Hooray!!

I finished the wedding dress last night!!  It's done!  And she's very happy with it and so am I!  It's such a relief to be done and to not have to stress about it anymore.  I did way more stressing and worrying than she did.  She was the perfect customer and if I could be guaranteed that they would all be like this I'd be tempted to do more commissions...  I will post pictures after the wedding.  Lots and lots!

Anyway, the end is now almost in sight.  It's on to finishing up the Pioneer Trek stuff this weekend.  I'm going tonight to help sew, and will be making ~5 skirts next week to have on hand just in case.  Then next Thursday I'm going out of town for the wedding and to visit my family, which I'm really excited for.  Then when I get back, it's the actual Trek!  So I have to make sure it's all done pretty much by next Wed.  I think it's doable. 

And then I'll be free!  I told myself I'd take like a two week break from sewing or just do little projects (like the embroidered pocket I started - will post soon), but I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen.  I have a million projects I want to work on and need to get going.  No deadlines really, which is good, but I want them now!  But no, now it's time to organize and clean my life up a little bit!  The sewing area is a disaster!

Circus Circus!!

If you want to see what else I've been up to, check out the birthday party I helped my sister throw last weekend for my niece.  I visited them in NC.  She turned 4 and I bought her a Hello Kitty Sewing machine!  She loves it! :)  More pictures here.

Circus Circus!

The treats!!

My nephew the "tiger" with a yummy mustache.

Blowing out her candle.

My cute niece.

It was a Circus theme and turned out pretty cute!  I painted faces (not very well...) and we had "Pin the Nose on the Clown" and "Feed the Lion" bean-bag toss.  The treats were candied apples, rootbeer flavored Mustache suckers, cupcakes, popcorn, peanuts, pink lemonade and chocolate covered oreos.  Yum!

Oh Pioneer

So I finally started working on my pioneer dress.  Which means I finally figured out what I wanted to do for it.  Well kind of.  After looking around for so long trying to find information I decided to just do what I wanted basically.  It doesn't need to be 100% accurate.  I had a wide range of dates to choose from really: 1847 - 1858 so that made it difficult since there were changed to little details over that time.  What I had a hard time figuring out was whether I had to do a pointed waist or if it could be straight.  In the end it seemed to me that a lot of work dresses had straight waistlines, throughout this time period, even if pointed was popular, so I decided to go with that since I didn't want to do the pointed bodice.

So I draped a fitted lining and then came time to figure out whether I wanted to have it gathered or darted over that.  In the end I went with gathers, which I actually hate now that it's done, because I read so much that cotton dresses were *always* gathered and not darted.  Which I don't think can be 100% true, but whatever.  I boned the fitted lining since I'm not going to be wearing a corset with this dress for the event.  I may make a very light corded corset for it later, but I just don't have time for that right now.  Plus, I'm not sure how many pioneer women actually wore corsets all the way across the plains.  I'm guessing not many.  Though they would want some support.

I also had a hard time figuring out how to do a dog-leg closure actually.  Then yesterday I had the brilliant idea of making it more like a "round gown" from the 18th century and having the front skirt panel tie on first, then the bodice close over that with the back of the skirt attached to the bodice.  I got this all attached this way last night and am pretty happy with it.

This whole project has been a little rushed and sloppy actually.  I've only worked on it about 2 and half evenings and right now, all I have left to do is the hem, one sleeve and the front closures.  And that includes the time it took to mock-up/drape.  I need to have this done by tomorrow morning.  And I also want to make a corded flounced petticoat.  So hopefully tonight I can get the dress finished and do the petticoat too.  Oh, and make a little pinner apron.  I also wanted to get together a plain straw bonnet, but don't think I'll have time for that, so I'll either wear the cloth bonnet I already made (which I also hate) or just wear a plain straw hat.

Then when that's all done tomorrow I can go back to the wedding dress full time!  We've finished all the mock-ups and fittings, so now it's on to the actual dress!  I'm hoping by Sunday night to have it pretty much totally assembled, minus of course all the hand finishing.  Then I can focus on the lace and the belt!  Oh man.  My life is so crazy right now, so sorry for the lack of posting!

I had an awesome mail day last week.

I got a package from my momma who went to Austria a couple weeks ago, and a jewelry order from Forever 21!

I love mail!



The box from Mom: post cards with pretty dresses, a wire shoe, a cute notebook plus Cadbury Chocolate!



Small vintage Austrian porcelain plate, they don't make these any more!



An antique silk hanky, thread covered buttons and silk bias binding!

My Mom is awesome! :)




Also, my new necklace, to match my pearl & bow earrings.

It was a good day.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Procrastination...

Last night I didn't feel like moving things and while I wanted to sew, my sewing area is a mess (see: moving). So instead I made a little magnetic needle case from an altoids tin! See?












Those used to be business magnets on the fridge. :). I covered the top with fabric and then glued on some velvet ribbon cause I thought it needed something more.

And that fabric in the back is going to be my new sewing project bag, as soon as I can get some fuseable fleece.

I don't know why but I am suddenly in the mood to make a ton of bags and purses! I'll have to share some links soon to some of the patterns and tutorials I want to use.

I really should be starting my pioneer dress. It's not like it's going to be hard, and I'm machine sewing the whole thing, but I still haven't decided how I want the bodice to look! I need to have it done by June 4th though. Access to Miss Ella is kinda blocked right now though (again, see: moving).

So I guess I better try to do some moving tonight. *sigh*
My back hurts. :(

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A bit of rambling...

Oh man.  I have been just wiped out since Costume Con last weekend.  Sorry for not sharing any pictures yet!  I have uploaded them to my computer, just not the internet yet!  I'm putting it on the list though!

I haven't had much time to relax since coming back last week.  I'm still in the middle of moving and am getting started on the wedding dress I'm making!

So that Couture sewing book in the last post?  AMAZING!  So many things I have never heard of, techniques that will be perfect for the dress and can be used on future costumes as well!  I am already more than half way through it.  I highly reccomend it!  Maybe a lot of my costuming buddies know this stuff already, but I've been sewing for 12 years and seriously, so much of it is new to me.  I am so glad that I started hand-sewing dresses this last year.  I think it will be really helpful for me as I'm doing this dress.  I'm more comfortable with it and my stitches are much smaller now!

I don't think I'm going to be handsewing the entire dress, but I will be hand basting all of it especially and even if I machine stitch some of the seams.  The lace I will have to applique entirely by hand I'm thinking.  I'm still trying to work out how I'm going to do that exactly, but I'll need to play around with the placement on the bodice when I have a better working toile.  Anyway, it's making me really excited to work on this dress (not that I wasn't before, I was just nervously dreading it a bit) and I'm feeling very confident.

I also never realized that many couture garments are finished inside the way I do a lot of my costumes now.  I'm pretty sure I'll be putting a nice lining inside this, but it's kind of fun to see that the techniques haven't changed much over the last 150 years... :)

Just came in the mail...

I'll be pouring over this book in the next several weeks to make sure my best friends wedding dress is perfect! Inside and out! I made the first bodice toile today and we're fitting it tomorrow. I think it's too big, (couldn't find the measurements we took weeks ago but I went with what I thought would fit her bust) but that just means I'll be able to fit it to her perfectly! :)


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone