Finishing the Capelet

So I created the pattern for the cape, then cut it out twice.  The one on the left is the "lining" and the one on the right is the "outside".  I put those in quotes because the top part of it flips down, reversing the parts.  That's why each is partially the silver and lace, and partially the fuzzy fabric.  They are exact mirror images!

 I put the two pieces together, and stitched the armholes open.  Tada!  All done.  Now you can see how the circle becomes the cape.  The top shape in the above photos becomes the flipped down part.  The bottom picture just shows the fuzzy fabric hiding where it won't show - but will keep Gina warm in case she needs it!
Last thing to do is attach the buttons before the next fitting!

Finishing the Skirt and Attaching It

So next, I cut up the new tulle Gina brought me, gathered it, and stitched it onto the skirt.  The picture to the left is what it looks like when I was sewing that on.  It gets poofy and a bit close at the end!  Once the tool for the second layer was on, I attach the second layer of silver and lace.  AND repeat for layer three.

The picture to the right is what the buttons are looking like right now.  I haven't attached them, but I have covered them all.

 Oh, and then I attached the skirt to the bodice.  Pictures below.  The only thing left to do before the fitting in March is attach all those lovely buttons I just made.  :-)

Oh yeah, and make the capelet....that'll happen this weekend.
Fun!

Finishing the Bodice

 The picture on the right is me finishing up the lining  clipping the seams, and adding in the boning.  Then I attached the two bodice pieces together, and added the zipper in.  I have not completed the zipper with the lining because I need to attach the outer skirt to the bodice first. You can see below how the bodice looks finished on the top!  I also attached the under-skirt.  I haven't finished the outer skirt yet - but I'm going to work on it this weekend! Starting to look real :-)

The First Fabric Fitting

 So here are a bunch of pictures from our first Fabric Fitting!  The bodice had a bit of trouble fitting - the actual fabric has less give then the muslin did - so I needed to give Gina a bit more room.  That is why you see her in just the lining for the top.  I haven't finished the skirt yet - which is why there is only one layer on the skirt at the moment.  You can also see the capelet that I was working on.  You can also see pictures of the awesome shoes Gina will be wearing under the

 dress.  If you want to see the pictures larger - just click on them, and they will blow up.

:-)

Caplet - Muslin

So Gina and I have been discussing the possibility that it might be a bit chilly at the wedding dependent on the weather.  Therefore, we have been talking about creating a type of cover to go over the top of the dress to keep her warm.  I've created a muslin of the idea that we talked about - so when Gina comes up for her fitting this weekend, she will be able to try it on - then if it is the correct size - I will be creating it out of the leftover silver and lace fabric.  My plan is to have the "outside" edge to be the silver and lace - while the inside and underside of the top I plan to do in a fuzzy warm fabric to help keep Gina warm. I thought it looked super cool, and elegant - but different then the normal.  It is actually created out of one large circle, then has two armholes in it - and the top of the circle folds down over the shoulders to create the little cape look.  Should be fun!

The Skirt Starts to Come Together

 So I decided that in putting the skirt together - I'd put all the pieces together first - then attach the layers of tulle and layers of skirt.  What you ee to the left re the top two layers of skirt laid together just for the visual.  The underskirt was easy to put together, just three seams.  I layered on tulle to get the train to start to stand out - but I didn't want to add too much - so until I try it on Gina, I'll leave that alone.

 Next I added a bunch of tulle to the bottom of the outer skirt - and attached the bottom layer.  THEN - I ran out of tulle.  So you can see the pictures, but I can't do any more until Gina comes for a fitting.

She's coming up next weekend!  Then I will try the two separate bodice pieces on her - I need to make sure they fit before I can trim down the seam allowance and attach the boning and bra cups.  In the pictures you can see the skirt is "attached".  It's just pinned on - it's not sewn on yet.  Before I attach the skirt - I need to finish the bodice and attach the zipper.

Then I will attach the skirt - and it'll be close to done!

So this is where I'm at!

The Bodice Begins to Come Together

First thing in putting this bodice together is to iron the interfacing (a stiffening fabric I added to the inside of the bodice to keep the tops of the sweetheart from drooping)  to the sliver fabric.  This also is when I would take a long stitch (also called a basting stitch) completely around the outside of the pieces.  This will stitch the lace to the silver piece.  This allows me to treat the three pieces of fabric as one piece when sewing them together.  My original plan had been to do this for all the pieces of the bodice before putting them together, but then I got excited.

I basted together the center piece of the bodice, and the two that attach to that.  Then I had to put them together!  So that's what the pictures are.  It's going to be so pretty!!!!!

The Christmas Fitting and Cutting of the Dress

So over Christmas - I brought the dress with me to Mom's so that we could have one last fitting on the length of skirt.  So I put Gina in the dress, and cut the skirt to correct length.  She is wearing her green shoes (the ones she plans on wearing at the wedding) under the dress, so that I can get the length close.  I cut the lining, the skirt, and the bottom layer. Lola decided she was going to help me.  Thanks girl!

