The skirt construction continues

Hi all.  I am back after a long hiatus.

Ginny came to visit this past week.  This triggered a lot of dress fitting activity.    I had come to a standstill in the dress construction since late February because I needed to have a fitting for the bodice and the skirt.

This blog will focus on the skirt.

Ginny tried on the skirt and petticoat so we could determine the correct hemline.

Here are three views of the skirt with the desired hemline.  The skirt will be a little bit fuller when it is finished.  The shoes Ginny is wearing are the same heel height as the wedding shoes.  You will note the presence of the official wedding dress dog, Lulu, checking out the skirt hem.

 The next steps for the skirt involve a lot of hand sewing.  There are two skirt layers that will be hemmed.  The cotton/silk underskirt will have a 3.5 inch hem with horsehair braid sewn in.  The horsehair braid will give the hem body and prevent it from caving in.  The crepe de chine overskirt will have a rolled hem.

We also established the positioning of the lace border at the hem.  The two pictures below show what we decided looked best.  I will hand sew the lace onto the crepe de chine after the skirts are hemmed.

It is exciting to be working the dress again.

My next post will be on the bodice.

Please let us know what you think of the skirt length and lace placement.

Judy

Fascinator Materials Shopping

I'm traveling to Boston next week for a dress fitting and a practice hair appointment.  The hair dresser requested that I bring a facsimile of whatever it is I planned to put on my head, which forced me to figure out what I wanted to put on my head.  I'm thinking of going for something like this:

I actually like the hair in that picture quite a bit as well, and will probably request something similar.  Hopefully she can show me how to do it so I can replicate the hair for all of the celebrations.

I went shopping yesterday for the materials to use in making the fascinator.  After a totally unsuccessful trip to the LA Fashion District (it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack of tacky acrylic prints), I visited the tried and true International Silks and Woolens.  I picked up the following to use in making the fascinator:

 The teardrop-shaped item in the lower right corner is the base that I will build the fascinator on.  I'm planning to cover it with material from the dress.  Above that is a bag of white feathers, which helpfully came with instructions on how to create feathers in a number of different shapes (you can see that on the package).  There to the left of that are some ostrich feathers, which I can separate and add as accents.  On the left side of the picture are my two options for the veil.  The one on top is simpler, which I like, but its made of acrylic, and it doesn't have a very nice feel to it.  The bottom one is nicer to the touch, but it has the flowers woven in, which might clutter the lines a bit.  One idea I had was to embroider a hem on the simpler acrylic one, to make it look a little nicer.  Once I get it assembled, I'd like to get some beads to arrange in the center of the feathers.

If people have suggestions, let me know!

While Mom waits for me to visit next week to move forward on the dress, I thought I would add an update on some of the accessories.  contrary to popular belief, I am not making Mom do all of the work on my outfit for the celebrations--just most of it.

While she has been skipping along, mastering advanced couture techniques with great ease, I have been struggling epically with rudimentary knitting as I try to make a shawl to accompany the dress.  The plan was to make this shawl, but the pattern I have includes beads.  We got some beautiful, slightly off white, baby alpaca yarn, and clear beads with silver on the inside. 

It started off looking pretty scraggly, in part because the yarn is nearly lace weight, while the pattern calls for sock weight yarn.  As I've moved along, it's started to look a bit better.  It's a bit hard to show the full thing, since it is still on needles, but it looks roughly like this:

If you look closely, you can see there is a knobby pattern that includes bead near the bottom, followed by a couple rows of plain garter stich.  I'll be doing the knobby pattern three times, separated by the garter stich.

If it continues to improve as I go, I think I'll be alright, but feel free to suggest other cover ups (homemade or otherwise) in the comments section!