered more pearls. Great! They won't be here till middle of the week. Dang!

In the meantime I decided to look for lace to match what we're using on Stephanie's skirt. Maybe some of the fabric & pearl flowers should have matching lace. It's a good thing I ran out of nice pearls; now I can use matching lace on some of the flowers! Great!

The nearest store to have it on hand was JoAnn's Fabrics up in Wausau. 40 minutes away. Dang.

Since Tom was going up that way to play a gig he picked up more lace! Great!

I still have to wait for the pearls, though. Dang.

In the meantime, Stephanie and I exchanged photos of hair band possibilities. This is the first one we looked at together and thought was really pretty. Did some experiments with making my own tiny flowers. Burned my fingers. Dang. And the flowers looked horrible. Dang again. Went shopping for suitable small woodland flowers, vines, etc. Disappointed with selection available. Turns out most stores are now stocking fall colors - I should have done this a couple months ago. Double dang!

Nevermind. I'll make it work. Wait, did I just say that? I KNOW things never work when I say I'll make them work! Dang, dang, dang!

But wait! I had sent Stephanie this pic! And she really liked that! Great! I can totally do that! I feel super confident that I can make something just like that! So, I went shopping once more, taking my fabric scraps with me again ("Yay, another car ride!", they seemed to say), looking for just the right ribbon to match. Hmmm, what to do? Several widths and colors to choose from, white, ivory, cream... I picked up a few choices. My scraps were getting tired and cranky and needed a nap, and I wanted to get started on this fabulous new project anyway, so, ribbons and scraps in hand, we went home. Great!

Um. The ribbons don't really match very well. But maybe that's not so important, as the ribbon would be on Stephanie's head, and not very near her dress. So I could get started on the ribbon. Make a prototype. Use D-grade pearls. Maybe add some gaudy colors to highlight that this is a prototype, not the real thing. Just to test out materials.

Um. The ribbon is really slippery. And not the right color. And that is bugging me. Wait! I have matching lace! Two kinds! Wouldn't that be pretty as a hair band, with pearls sewn on! I could cut out some leaf & rose shapes from one type of lace and lay them over the dotted lace and add pearls on top of that... There, that's really pretty.

Wait, the lace is pretty stretchy. How's that going to work? I could put the lace over the ribbon. Which is ... dang it! Slippery. No, I could put the lace over some dupioni! Ooo, just like the dress! But wait. Now it's going to be bulky. Who wants a big honkin' bulky hair band on her wedding day? Dang it, now I spilled pearls all over the floor. Which is uneven. Now the pearls are playing hide and seek, and it's hot upstairs in my sewing room, and I'm hungry and frustrated and tired. Time for supper and walking in my garden.

Much better. Fed and rested and thinking straighter, I decided to listen to a nagging little beast of a thought whispering in the back of my mind. Dupioni. Already matches, same fabric. Cut on bias, would make a nice ribbon. Wait, it would make a perfect ribbon! And I love perfect!

Reinvigorated, I bounded upstairs, determined to create a masterpiece. Or at least a prototype, with a masterpiece to come. Hmmm. Mary offered me bigger pieces of dupioni and I declined. Why did I do that? Dang.

Never mind! I have a longish piece that's already kind of on the bias; I'll just cut some strips from that and make a ribbon and have the pearls sewn on in no time! Yay!

Dang. Not enough of a bias and it's gonna fray. And I only cut it a little more than an inch wide, so it's gonna be really narrow if I sew it into a tube... Well, what the heck, it's a prototype anyway, right? This is a learning experience, not supposed to be perfect yet, remember?

Some time later...

Tube sewn, turned, ironed, and looking really nice. Hmmm. Pearls. Sorted all the white pearls away from the peach, mauve, lavender, rose, pink pearls. Oh! I have jonquil and topaz crystals - really tiny ones. And peridot chips! Oooh, this could turn out really pretty. How about a few peach and rose pearls, too. It's woodland, it's romantic, it's elegant.

Bridal hair band prototype

Here it is! Looking really pretty, as predicted! And Stephanie loves it!

You know, I could sew some satin ribbon on the ends, make the ties long enough to tie easily...

But this was so much fun, I want to make another one!

Wait. I'm really out of pearls now. Dang.

Pearls have been shipped! I'll be able to make more this week! Great!

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Measuring the lining pieces

 Making this dress has been a dance--I'm not sure if it's a waltz or a tango. 

Still working on that back piece

We learned that ironing the dupioni is difficult. The creases iron in very easily, but iron out with more effort.

That led us to buying another iron. We read up on steaming, and found conflicting information on whether steaming the silk was a good idea or bad one. It turns out, it was a bad idea. Thankfully, we found that out on a piece of test fabric!  But the crease down the front of the dress is one we will continue to work on, slowly and carefully until it is all worked out.

The lining mostly done

The lining was (mostly) done, so we hung it from the ceiling for a bit to give us hope and inspiration.

But we struggled with how to put all the pieces together. The lace did not want to be hidden under all the dupioni, and we realized that putting it on top of the dress would make the dress even more beautiful than having it peeking out from underneath.

A skirt of lace

We'd already created the skirt out of lace. This was one of those two steps forward moments. We'd purchased enough of the lace to make a complete skirt. No need to run back to the store for more fabric. No more cutting and piecing together. It was meant to be!

We decided to put all the pieces together in new order to see how they'd fit.

The result, although hard to see in the photos, was amazing!

Dress with lace over-skirt

We found a use for the lace we'd purchased earlier that had marks on it so we couldn't use it as intended. We knew we were the only ones who would even know the marks were there (well, and anyone reading this blog) but we couldn't use them on the sleeves as we'd planned.

Now, we can use them on the underskirt, peeking out at the bottom.

All coming together bit by bit

We had it all together! Everything seemed to be working. And then the machine decided it needed a break.

I had to finish piecing the train together with the underlining, and the machine would not cooperate. Sew a little, rip a little... Here we were back at that when we could see the finish line. (Still hours of work away, but within sight!)

We ran out of time for the time being. The building was closing up for the day, Jenny had to be back home, Steph was flying out the next morning, and the realtor had houses to show us.

So, we packed up everything and bundled it home where it will sit until we can get together again in a few weeks. We shall reconvene soon. In the meantime, we have appliques to create and lace flowers to make, and decorations to design. We will be busy in other ways, but it is just not as much fun.