The More Things Change...

We had been full of hope and optimism after our early success with the muslin, and although we knew not to say out loud that we expected things to go smoothly, we were clearly both thinking that we had this dress in the bag, so to speak.

Appliques

With Stephanie's wedding dress, we learned the laws of karma dictated any time we predicted how far we would get or how many hours we had left before the dress would be finished would be compensated with like number of hours redoing our work, ripping out stitches, or shopping for supplies.  We knew this, and so neither dared to say it out loud, yet we both expected to get the dress nearly done in the weekend. 

That was our first mistake.

We came away a bit shaken at our mistakes.  And yet, looking back, we spent over 100 total hours on Stephanie's dress. What made us think that the second go-round would really be any different?

Dress Top 1.0

We had run into difficulties sewing the pieces together.  The needles seemed to be too big, and were causing little runs in the fabric, no matter what size we chose.  We were alarmed at our mistakes, but we regrouped and made notes. Lots of notes.  We made lists of things for the next sewing session and lists of our worries for the future

NEEDS

• We needed different needles or maybe different thread, or both. Maybe 70/10 sharps? 40 Wt thread?
• We needed a scissor sharpener. It's amazing how dull they get and how quickly!
• Bobbins. We never seem to have enough.
• Hem lace. If we are going to add length to the dress with lace, we need to find the lace to match at Treadle.
• Need to get pearls for the dress--cream/off white, small, irregular
• Need boning for the bodice
• Dress form. We had a mini-me for Stephanie, but with Teresa living nearby, we didn't make one. A mannequin would give us something to work off.
• Need to make a hoop skirt?  We were using the crinoline from Stephanie's dress, but we discussed making our own hoop. We'd had one before Stephanie's wedding, but it got damaged in the wash. It was over 50 years old. We found ourselves wishing we'd repaired it instead of using the crinoline. We may be making our own hoop skirt yet.
• Practice material--chiffon-y for the layers practice

WORRIES

• Sewing on super fine fabric.
• The bodice: We need to lengthen it, create sweetheart neckline, figure out the gossamer over-layer, and the appliques.  
• How much length do we need to add to each layer so that they are long enough?
• What to do about the weight of the fabric?  

NEXT STEPS

• Our next steps are to figure out the bodice.  
• We will need to create a new pattern, and then make the silk bodice. 
• We also need to make sure the gathering on the skirt matches the new bodice. Then, we need to begin looking at the skirt layers.  
• We will want to add extra panels to the skirt to make it fuller.  
• We want to see about adding 2 layers of gossamer instead of just one, plus the organza and the chiffon.