eh- the rehearsal dinner dress

The dress you saw in the last post didn’t turn out so great.  I have a bad habit of rushing when working on projects for myself and cutting corners.  First problem- I accidentally dyed the silk lavender instead of orangy-peachy-pink.  After deciding to go along with it, I had a really difficult time sewing in the lining and the zipper didn’t turn out so great either.  I could have avoided all these things, but I rushed and didn’t plan well.  As a result…

Here’s the dress on the form.  The bubble hem didn’t work well because I cut the lining too short, so this is unhemmed.  It’s also not very boatnecky.

Front view after I hemmed it.  I burned the edges then attached the body to the lining at 4 points, making it a quarter bubbley or so.  I’m inventing plenty of words right now.

Side view… Here you can see many of the reasons why I’m unhappy- I stretched the back neck out and the zipper doesn’t lay nicely.

Finally, the only decent way to wear it- half covered!  I don’t like the high neck with the sweater over it but I won’t wear it by itself.  Maybe I’ll throw a t-shirt over it and call it a day.

I promise myself to not rush on any other projects.  At least I think it looks prettier in motion than it does when I stand still.  The next big finale will be the wedding dress.  The end!

 

busy weekend!

I feel so productive.  This weekend I had several things I wanted to get started on and I did them all!  I even went to the grocery and did some dishes too.

The most important thing I did this weekend:

That’s right, wedding invites are going in the mail tomorrow.  I planned on buying wedding invites until Melissa, Best Wedding Planner In The World, asked if I would be opposed to making them myself.  Once she put that seed into my mind I was all set!  I took a flower photo, traced it in Illustrator, gave it two fills and an outline, drew a map, wrote some text, and was done.  I printed and cut them myself then stuffed the invites Saturday while John printed the return address labels.  I printed front and back of all cards so that I didn’t have to deal with glue or borders or anything.  The envelopes didn’t look quite so dark when I ordered them online, but they worked out fine. John’s mom addressed them all beautifully!

Next project- rehearsal dinner dress.  I was going to do this last right before the wedding but I realized I should have something nice to wear to my work’s global sales meeting in a couple weeks.  I worked on it for an hour or two today; I wanted to get the pattern done so I’ll know how much silk I need to dye.  More photos when I finish it…

It looks yucky in this fabric (just for the fitting) and it doesn’t fit exactly on the mannequin, but it fits nicely on me and will be pretty in the silk I plan to use.  It’s going to have a funky twisty bubble hem, too.

The last thing I did today was get started on the ties for the groomsmen, dads, and John!  I’ll write about that when it’s not an hour past my bedtime.

my wedding dress

Apparently my blog has gotten so popular that I have dedicated readers (okay, one reader) that request more frequent posting.  Thanks, future sister-in-law!  You really know how to make a gal feel special… anything I can do to make the time at work pass faster is cool by me.  Lets get back on track though, shall we?  This post is supposed to be about my wedding dress.

I don’t ever remember deciding to make my own dress; it was more of a given.  Why buy something when you can make exactly what you want for cheaper?  I ain’t gonna lie; most people will probably think my dress is a little weird.  John and I aren’t especially traditional and I’ve always hated wearing white!  Without further delay, lets go through the process of dying the fabrics and a little of the sewing.

So that you don’t think, “Gee, that Christy, she really has her stuff together.  She does all of these time-consuming projects while working full time, taking care of her loving fiance and keeping house.”  This is what my kitchen looked like while I started this crazy wedding dress.  I feel like I should redeem myself and mention that we cleaned ALL DAY yesterday and everything is spotless.  We even swiffered the bathroom ceiling and washed the sofa upholstery.

For my dress, I did a gradation from the bridesmaid dress color to the base fabric- natural off-white silk.  The dye process is very similar to the bridesmaid dress but it requires a little math and careful pouring.

Yes, that’s my bare kitchen counter… I didn’t spill anything in the grout!  

Ooh, pretty.  See the color shift?

I think I did 10 shades for the ruffles that vary in width from 5″ wide or so at the hem up to 1.5″ at the neckline.

The above photo shows my silk ruffles after they came out of the dryer, all tangled and pretty.  The color isn’t especially accurate.  

Here’s the top of my dress laid out with the ruffles.  It’s really not that dark at the bottom!

This is a close-up of the construction of the ruffles.  Each edge was burned then dusted off with a brush, then the raw edge was sewn on the way it should lay, flipped up and sewn again, then ironed flat.  This way both edges are clean and they can flop wherever they want without showing any ugliness.

I have the ruffles between the waist and hips to sew on, but then I’m done with 95% of the dress!  I just have to wait and make sure it still fits me closer to the big day.  I’ve been growing lately so we’ll see.  I might also tack down the ruffles in a few places on the bodice so they don’t flip up at our outdoor ceremony.

bridesmaids’ dresses

I forgot to mention in my last post that I’ve already accomplished a big task- making 2 out of 3 bridesmaids’ dresses from scratch.  Luckily one of the lovely bridesmaids offered to make hers herself so I was left with 2.25 to make.  

First, I made the nastiest drape on my form.  Note- I sometimes do things in a sloppy manner, but I understand what I’m doing… most of the time.  Please don’t take my examples as correct form or workmanship!  The dress is a big circle attached to a band with wide straps that meet at center back.  Here’s the nasty drape in question, wrinkles and all.

 

Then I dyed my fabric.  I learned to dye fabric in ziploc baggies from Liz Axford and I greatly appreciate it!

Here is my silk yardage folded, twisted and tied up on my kitchen floor… I mopped first.

Here’s the coil inside a baggie all ready for the dye.

Note my serial-killer handwriting.  My future mother-in-law is graciously sparing all wedding guests from it by addressing the wedding invitations for me.

I’m rinsing here.  Safety first unless you would like to resemble a smurf.  How long is too long for a post?  This seems too long but oh well.  Last ones!  Cut dyed silk on the form.  I think I’ll wait for the wedding photos for everyone to see the finished products.  Hope you can wait 3 months!

 

 

The real first post… if it works.

Alright general public*, I’m going to give this a shot.  This, specifically, is tracking my projects and showing everyone* what I am doing.  Hopefully knowing that there is record of my half-finished projects will motivate me enough to finish.  

Things I’ve finished: the water lily quilt.  Gigantic, beautiful, warm in the winter, with one small spot of cat vomit right now.  That has to be taken care of. 

Things that are half finished and better get done: wedding dress.  2 flower girl dresses.  I have 3 months to get these done!  4 silk ties for 4 special men.  Dress for the rehearsal dinner.

Done and done: The FW09 range at work!  Wedding invites.  

That’s about it!  I’ll work on uploading photos and all that jazz later.  Thanks for reading.

 

*mom and dad.  Mom, your extensive knowledge of grammar has only been passed on to me enough to realize when I’m being incorrect… but I am usually lost to fix it.  Sorry!