Wedding Dress Progress Post #2

Seeing as how I posted my first entry about Elaine's wedding dress a week ago, it sounds like it's going to be Wedding Dress Fridays here on the blog (Wedding Dress Wednesdays sounds like it would make more sense, but then I would have had to show more foresight as to the day I first started posting about this project, and we're not about foresight here at Cation Designs). Since my last post, I tried draping the gold lace overskirt, and even found time for a fitting during the twelve hours that Elaine and I both happened to be in San Francisco. I think it's safe to say that at this point, I'm feeling a lot better about having committed to this undertaking...check out the skirt(s) so far!

I was so incredibly relieved that it all fit! I measured five times and cut/sewed once, but I was still nervous. 

I rearranged the draping to be slightly more pleasing. 

Side view. Please ignore how messy the basement is. 

Side view with the purple layer gathered up quickly, just to see what it looks like. 

Back view. I haven't quite finished with the shape of the back drape tails yet, but you get the general idea. 

I'm still not entirely satisfied with the overskirt; somehow the two sides ended up not quite symmetrical, and the front half is too big at the waist. I'm trying to decide if I want to redo the whole thing, or just leave it for the corset to hold in place. Of course, the perfectionist part of me is insisting that a wedding dress deserves the best, and the lazy part of me is protesting that no one will be looking under the corset to see if everything is perfectly lined up. And then of course I still need to hem it all and add trim. Oh, and let's not forget the corset that still needs to be made!

Still, I'm pretty pleased with myself, considering that this is what the overskirt looked like at the beginning of the draping process:

As Elaine said when she saw these pictures, it looked like I just threw the wad of gold lace at Cecily and just started pinning haphazardly. Which is pretty much what happened, actually.


More or less unrelated: thank you all for your kind words about my Drape Drape dress! Mr. Cation is glad to hear that so many people are interested in Cape Cape and Grape Grape. We will let you know should those ever be published. And if you haven't entered the giveaway yet, you've still got a couple of hours to throw your name into the running for your own copy of the book!