Back to Business

We suffered a death in the family recently--my mom. She taught me to sew and taught me to cuss while sewing. The second was not intentional. She made me stay with it when I got so frustrated I wanted to give up. Over time, my interest and skills surpassed hers. She started back when it was more economical to sew for kids than to buy ready made. Her machine was a Kenmore and they never quite got along. For my 16th birthday, I received a portable Singer. Portable if you can lift 50 pounds. It had a metal body. I took it to college and made costumes for plays with it. My daughter used my Singer until a few years ago. She sews, too.

Before everything, I decided to sew the silk to muslin, serge the edges and machine baste the two layers.

 This is progress one back panel, the smallest. It's about 80% complete, needing a border at the top and fill-in around the design. It's based on a design I can't post because I borrowed it from somewhere on the interweb.

The bride is impressed! 






Sarah was here for a few days. She'd booked a flight hoping to see Mom one last time. But it was not to be so she visited with us and some of her aunts and uncles and cousins. She slept late and read and watched movies and cooked Paleo food for us which helped me clean up my eating. Our big event was going to In N Out Burger then to the movies to see Admission.

I whipped up a skirt and need to do another. Need to make it more flared and redo the cut of the hem. This is Monique Lhullier, as is the white up and down hem dress I posted earlier.

Today she told me the shop on Fabric Row in South Philly where she bought the silk burned down. Hope we don't need more, but we will need to make the flowers and petals and will also need silk organza for that. Hope some one else on the row sells it. The really sad thing is a fire fighter died in the fire. I imagine a fabric store would go up fast with all the chemicals the material is treated with.

Sad News, Good News and My Movie List

I've made some progress on the dress, just no pics yet. My mother's health declined the past few weeks, making me more scatterbrained that usual. We lost her yesterday, Good Friday. She went peacefully for which we are grateful. I suppose the next few weeks will hard, but we've seen this coming for months so we're glad she's with the Lord now and out of her troubled physical body.

Anyway, I watch movies on my laptop while I sew. I've included a list on the side of what I've watched so far in this process, including my rating. * = a star. I watched one (Descent) that was pretty awful--over done sexually violent scenes, and I decided after that I need to keep the content mostly upbeat and good quality to keep good energy going into The Dress.

Trouble is I can't watch foreign movies while working-can't sew AND look at subtitles!

I'll try to get my most recent progress posted soon.

But great news! The bride herself will be here for 4 days starting on Friday. I wanted to have the mock up fo the skirt ready, but that won't be happening, unless I pull an all-nighter, which is unlikely...

Feel free to recommend movies of great content and quality in the comments.

Blasted Bodice 3/17/13

 The bodice came back. The one without the boning and bra cups fit much better than the one with, so that's the one I'm using for the pattern.

 Sarah and Courtney marked the sweetheart shape. Obviously, Sarah wants a deep one.

 They also, per my request, marked the  side and back lines. The dotted line on the bottom is wear the beads will stop. There will be a ribbon between the beads and the skirt.

I took it apart...

And made a new pattern, including the new lines. Now, much to my chagrin and frustration, I'm having a hard time getting it to fit right again with the new pieces. They ended up too big. And they have to be just right, because I will be cutting the silk for the beading and it's backing with that.

 (There was a huge disruption in my family's force today. Actually the entire week was hard that way. And sometimes that makes it hard to focus on the needful, doesn't it?)


Don't tell Sarah this, but I'm still working on the bead design. However, visions of paisley are dancing in my head and on my desktop. Pastor Ron's shirt gave me some inspiration this morning.

Goal: Get the pattern finalized, the silk and backing cut and basted together by 3/19. Start beading by 1/21.
Next week: make the muslin skirt.

The Bodice Mock-up and Beading Sample 3/3/13

On Friday, I sent out the mock-up of the bodice and a sample of a beaded dinosaur. Sarah should get the package tomorrow.

 

The back, obviously. You may not be able to see the suggest line for the lower back she wants. She and her maid of honor, Courtney a fellow sewist, can figure it out.

  

The side.front. I suggested the shape of the sweetheart neck line, once again, they can suggest another one if they wish.

 

The bodice with bra cups attached. Definitely increase the bust size,  but the mock up fit it pretty well.

 

The boning attached. We got plenty of it from sewtrue.com along with the bra cups, some marling materials and a bridal gown bag. Thank God for online shopping. I could run all over Phoenix and still not find what we got here.

 

This took about 5 movies to do. It's a sampler to show Sarah the beads, sequins and crystals we have now and practice for me. It's not complete, but I wanted to get the bodice off to her. Can you see the dinosaur outline and some surrounding design?