Once I took the dress home - I again corrected the pattern.  Correcting the bodice was easy - and the length of the skirts was easy too.  Then came the hard part.  I needed to adjust the layers so that they came out looking even.  The hard part is that the top two layers overlap the layer below them by 2 inches (in measurement - less in reality because of the poofyness of the skirt).  However, the bottom layer doesn't overlap anything.  So I needed to make that layer naturally longer to manage to make them all "look" the same length.  After some fun math (go algebra!) I got it figured out.

Next came the scary part - cutting the real fabric - the expensive fabric.  Scary!

First thing I did was create a cut list.  For anyone who's built something in a wood-shop - you already have the concept.  Essentially it just states what pieces, out of what materials, and how many of each to create the entire dress.

First I cut the silver fabric - this is the sateen that is the layer that will be viewed through the lace.  Not super scary.  It's best to cut all the pieces out of one type of fabric at a time - it allows you to use the fabric most economically.

Second, I cut the lining fabric.  This one is slightly stretchy along it's cross grain - so I decided to change the direction in which I cut the bodice.  The lining is the piece that has the lace up part in the back that helps hold the dress on Gina - so I wanted as little stretch as possible there.  Also not super scary to cut.

Then came the lace.  Super scary.  Beautiful expensive lace.  I laid out the pieces, and then had to talk myself into actually cutting it.  It was the getting started that was scary - once I was moving along I was okay.  One thing I had to make sure of on the lace was that everything had an "up".  This lace doesn't have a "good" side and a "bad" side, but it does have an up and a down.  There are flowers on it - and I needed to make sure that all the flowers were pointed up - otherwise the eye would be drawn to what was different.




Once I cut the whole dress out - I laid the lace pieces on the silver pieces, and laid the whole bodice out together.  That's this final picture below.

The FABRIC!

So Tim and I took a trip down to NYC to buy fabric from Mood :-)  So we ended up with a silver color fabric for the under layer!  Here's a picture of it.  It's a cotton sateen fabric.  Satin (as it's called when it's made from silk) is simply a way of weaving.  It creates a slightly shiny side, and a duller side.  The "correct" side of the fabric is the shiny side. It's called Sateen when created with cotton. This is a nice light fabric that should breathe nicely for Gina.

This is a picture of the lace - just the lace by itself (right).  It's a french lace, ivory colored with a slight shimmer to it.  The lace is the most expensive fabric in the dress.  Gina decided that she loved the look of the lace over the fabric so much (left photo), that it is going to cover the entire dress!  So just imagine all three of those layers, the under layer the silver, and then overlaid with the lace.  Beautiful!  

This fabric to the left is simply tool - it's the fabric that tutu's are made out of.  This fabric is very cheap, and is going to be used under various parts of the dress to make it poofy and stick out a bit.

This last photo is the lace, the silver under layer, and the lighter silver fabric is for the lining of the dress.  It is also a cotton, but just a regular cotton, not a sateen.  I'm super excited to get started with the real fabric!  I'm waiting until after Christmas though because I want the layers to be correct before I cut all the pieces out.  It is best for me to cut all the pieces at the same time, because then I can cut the big pieces out first, and place the smaller pieces in the spaces between the larger ones.  This uses the fabric most effectively, causing the least amount of waste.  :-D

Fitting - Full Dress Take 2

 So for this fitting EVERYONE came :-).  Gina, Linda, Kelly and Jaclyn!  The dress came out great - although I had spent all day finishing the dress before the fitting (my planning ahead could have used some work this time), and my sewing machine quit about 5 minutes and one seam prior to people getting there.  I think it overheated, and decided it was done.  Since then, it has reawakened, and is just fine - but apparently I can't sew that much in one day.  I built the sash into this dress - but it's too low.  If you notice though, the front of the skirt has fullness now, but in the correct locations. :-D

 In the photo to the left, you can see there's a little more fabric to be taken out to fit it to Gina's butt.

And this is the dress bustled.  One thing that I made sure to do this time through making the dress was to cut each "type" of fabric in one go so that I could understand how much fabric we would need to buy to build the actual dress.  So we decided that it was time to buy fabric!  One thing that was bothering me though was the length of the dress, it's about 2-3 inches too long even with Gina's shoes on her.  Because of the layering, it means that I need to re-adjust the layers.  However, at the time, I decided it was going to be fine, and ignored the issue.  HOWEVER, knowing me, it began to bother me, and now over Xmas, I'm going to put it on her again, and find out exactly how much it's long by so that I can correct the pattern before cutting it out of the real fabric.

And for those of you who have asked - YES - this is just a practice dress.  The only piece of this dress that will be a part of the real dress is the bra cups sewn in the bodice.  YES this is a lot of work for practice - but it has been an evolution of the idea, and of the pattern.  I needed to be confident that when I cut out of the real fabric that it was going to be correct, and I wasn't going to mess up the expensive fabric.