Loops and lacing

So today I worked on the back of the dress, and took lots of not very exciting pictures to share...

Firstly, the before - with zip and the lace attached:

Then using ribbon to help mark where the V opening will be:

I decided to attach the loops to a piece of riglene boning - it's too lightweight to be used for anything structural on the dress, but it will stop the lacing causing pull lines across the back of the dress and it's possible to sew onto.

Then this was sewn onto the dress:

Fold over, and ta-da, loops:

Then a modesty panel was added to one side of the opening:

And then the not so fun job of creating a 3 metre tube of satin to then press flat to make the lacing 'cord'. But then I got to lace it up and go oo, pretty :o)

So there we go, a lace up back :o) If you think the loops look bigger on the right hand side than the left, they are, once the lining is attached they won't be!

I have tomorrow off work, woo! So lots of end tidying, ironing, finishing the centre back seam and I'm hoping I'll manage to get the skirt 'bagged' and hemmed, but I think that's a pretty big job (need to take time over making sure the hem is level!) so I might not get it done... we shall see!

More dress stuff, yay!

I've spent a couple more days on the dress, go me! Thursday we had a meeting at Keele to go through all the wedding details (which has now made me very excited about it all), so I decided to take the whole day off and spend the rest of it sewing. I carried on with the waist lace.

Top strip sewn and bottom strip pinned on:
Centre pieces also pinned in place:

Then, after quite a lot of hand sewing Thursday and today, it all sewn in place, along with a waist band (but not the real bow I must add!)
It's all sewn on around the back as well, up to where the V will be for the lace up back - it's still a zip at the mo. I need to take the waist band down on the one side as you can see it goes up a bit.

Tomorrow I'll be removing the zip and putting the V in place, with loops and modesty panel. Hopefully that's quite a quick job and then it's onto a lot of careful ironing, tidying the many many thread ends and hemming.

I am still here...

I am still here, honest... and I have been up to a few things.

As predicted, Christmas did put a stop to most things productive, or wedding related, but it was nice to have a quiet break with Mike. But then it was New Year, 2010, the wedding is no longer 'next year' and panic set in! Not so much about things I have to make, that's the fun bit, more about everyone staring at me for a day, having to speak in front of people, all the un-creative things that need sorting, are people going to like a DIY disco etc etc! That has now subsided a bit since I've got a few things done and organised.

First job of the new year was getting the evening invites out. The day ones went early Dec with an RSVP of the start of Jan, we were then able to decide if we needed to invite any extra day people to make up the minimum number and invite the rest of the evening people. Turns out Mike has a lot of worky friends he wanted to include in the evening (though we think a lot won't be able to make it, Keele is quite far away if they live in south Wolverhampton). I ended up needing to make another 20 invites, and then print and cut out all the inserts for 50 invitations - it took a while. They've all been handed out now, phew!

I also organised my hen weekend as people were asking me when it was. Since all my friends are scattered all over the country and most people would need to travel, we wanted to make a weekend of it. Turns out there's now only 4 of us going, with a possible 1 more, but it shall be fun none the less! We're renting a cottage in the countryside near Bath for 2 nights, works out much cheaper than most hotels. Going to spend a day in Bath as it looks like there's lots to do there, no fixed plans though, just a nice weekend away :o)

I've also been making some jewellery. Before Christmas I kept trying to come up with new and different designs for my jewellery and not really liking anything, but a couple of weeks ago I realised what I actually wanted, and stopped trying to come up with something new or overly fancy!

So here's my necklace which matches the earrings I made last year:
And a simple bracelet:

This incorporates my 'something old'. The heart pendant was given to my Gran on her 21st Birthday and she gave it to me on my 21st. I originally intended to include in my necklace, but it was too bit, and too dark a silver. I decided it worked better as a charm on a bracelet.

I also decided on my bridesmaid jewellery:
Though I still need to do the bracelets and decide on what to put in their hair.

