Final muslin fitting

So last weekend we made a flying trip to the city for Christmas shopping and the final muslin fitting.  I had deliberately made the crinoline a little long so I could adjust it.  And yes, it was too long.  Mandy and I trimmed a few inches off the bottom and it looked great.  She has lost weight - weight she can't afford to lose and the top was a little loose but I won't alter it.  She has been working so hard at school that she hasn't been able to eat the way she should and being celiac certainly hasn't helped.  She knows she needs to put the pounds back on and I'm sure she will before the wedding.  Anyway, here she is in the muslin with crinoline basted in.  I also draped and pinned some fabric on the top to give her an idea of ruching fabrics, matte and shiny. You can only see a little fabric peeking out on her right side and I somehow forgot to take a picture of her from the front.  We also tried bustling the train to get an idea of how it would look.

Drowning in crinoline

Yahoo!  I finished the crinloine!  I have been slugging away at finishing it since the last time I blogged.  I bought 12.5 meters of extra stiff crinoline netting from our local store and got to work.  Using tutorials I found on-line and on Pattern Review I decided on a four tier crinoline.  About three quarters of the way through I realized that I wouldn't have enough of the stuff, since I needed to save some to interline the corset. Back I went to Sylvia at Needle's Eye.  I had bought all of the extra stiff stuff so she sold me some of the regular crinlone netting.  After two sewing weekends I was finally finished.  As you can see from the pictures, it is certainly full!  I am pretty sure it will support the weight of the lace no problem!

 In the picture above, the crinoline is standing there all by itself - I didn't even have to pin it to the judy. 

The picture below, shows the last seam I sewed on 12.5 meters of net!  I could hardly get into the room!

Next step is to attach it to the skirt of the muslin so we can see if the skirt pattern I drafted will work.

Lace Recovery

Last weekend, I was staying at my mother-in-law's to attend the SAGE inservice day for teachers, and asked to see her 50+ year old wedding gown.  I knew of it's existence of course; I think Meg had briefly contemplated wearing it until we realized that Aileen must have weighed about 95 pounds when she got married!  Aileen had mentioned it to me again when she heard I was sewing Mandy's dress and offered the dress for use.  We both thought it would be great to try to incorporate elements from other family wedding gowns into Mandy's dress.   

Mandy and I looked at it and quickly realized that it could a wonderful starting point for her veil.  The advantage to using it for the veil and not the actual dress, is that someone else could conceivably wear the veil later.  Who knows, maybe it could become a family heirloom! There was an especially lovely beaded and sequinned section from the bodice front that we could use for the bottom edge.  As well, there were many layers of gorgeous delicate Chantilly lace; all aged to a beautiful ivory colour.  Anyway, the dress hadn't been stored very well or cleaned beforehand.  It was not in wearable shape.  When she pulled it from the trunk, an extremely strong mothball and incense smell wafted up and nearly choked us.  We had to put the dress outside in order to be able to breathe, it was that strong. 

I left it out there for the two days we stayed but the smell did not diminish.  I bundled it into a plastic garbage bag and into the back of the truck for the 8 hour return trip.  Once home, I hung the dress up in the basement bathroom but after an hour or so I realized that I would have to deal with the smell immediately; it was snowing so I couldn't hang it outside.  I took a deep breath and dissolved a hefty amount of Oxyclean in a tub full of water and immersed the whole thing.  The water turned grey pretty quickly but the smell lingered.  I tried vinegar and Febreze next.  No change.  The dress looked cleaner, but the awful odour stayed.  As a last resort, I cut away the lace that I could salvage and tossed the rest of the damaged dress.  With only the lace itself to deal with, I tried again; this time with a few drops of Nilodor added to the wash water in the tub.  A few swishes and voila, the smell was finally vanquished!

I now had about 4 meters of usable lace, 2 different patterns (see below), plus the beaded piece from the bodice (see above).  I also saved a rather large piece of all-over lace fabric from the skirt.  I'm not sure how I will use it, but it may come in handy for something. 

Oops!  Almost forgot!  Mandy tried on the muslin of the bodice and it fit nearly perfectly!  Just needed a little tweaking at the top.  I left her with the assignment of finding an ivory strapless bra that fits so we can incorporate it into the dress.

