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.