Wedding Dress Progress Post #4

Cat checks out the new lace trim. 

Can you tell where I joined the two ends of the lace together? Am I awesome or what? Actually, it was just my luck that I didn't end in the middle of a scallop, because I certainly wasn't going to measure a seven yard hem that accurately.

Apologies for all the really yellow pictures...I've been working late into the nights!

I know it isn't Friday, but after a good fourteen hours of work over the last few days, I just had to share: Elaine's skirt is done, and the corset is somewhat assembled! I sewed on the 7+ yards of lace veeeerrry slowly, taking the entire two-hour Hobbit soundtrack to do so. And all the corset pieces are sewn together and boning channels have been created, and the busk was inserted with no little apprehension. Seriously you guys, I was hyperventilating a little when I sewing all these seams. Since the satin shows holes and the coutil is so tightly woven and my stitch length was so small, well, seam-ripping would have been a pain and everything felt awfully permanent. I knew that messing up wasn't an option (although I do have enough extra coutil and satin for another corset, I'd really rather not make a whole new one. Confession time: I actually cut and sewed half a "practice" corset so I could get a feel for how the fabrics handled and the seam allowances I needed to use. I even went to far as to insert a busk and then cut it back out), so I was extra careful and extra tense while I was sewing. I told Elaine afterwards that this is probably the most important thing I will ever sew, at least until I have a daughter get married, at which point I will have just forgotten how nerve-wracking making a wedding dress really is. Now I "just" need to:

• purchase spiral steel boning, cut and tip it, and insert it all
• wait for the front lace applique to arrive, then sew it on by hand
• wait for the lace trim to arrive, then sew it on by hand
• finish attaching the floating lining at the back, then insert all the grommets
• bind the top and bottom

And then I'll be done! In the meantime, I'm eternally grateful for Steam Ingenious' tutorial on making a corset without having to be ultra nit-picky about everything matching up...I'm sorry, but I just can't do that perfect seam allowance thing. This way, I can just slap on a floating lining to hide my icky insides. 

Look at all those raw edges! I added a couple pieces of twill tape in the middle of the largest panels for additional boning.

I used this gray IKEA cotton for the lining since I wanted there to be a natural (but also somewhat coordinating) fabric against the skin. For the pieces closest to the busk, I fused the satin to the cotton so there would be no chance of gray showing through at the front. 

Steam Ingenious also has a tutorial about using heat-shrink plastic tubing to cap spiral steel bones, which I'm looking forward to trying. Thank goodness that Richard the Thread is not too far from me in TCOCC! It's tempting to stock up and buy all the hair canvas, coutil, batiste, and grommets I might ever need while I'm still so close, since I know most people don't have the luxury of having an endless supply of busks et al ten minutes away. 

In the meantime, I'm still trying to squeeze out one more vibrantly-colored item before the end of the month; it's too bad that AP exam prep is kicking my butt. Good thing the exams I'm concerned about are all over on the first day (May 6), so I can spend the rest of the time in between then and Elaine's wedding working on painting and calligraphing her ketubah. Goodness gracious, does she trust me too much, or does she trust me too much?

My rough sketch: it's based on Durin's Door, because, you know, I'm so good at that imagery, with the hammer & anvil replaced with a pair of cats, and the San Francisco skyline at the bottom between the pillars. The runes at the top are her and her fiance's initials, and the obviously the words I scribbled in will be replaced with the real text. Man, I have not painted anything in several years, so this will be a challenge!