And finally, on Sunday I actually made a start on the remainder of the dress. I'd made a long but very detailed to-do list of all the remaining finishing touches I need to do (and there seems to be a lot!), but was struggling to actually get on with it and was avoiding it slightly. I think I'm worried I can't get it to look good enough, as whenever I try it on I see problems. However, with the incentive of Chinese takeaway as a treat for dinner if I got something done, I made a start on Sunday and did a few little things - properly attached the last bit of petticoat netting at the back, repaired the lining in the corselette that I'd had to unpick to adjust the fit, added the waist stay connector, a number of hooks and eyes slightly elasticated, and pinned on the horse hair braid around the hem to see if it improves the side seams.

The waist stay is great, such a simple idea, but it really works. Now I can do it up, I can actually get the dress on well enough to check things with all the layers pre-pinned together. As soon as the waist stay is closed, the dress stays up. I don't bother lacing up the corset very much, just pull it as closed as I can and then zip the dress over the top. In this not very good picture you can see it holding the entire dress up on Griselda, nothing is pinned to her (it's the lower of the two band you can see, the top one is a stuffed bra to make Grissy a little more human shaped!).

The horse hair braid also seems like it will be a helpful thing to use. It did improve the sides and the hem with it roughly pinned in place, though I've now removed it to get on with other things first.

Sunday was just the start as well. I managed to also squeeze an hour in last night. I unpicked the top band at the front and then whilst wearing, adjusted the main dress behind it (pulling it up) to get the ripples from the front out. It seemed to work, which made me happier. I also pinned the first of the waist lace in place whilst wearing, so attaching that will be next.

I've now got a deadline of the 2nd Feb to get this all finished (my hair and makeup trial are on this day and I want to try on a finished dress after this), so I'm getting enthused again - about time too!

When oh when will I get to finish my dress...

No time soon it seems :o(

Instead of working on the dress in the evenings, I spent a while working on this instead:


Since we were wanting to give out invites that have a link to our giftlist, I figured I'd better actually get it finished! There are a number of sites offering honeymoon giftlist services, with templates ready for you to use, you just add your own pictures and descriptions. However, as well as any paypal fees they also either charge a one off setup fee, or charge a percentage of the gifts you recieve. So, as is my normal way, I made our own! The code didn't take too long to do, it was thinking of all the 'gifts', their pictures, prices and descriptions that took all the time. It's been live for a couple of weeks now, just in time to... not give out any more invitations! Yep, last week was spent in bed with a horrid flu-y cold thing, so I didn't do anything. Now it's getting dangerously close to Christmas and the day invites really need to be sent out! Must try and get them posted in the next couple of days... I'm not useless really...

Thinking about it, I have done a couple of things with the dress, though most were steps backwards to make corrections, and only one photo, so I will just have to ramble on instead.

I took the soft tulle off of the lining and replaced it with the new stiffer dress net.

A reminder of what it was like before:

And here it is now:
It's a bit more tutu like now! When the dress is just hanging over the top it doesn't look much different as it squashes down a bit. Unfortunately it didn't correct the problem of the back overhanging the front at the side seams, but when moving around you can no longer see the hoop, the stiffness of the net provides a buffer between the skirt and the hoop. So at least one thing was fixed!

One of my bridesmaids visited after I'd done this and I used this as an opportunity to try the dress on for the first time. Not sure how well this went, as I mainly saw problems, but it was good to see it on. It did fit, which is a good start ;o) The side seam overhang problem starts on the dressform at the hip, but with a real body in it, it's not a problem there, it's only really at the hem of the skirt, though it was hard to tell as it was too long and dragging on the floor, even with my heals on and standing on a yellow pages! However, I think this means I just need to try some corrective action at the hem, not try and take some fabric out of the back. After trying the dress on I decided I needed to be able to try it on more often, so I've added a temporary zip to the back again.

A new problem I discovered when wearing it was that it wasn't really possible to attach the dress to the top edge of the corselette level. It was also digging in a bit too much around the top edge and creating a lovely bulge. This is my own fault because I went and took in the top edge of the corselette to make it more snug (when standing upright and still, forgetting I need to breath and move) and didn't adjust the dress at all, so they are different sizes. I've ended up taking the corselette back out and now they all line up properly. It also cuts in less, especially when moving around. It doesn't need to be really tight along the top edge anyway, it's not this edge that holds it up, that's taken care of by the waist stay. So a new problem found, but fixed already.

