Here are a couple pictures of the muslin for the wedding dress. It's really a simple pattern (actually a couple patterns combined) and the bodice is almost identical to the bridesmaids. Changes made yesterday include raising the neckline slightly. It was just a little too revealing for my taste. Originally I wanted the lace to come up above the satin neckline for more sheer coverage, but now I've decided against that idea.

Notice the blue train...don't you love Wal-Mart's $1 a yard fabric? The bodice is made from a really cheap shiny satin. On the real dress it won't be so shiny and it will be covered with dense lace anyway.

Also, does anyone notice the stress lines on the bodice on the full length picture of me standing? We can not figure out what is causing those. The bodice appears to fit well and those stress lines only appear when I stand a certain way. Any ideas would be appreciated!

Jessica

Day One and Two...

I officially started on the wedding dress yesterday. I am so excited...I had to tell myself to slow down and take my time because I could have easily stayed up all night working on it, but I don't do well sewing at night...my sewing performance goes dramatically down as I get more and more tired!

I was quite pleased with what I did get done yesterday though. I made some final alterations to the muslin, (decided on my sleeves ect.) and then got the entire bodice cut out of the satin, lining, interlining, and organza fabric. That took awhile because I was extremely careful. Then I marked my seam allowences on the interlining pieces (which will be closest to my skin). Then I hand-basted the 3 layers (satin, interlining, and organza) together on each bodice piece.

Today I sewed and pressed my princess seams. Tomorrow I will work on the lace for the bodice. I learned how to properly press alencon lace today...according to Susan Khalje, it is important to use a heavy terry cloth towel on the ironing board and place the lace right side down on that. This prevents the texture of the lace from being flattened during pressing. Next I learned that it is best to use a damp pressing cloth to protect the lace and to create a bit of steam to help the net on the lace to shrink and lay flat between the motifs. Needless to say, my lace looked a lot better after I pressed it!

I have spent quite a bit of time reading some of the books and articles I had on creating a seamless lace bodice. I decided not to cut out the lace and treat it as one with the bodice (even though that would have been easiest) because I didn't want the princess and side seams to cut through the designs on lace and mar its beauty. What I am going to do is to fit and shape the lace to the bodice front and the two back pieces (before the side and shoulder seams are sewn) by taking little darts or tucks in the lace, clipping the underlap and sewing the overlap in place. The lace will be pretty dense on the bodice. Because I am so small busted, and because the lace has some natural stretch, this process should work fairly well. It does in my head anyway. =)

I am so pleased with my lace. It is so perfect and exactly what I wanted! The top picture is the lace that will will use for the border along the bottom of the skirt. It will be cut apart to get two borders. The pictures on the bottom is the lace that will be used to cover the bodice and the sleeves. The border on it will go around the waist and sleeve hem. The extra motifs from the 1 yard we bought will be used on the skirt around the bottom to make the border come up higher.

Jessica

Diaper Jargon

The three bridesmaids' dresses that we are making are finished except for the hems. We had some fitting issues with Heather's dress, so it took longer than we anticipated. Jessica is starting The Dress today.

I did manage to catch a little bit of sewing time to make Emily some new diapers. I just love using cloth diapers on Emily! Strange, I know, to most people. I'm thankful for my good cloth-diaper-loving friend, Tricia. We encourage and support each other in our habit. :-) She is so generous and recently gave me a bunch of covers that her Emma has outgrown. I have been putting them to good use! Thanks, Tricia!

The diapers I just made Emily are pocket diapers with a microfleece inner layer, a pul outer layer, aplix closures, laundry tabs, crossover tab, t&t without the topstitching, and a microfiber insert. I realize that most of this diaper jargon won't be comprehensible to many of you unless you use cloth diapers too--- kind of like a secret language for cloth diaper users!

I'm posting pictures of Emily and her new diapers, and also a picture of the knotted dolls that Tricia made from the same pattern I used. Tricia used flannel for her dolls and I think they are adorable.

off to see if Jessica needs help on The Dress.
Ruth

Meet Jellybean

This made me smile! Meet Jellybean...

adopt your own virtual pet!

zipper progress

So, I haven't worked on the dresses for two days. I really don't have that much left to do...I just need to do it. I need to sew the lining in Heather's dress, sew the sleeves in Heather's and Tonya's dress, have Mom do all the hand work, and then we just need to hem all 3 dresses.
Tomorrow I resolve to do better. These dresses need to get done, because I am ready to work on THE dress!

Warning: the following may not make any sense to non-sews. (or to those who sew for that matter!) But it now makes perfect sense to me!

For some weeks now Mom and I have been thinking, debating, even arguing about how we are going to go about inserting the zipper in my dress. Our problem is that we want to use an invisible zipper because it looks so much better then a lapped zipper, but we also want to do the hem where we sew the satin and lining right sides together to finish the edges, thus reducing the work of hemming...and we could not figure out how to make that work-- because of the necessity of keeping that back seam open all the way to the bottom to insert the zipper.

So, yesterday Mom and I went to a bridal fair in OKC and the lady from Helen Enox, the bridal fabric store here where we bought our fabric, was there with a booth. She was amazing! I asked her about the zipper and she said to just leave the seam open all the way down, put in the zipper as normal, then match my skirt bottom seams together with the dress on the inside, sew all the way around the circumference leavning a 12inch section open to turn the dress..and that can be sewn by hand or machine later.

It was a classic lightbulb moment. I was astonished. Why didn't I think of that?

Jessica

Progress

We are making progress on the bridesmaid dress...My friend Tonya (who is also one of my bridesmaids!) spent the last two days helping me sew. Thank you Tonya! You are the BEST!


Dress #1 is done except for the hem, Dress # 2 is almost done. It needs the sleeves put in, the lining sewn down by hand, and the hem finished. Dress # 3 needs the most work. We got it cut out today and got the bodice sewn together.



I'm definitely learning a lot...I think I could sew princess seams in my sleep now! And I can do them without pins!
I'm also learning how important it is to make muslins of the pattern before cutting the fashion fabric. We had to make different alterations for all three girls and we wouldn't have known that without a practice bodice. We discovered that my one sister is very short waisted and that Tonya is broad across the back, and we discovered ways to fix the patterns to fit them. That was pretty exciting for me. I'm going to have the prettiest bridesmaids in the world!
Jessica

The Results Are In

The decision has been made! The sleeves will underlined with the satin.

Okay, we realize that most of the comments left were in favor of the sheer sleeve. However, we also received a number of emails voting for the lined sleeve.

Poll results:
22 Responses
10 votes for sheer
12 votes for lined

Neither Jessica nor I voted. :-)

Ultimately, Jessica made the decision for the lined sleeve because of the 4 bridesmaids' votes: 3 voted for the lined and only one voted for the sheer.

We are sorry to disappoint those of you who really liked the sheer sleeve better. Hopefully you will like the end results anyway. :-)

Thanks to all who participated!

Ruth