I now have 4 days to finish this. last night I cut out the forpart and sewed half of the sparkly beads onto it. I also added more beads and pearls to the edges of the sleeves. Whats left? Partlet which is half done, hem on overskirt, eyelets on one side of the bodice, some sort of hat, and the forpart. I'm thinking of making an attifet. Having never made one of these before, any advice would be apreciated! Send ideas, praise, or suggestions to flute_chic21 at hotmail dot com (yeah, odd email...been meaning to change it..).
Ok so I haven't updated in a couple of days...I've been working on the dress, not the site! And it's done! completed, finished, whatever, with 2 days to go! woo! So over the last 3 days I finished sewing beads to the forpart, finished the forpart(hem, sides, waistband), finished the annoying partlet, hemmed the overskirt, put in the rest of the eyelets, put a strip of fabric under the eyelets to hide the gap in back (there shouldn't be a gap...but there probably will be, especially if this is ever worn by another person), put snaps around the neckline of the bodice and on the partlet, put 4 eyelets in the waistband of the skirt so it could lace closed in front, and glued LOTS of pearls and beads to the trim. Oh yeah, must not forget the hooks and eyes to keep the skirt and bodice together. So I've been kind of busy. And most of that was fiddly hand sewing stuff. It's the finishing that takes forever.
I tried a new way of hemming on this dress...usually I just turn the edge under and blind hem, but that produced less-than-satispactory results on my last dress with a curved train, so I did something different. I sewed a 3" wide bias strip to the outside along the hemline, and then turned it under, where I blind hemmed it. I did that by machine until I got to the curved train, where I couldn't escape hand sewing. Instead of folding the bias all the way under...i left a bit curled around on the outside, if that makes any sense. That way, the bias is what gets the wear and tear, not the velvet.
I ended up not making an attifet...the lady this dress is for already has a tiara she wants to wear with it, so i hemmed up a large square of the left over sheer fabric for a veil.
Well its been a ridiculously long time since I last updated this, and I've finally figured out why my computer wasn't uploading stuff properly, so now I can put up some finished pics of the dress! Thanks mom for taking the pictures! Actually a funny thing about those pictures is that I'm in them, though you can't see me. It was so windy when we took the pics that I had to sit under the skirt to keep the hoops from flying about like a kite and landing the dress in the pool or something.