Skirt woes

Camera still full, so no photos yet.  I think I will have to buy my own wedding dedicated memory card!  I drafted the pattern for the skirt, a full circle, divided into 4 pieces and cut it out of some white mystery fabric from the bargain bin at Walmart (when they used to sell actual fabric!).  Almost made a few boo boos while doing so but fortunately caught them in time and only ended up with one mis-cut piece.  Sewed them all together and then tried attaching them to the bodice.  For now I have added a 15in train to the back section.  A little side note here; spiral steel boning works great for drawing curves.  I wasn't sure what to use but then it occurred to me that it would make the gentle curve that I needed for the train and be sturdy enought to trace against.  I traced it with a sharpie and voila, a beautifully symmetrical curve!  I think the bride might want it a bit longer but I'm concerned about the weight of all that lace and potential problems with bustling.  Anyway, the skirt was too big to fit so I will need to go back and sew in the seams to adjust for....what?  Poor measuring?  Stretched fabric?  I don't know.  Just know that it was TOO big. \

After a night to think it over I decided that it was probably a good thing that it didn't fit because I really should get the boning in place before I attach the skirt, otherwise the whole thing will be too unwieldy.  Already, Sophie tried to make a bed for herself out of the skirt when the phone rang and I left the room to answer it.  Now I am mulling over the crinoline to go under it.  Trying to figure out what to use to support the heavy lace in the bell shape that we want.  I think actual crinoline is the way to go, with 3 tiers of about 10 in. each to get the right look.  Now, boning channels.  I didn't buy any.  Can I use leftover orange bias tape from a long ago Halloween costume?  I think that I can!

Lace arrived!

I usually don't come home at noon but today I was happily munching  my lunch while the dogs begged for attention when the doorbell rang and my long-awaited lace arrived.  I quickly ripped into the package so I could have a peek before heading back to school.  GORGEOUS!  It was so beautiful I simply had to share my news so I called Mandy and caught her before she headed back to class.  "I was just thinking about the lace!" she said.  The beautiful stuff came from Lace & Co. and while the shipping and price was quite reasonable, the duty was kind of crazy.  No matter, it was completely worth it to have a 6 meters of beaded and sequinned lace delivered to my door from Utah!.  I promise to upload a photo in my next post.  Hubby has to clear the camera memory card of construction shots.   

First Post Ever

Welcome to my sewing blog.  I have decided to blog the process of sewing my daughter-in-law to be's wedding gown.  I have been helped immeasurably in this process by the sewing blogs of others and I would like to pass on the favour to other home sewists who may be facing the same issues. 

So far here is what has happened:  Mandy tried on dresses on two different occasions, neither of which I was able to attend but I saw the pics!  She decided after this experience that her dream dress didn't exist in her price range.  Enter me.  After perusing the pics I spent an evening trawling the internet to see if I could find a pattern that could easily be modified to fit her vision.  I didn't mention it to her just in case I found nothing.  I hit paydirt on eBay with this out of print McCall's pattern.

I then revealed my find to Mandy who was thrilled.  We decided we needed to create a sweetheart neckline and raise the skirt.  We will add a ruched/hand-pleated bodice and lace to the skirt.

After a long frustrating wait for the pattern to arrive, I began.  I am lucky enough to own Susan Khalje's fantastic book on bridal couture which is now out of print.  She recommends making a corselet to support a strapless dress.  So off I went to WalMart where I found a set of 310 thread count ivory sheets which had a very soft feel.  I preshrunk and ironed them and then I created a corset pattern from the top of the bodice and cut both out.  The next weekend I sewed both the muslin of the bodice and corset. In the meantime I ordered spiral steel boning and bra cups from Bra Maker's Supply.  I also ordered special hook and eye tape from Susan Khalje's site.  Because of living in the north I fear that the biggest expense on this dress may be shipping!  We do have a great little fabric store here but it simply can't carry everything so the internet is my friend.

This is what I have so far.  The corset:  

 And the bodice:

Aren't muslins ugly?!  I am almost afraid to show it to her this weekend.  I am not sure I'll have time to do a fitting and I don't have the bones in anyway.  It's too bad because she lives eight hours away and I probably won't see her again until later in October.