Fargin' Backstiches!

On June 4th, Jenny, Stephanie, Teresa and I began in earnest to make a wedding dress. Not just any wedding dress; Stephanie's couture wedding dress, of course!

We had lace--so beautiful, I wondered why we were hiding it under the dupioni. We had yards and yards of dupioni, and most of all, we had the time and space required to get it done.

We found we could have used a second sewing machine. And a second iron. (More about that later.)

We had already put in several hours the weekend before, working late into the night so that we set off the alarm. Now, we were back at it with all the optimism and hope and expectations of a job to be completed. Oh, the naivete!

Oh, no! Is Jenny ripping out a seam again??

It takes two...

We laughed. A lot. We tried not to jinx ourselves, but failed.

Instead of saying how well things were going, we learned to say, "We are farther than we've ever been."

We sang songs from The Music Man: "Sew a little, rip a little, sew a little, swear a little, rip rip rip, sew a little, rip a little more..."

We learned a lot. Some of it the hard way.

The tricky machine

We learned that we needed to examine each piece of fabric for flaws. Next time, before we cut it out at the store.

We learned that lining dupioni with itself is the best choice.

We learned that the machine is tricky, and sometimes the spool will hop off the machine, or the thread will come un-threaded from the needle.

It takes two people to manage this machine.

We learned that having the real Stephanie present was better than her mini-me, but having both of them was necessary.

More to come!

The lining