6-04-01

This is it, the point of no return. I've gotten my bodice sewn together and now all I have to do is grade the seams, snip the curves and notch the point and it's practically finished. This is, of course, the precise moment when something goes irretrevably wrong. The bodice is pinned to my dummy, inside out, awaiting to be snipped and I'm avoiding it because I'm a total chicken.

So what else can I say about the stuff I did up till now? Well, I decided to pipe the neckline with this gorgeous gold cording I've had lying around for over a year, but it turned out that I had just enough to do that and not much else, so I decided to see if I could track some more cording down. I went to the fabric store where I originally bought it, but they were out, so I decided to just pipe the neckline and leave it at that. To console myself, I wound up buying 10 yards of gold lace (which cost me more than 5 yards of the gold brocade... It's criminal) and 4 yards of a wider gold lace, some cheap satin to line the skirt with and some thread that matches the brocade. I wound up spending way too much money, of course, but the stuff I got will look stunning on the gown when it's all said and done.

When I got home I sat down to the task of attaching the interlining and the facing together, by hand. Not only is this actually more satisfying than sewing it by machine, I've found it eliminates a lot of hassle by doing it by hand. Once the interlining and facing were one piece, I started on the piping, which I did by hand as well. I basted it to the front piece of the bodice and then debated whether or not to sew the neckline by machine. I finally decided I was too lazy to do everything by hand and carefully pinned all layers together, being cautious of where my piping was while sewing it all down. One of the big reasons I hate using piping is because it's such a pain to sew on the machine. I don't have a piping foot for my machine, so the piping likes to wander all over the place when I sew. The basting helped to control this, but I was sewing blind because the piping was sandwiched between the facing and lining, so I had to feel my way along carefully. Thankfully, it worked out well and I didn't have to do too much adjustment.

Blah. Talk about self-fulfilling prophesy. I managed to trim the seams successfully, only to find that the back of the bodice did not meet at the waist. In fact, it was slightly too big at my neck and about an inch too small at my waist. Rather than just add a placket and be done with it, I pieced together extensions to the back opening edges, which solved the waist gap problem nicely, but didn't do anything for the top. So, I sat and stared at the bodice for five minutes, wondering what the heck was I going to do... Take the whole thing appart? Recut the back? Redo the extensions? I decided to take the piping back an inch on both sides and that actually fixed the problem with a minimal amount of effort. Granted, I have this fairly weird seam running diagonally down the lacing edge of the bodice, but that's no biggie. As long as the pattern matches up at the seams, I'm all for it.

I took pictures of the whole process, but the camera decided not to develop them properly, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

This picture is of the back with the extentions and the piping repossitioned. You can see the diagonal seam where I peiced the pattern together. I don't think it looks all that bad, hardly obtrusive at all. I'll probably place boning right along the edges where it is pinned, but I want to fit it on my own body before I do so.

6-05-01

I was so tired yesterday that it's amazing I actually had the success I did with this bodice. I chalk it up to a combination of being too stubborn to quit and too tired to know when I should just walk away. Late last night, while watching Sneakers I completely fixed the back. I repossitioned the boning to lie along the new edge and trimmed up the armholes so my arms could actually fit through them. I was so happy that I'd finally conquored this bodice that I promptly fell asleep.

Here's a picture showing the fixed back of the bodice. I am particularly proud of the way that the pattern matches on both seams... Not that it was hard to do or anything, but that it's just careful work.

The bodice only needs to have the armholes finished and then I can begin on the shoulder treatment. When it's all said and done, then I'll begin working on the lacing holes.

These are close up pics of the shoulder tabs. The will be whipstiched into the armholes and then a length of silk will be pulled through them and puffed out. At the base of the tabs you can see 3 small lacing holes that will be used to secure the sleeves into the bodice. I don't know why I decided to do the tabs and lacing holes like this... It just seemed the easiest solution. I was debating on creating a more elaborate arraingement of tabs for the shoulder treatment, but I didn't feel like making a support structure to keep them secure. I might add to the shoulder treatment at a later date... For now, this is what I want.

6-06-01

Yesterday I completed the bodice (as far as anyone knows) and began working on the partlet. I want to get everything above the waist finished before I start on the skirts, simply because they're the easiest and least complicated of the whole outfit. The harder stuff is best done first, or else it's liable not to get finished (we're talking previous experience here...)

These pictures show the shoulder treatments before and after "puffing". You can see the lacing strip on the insde of the armhole. This presented a problem when I tried the bodice on after adding the epaulets. I hadn't factored in the fact that the nature of these epaulets would cause the armholes to shrink by an inch or so, and they were already snug to begin with. I tried on the bodice and figured that one out pretty quick... After a bit of inital panic ("Whaddya mean the back edges don't touch?!") I pulled out the seams at the base of each armhole and deapened it by about an inch and a half. Happily, this solved the problem with the back and was a whole lot more comfortable. I put the bodice aside and began working on the partlet.

The first photo is of the muslin partlet being draped. This was a totally new experience for me so I didn't want to mess up on the silk. Basically the pattern is pretty dang simple: It's a large circle with a slit up the middle and a smaller circle cut out to accomodate the neck. The fabric is then gathered first about 3 inches below the "donut hole" and that becomes the neck edge. You can see this process in the first picture. Then, a second row of stitching is done about 1 inch from what is now the top of something that looks vaguely like a standing collar. The gathers are stitched down using "stays" (strips of bias cut satin, in this case) on the inside of the neckline, and a small cord is run through them to secure the neck edges. A simpler way of doing this would have been to just run the bias tape all the way around the neck and use the cord to gather the edges, but I wanted less fuss and more uniformity in the gathers, so I did it the hard way... The entire partlet is sewn by hand, partly because it's hard to sew this kind of thing well on a machine and partly because I wouldn't trust my sewing machine within 10 feet of silk this fine. My "good" machine, the Pfaff, is out of commission at the moment and so I am using my old Brother which has trouble deciding whether to mangle fabric or screw up the bobbin tension.

Here's the beginning of the partlet in the silk.

These pictures show the gold lace added to the neck. There will be more gold lace added down the front of the partlet on either side. My next task is to figure out how to secure the partlet and whether or not I can add sleeves to it.

This is a pic of the partlet with sleeves. The partlet is just a large circle, so I had to be warry of how I placed the sleeves without any indication of where they should go. I put the partlet on the dummy and marked where the shoulders were and cut a straight line to an inch below the shoulder mark. I then cut sleeves out matching silk about 8-10" longer than my actual shoulder to wrist measurment. I made the sleeve head curved and then gathered it into each side of the slit. The partlet ties under the arms. The sleeves put a lot of weight on their seams, due to the fact that the armhole is really just a straight cut without any shaping. I may have to reinforce the seams eventually because of this. The sleeves are extremely ample, which I wasn't sure if I liked, but after trying the partlet on beneath the bodice, it looks awesome!

Next | Part One