What else... oh, there were also some 'ripples' in the middle of the bodice, just above where the lace will be in the centre, but after a lot of fabric pulling to see what made them disappear, I think this can be solved by how it's attached to the corselette. The centre seems to need pulling up more than the rest of the dress - might need to take off the band along the top before doing this so that remains an even size, but I might need to replace this anyway, I pricked myself with a pin when trying it on and have a speck or two of blood on this band, the fun of light fabric that you aren't going to wash!

I think that's all I've done, so not very much really. I've brought some horsehair braid which is like a ribbon of plastic mesh, used to stiffen hems of dresses and help them keep their shape. I don't know if I will actually use it, but it might help with the side seams. The only way to find out was to get some to try.

I was really hoping it would be finished by Christmas, but with only two weekends, shopping to do and no doubt people to visit, it's not looking likely... oh dear!

Some finished invitations

As predicted, I've not had chance to work on the dress since going back to work. Well, I did buy some new dress net, but only got as far as cutting it out ready to ruffle. What time I did get, I've been using to finalise the inserts and things for the invitations. We were planning to give out the day invites in a few weeks, but we're off to Dorset this weekend to meet up with my school friends, so it seemed a good opportunity to save on some stamps ;o) This did mean I needed to rush to get it all sorted, was hard deciding on what info we needed to include! Luckily the invitations themselves were made ages ago, so once the text was sorted, it was just some printing and sticking needing.

So here are the first 5 invitations:
Really hoping to make some progress on the dress next week!

Day 5 and a bit of the weekend..

Friday felt much more productive than earlier days, it resulted in something resembling a dress!

Firstly, I struggled to find room to check the size of the front pieces! This picture is taken from out of the door!

The front and the drape was attached to the back on the left side and then the drape was pinned across in the correct place to hang correctly.


I worked out the placement of the lace for the front.

Luckily this was much easier than the train. Because only a small part of it is on show, it didn't need to be placed around a curve, a triangle was okay.

This was then sewn in place. Finally all the dress pieces are sewn together!

Unfortunately I noticed a couple of problems..
Not sure how much it notices in this picture, but at the side seams, the back of the skirt is bulging out and overhanging the front. It seems really obvious to me so it's going to bug me if I don't sort it. I think the problem is that the front of the dress isn't being pushed out enough. The tulle I used for the petticoat was much softer than I realised (it was really cheap, so worth a try!). Once I was working with it, I had a feeling it wasn't going to really do it's job properly. It's also supposed to stop the hoop showing when moving around in the dress but it doesn't. I'm going to have to replace it with some stiffer dress net. Hopefully this will help with the sides of the skirt, otherwise I might need to take some fabric out the back.

I had a day off Saturday as we went out, but today I've done a little more.

The band has been added to the top of the bodice and I started experimenting with how I'm going to place the lace around the waist.



I think I'll be going with the last one, it's only slightly different from the second, it's just bunched up a little closer. The bow in the middle was just me playing to get an idea of what it'll look like, but I kinda like the long ends hanging down, might have to experiment further with that!

A couple more full length pics


Back to work tomorrow, so it'll be back to only doing a tiny amount each evening :o( At least I did manage to get a lot done this week, it is almost there (ish) :o)

Days 3 and 4

What have I been doing the last couple of days... in some ways it feels like not much!

Firstly I joined the back 4 pieces together and the front 3 pieces, including the dreaded curved princess seams You have to cut notches in one of the pieces of fabric and pull it into the curved shape
They turned out okay, but I didn't take a picture. I didn't sew the side seams as there's the drape to do first.

After this I started on sorting the lace for the train.

Here it is firstly laid out, making the edge go around the curve.

You can see there's a lot of excess lace over the rest because of this curve. So I had to work out where I could cut some darts into the lace to mean it lies flat, but still looks like it is all following the shape of the train

The scary part was removing the edge and then cutting these darts out as this lace was very expensive - I only bought *just* enough. If I cut did it wrong, I'd not have enough to fix it! However, it seems to have turned out okay.

Then I needed to sew it all on. Unfortunately I thought sorting this lace train would take about half a day. Turned out it took one and a half days :o(

Hopefully it's worth it though (the back of the dress is only pinned onto Grisleda, there's no front of the dress!)