My next step is to design and plan the bead work. It might be the most challenging part of the process for me. Then, I think I'll work on the beading by bodice piece, leaving areas along the seam lines free. I'm afraid if I did it as a whole, it would become soiled.

I have to get my butt in gear!

The Dress Form 2/19/13

Sarah, with the help of her maid of honor, Courtney, made a dress form from paper packing tape. There are bunches of sites and videos on the web that provide detailed directions to make a custom dress form, saving you from the expense and trouble of buying a form and adjust it to your precise dimensions. Sarah actually has a regular one of her own (she shipped the form she made to me in the box her "real" dress form came in.) Every site I saw uses duct tape to for the custom form. I'm not sure why they chose the paper tape, but it works.

The form in the form box. 4 lbs vs. ?

It did maintain the shape well during shipping. Not sure duct tape would have, especially if it ended up in a warm place. I had to stuff it and used a variety of towels, bed linens and plastic grocery bags. The challenge was to create a stand for it. I thought about hanging it, but pictured the whole thing coming down from the ceiling with the almost completed gown on it.

Ikea Kroby lampstand

 

For the stand, at first I thought I would use the base of an Ikea floor lamp. But that turned out to be not enough of a base with the stuffed form on it--it wanted to fall over backwards.

During stuffing...

I had kept the heavy cardboard tube left over from the purchase of yards of blackout drapery lining years ago. One of those things you look at and think, "I know this will come in handy one day." Well, this is one thing that actually did. Hubby sawed a few inches off. I replaced the lamp base with that of a small patio table. The tube fits snuggly over a screw holder thingy. Nice.


I inserted some stuffing in the shoulders then inserted the tube and padded around it to hold it straight and in place. The bust needed special attention. I taped bubble wrap on the bottom to discourage gravity from letting the stuffing fall. So far so good.

Looks a little cockeyed, but I can deal.

The table base works well.

 These sequins arrived today from Cartwright Sequins. The amounts seemed huge, but looking at the tiny packages...I don't know. Sequins are really, really cheap!

 This is our growing bead selection, including seed beads, glass pearls, bugles and rocailles gather from JoAnn.com and Michaels. We also have some Swarovski crystals that I will put on here at some point.

 Beads from JoAnn

Practice.












My next steps: Make the muslin mock-up for the bodice. This might include two layers: a lining and an outer layer. We're inserting bra cups into the bodice, so that will involve slightly different measurements. And, designing the pattern for the bead work and practicing on the silk.

Making progress.

The Pattern

So, Sarah created a dress form from duct tape that she has sent. I think I will find a way to hang it in my work area. Pics when it arrives.

I am working on a beading design. She wants dinosaurs. Yes. You read that correctly. Subtle dinosaurs.

Here's the pattern I'm using. I'll have to modify the bodice for the sweetheart look. And the back doesn't seem to have a closure--but that's easy to work around, too. I was looking for a pieced skirt and this should be perfect to get the high/low effect in the photo.

I did a little practice beading and it should be no problem other than coming up with an acceptable pattern and the time. I need to find sequins.

The date is Sept. 7. I'm sure it will come too soon!

She said yes!

We knew the news could come at anytime, and we knew he would ask her in a creative way. We got the call in November, the day Sarah ran her first half marathon. Toward the end of the route, her boyfriend, Doug, through a series of signs held by friends, popped the question as she ran by. She lost a minute or two to leave the race to say yes!

So, the first thing I asked about details was, "Are you going to make your dress?" Sarah is a bit of a sewer. When she said no, my next question was, "Can I?" It's been a dream of mine to make the wedding dress of my only daughter. She said yes!!

Amazingly, she finalized the design when we visited her last week. I say amazingly, because she had great difficulty choosing what to wear for school every day! We're combining several designers for her custom look. The beaded bodice and tufted silk and petaled skirt are based on this dress by Martina Lianna.

 This is the shape of the skirt, including the tulle underlay. The design is Monique Lhuillier.































Below is the bead work on the Marian Lianna dress. I'll develop my own design and pray it and my skills produce such a love effect. I have a lifetime of sewing experience, but have never done such beading before. I'm looking forward to it!

My first step will be researching construction tips and practicing beading. Sarah lives across the country--I'm in Phoenix, she's in Philadelphia. She and a friend are working on a duct tape dress form she'll send to me soon, so I can make a muslin mock-up to send back to her, so we can get a perfect fit and yardage requirements.

I hope to document my progress, failure and frustrations and successes and joys. Not that I have nothing else to do, such as novel writing, job hunting, etc.

When I get stuck with the dress or my writing, I'll fix up blog and make it pretty.