Finished dress!

The dress is finished! Here is a photo of it:
Sorry for the total mess in the background. This photo was taken shortly before we left, so the debris that was created by six girls getting ready in one college dorm room was still scattered all around. However, this is the photo I have that shows off the dress the best.

I am so, so pleased with how this dress turned out. I think this may be my favorite thing I've ever sewn. I have so many lovely pictures that I could post. I will be putting up a couple more posts in the next week or so about my accessories, which are mostly handmade, so you will have to deal with more photos, but I will just leave you with a shot of me and my boyfriend for now:

Making progress

Well, I have only got about 7 steps left in this dress. Of course, the last step in any dress is always "Hem the darn thing," which usually takes me about as long as the rest of the work, but serious progress is definitely being made. I never did find piece 8, and there don't seem to be many people out there with this dress pattern, so I made up piece 8. I traced the shape of the side seams off piece 6, and then added many (many many) inches so that I could be sure that it wouldn't be too small. After all, I can always make it smaller. Last night I wrapped the skirt around myself. It easily goes around my waist and overlaps four inches--and this is with my sweater on. So it's certainly not too small!

In other news, I changed my mind about the color of the sash. I happened to be out shoe shopping with my mother, and she suggested we go look for a pair of shoes to wear, as she wasn't a fan of the shoes I'd chosen from what I already had. We went, among other places, to David's Bridal, and found a shoe from their clearance rack that I really liked. It's one of their dyeable shoes. I had originally planned to buy dye from the craft store and dye them myself, but when I discovered that David's Bridal only charges $4 for a dye job, I figured I would just let them do it. However, I wasn't a big fan of their pinks, so instead I decided on a light turquoise color called "Mermaid." We then went to the craft store and found a ribbon the same color to use as a sash, and also some beads, which my little sister has volunteered to make into a necklace for me.

I feel terribly spend-thrift for buying custom dyed shoes, but even with the dye job the shoes only cost about $30. That is a little more than I had planned to spend, but I think I'll be able to wear them again fairly easily.

Murphy's Law

So. Due to Christmas, my broken hand, and a general lack of motivation, I am only now ready to cut out the pieces for my dress. And, as Murphy's Law would predict, I can't find one of my pattern pieces. I think I may have left it in my dorm room, which is locked until the winter break is over. What I am missing is piece 8, the skirt back. If someone out there who has S2498 would kindly scan & email that one piece (smgjic [at] hotmail [dot] com), or describe it so I can re-draft it (it doesn't appear to be much different from 6), or something, it would be so much appreciated. I really don't want to have to go out and buy a new pattern--they're so expensive! ( I am making view D.)

Have I mentioned how glad I am I have a backup dress?

This could make things difficult

By things, I mean sewing my dress for the inaugural ball, which is in five weeks. And by this, I mean this:
Yes, I broke my hand. I don't even have a cool story, either. I was sledding down a hill last Thursday instead of studying for final exams. There wasn't very much snow on the ground, and I got my ring finger caught on something on the ground and yanked sideways. I broke my fourth metacarpal and will be in a cast for about four weeks.

Luckily, I broke my left hand, which means I'm not totally helpless. However, sewing is really a two-handed job. I ripped my muslin apart and used the pieces as guides for new pattern pieces to cut out for the real dress. The entire process of turning a muslined pattern piece into a new one usually takes five or ten minutes per piece. With this cast, it takes forty-five. I'm not giving up on this dress just yet, but I do expect this project to be not nearly as fun as I had originally been thinking!

Alterations on S2498

Well, even if I'm not sewing the dress until Christmas break, I did do some alterations on my bodice muslin a few weekends ago. I have never understood how people who haven't other people to help them fit manage to fit anything. (On the other hand, I am so asymmetrical that a dressmaker's dummy just can't cut it. Perhaps if I were regularly shaped, or at least symmetrical, I could fit my own clothes.) Anyway, this was an interesting fitting, since the person who was helping me, my sister Teresa, doesn't really sew very much. So she had less practice at knowing how to fix various problems. It worked quite well, though. I made a good deal of alterations:

This picture is not the greatest, and I apologize for that. The first thing I (or rather, we) did was to shorten the shoulder straps of the bodice. (For the record, I'm going with the terms bodice and bodice overlay. Hopefully that isn't too confusing.) They were a good two or three inches too long--I'm not sure if that's a pattern error or what.

I also took in the shoulder seams. Because of the way my shoulders are shaped, the arm hole is the right size, but the neck is too big. So we tapered the shoulder seam on both sides. You can see the new line of the shoulder--it's right where the line of safety pins is:

The third alteration was to fix the fact that the front neck edge of the bodice gapped. Again, we tapered. I'll just move this piece when I cut it out for real, since it's cut on the fold:
The last two alterations I did I haven't got pictures of, although you can see one of them in the first picture. I took in the underarm seam on the right side of the bodice overlay. It makes me extremely nervous that I only had to take it in on one side, because I don't think I'm that asymmetrical. However, there will most certainly be another fitting over Christmas break, so I'm not terribly fussed. The other alteration I did was to add 5/8" to each side of the center back seam. It certainly seems counter intuitive to be taking width out of the front and adding width in the back, but since my shoulders are somewhat rounded, that really did have to happen. Of course, since that changes the width of the waist seam too, I will have to alter the skirt pieces a bit, but that shouldn't take more than about 30 seconds.

I'm hoping that I will stay close enough to the shape I am now that I won't really have to re-alter these pattern pieces come Christmastime. We shall see. Wish me luck!

This is probably a terrible idea

...but I've picked my next sewing project. And it's not one of the ones I already had on my list. It's something new. In very slightly more than a month, there is going to be a formal ball to celebrate the inauguration of the new CUA president. I want to sew myself my dress. I'm thinking to make Simplicity 2498. I would make the version shown in blue. I'm thinking, though, that I would like it in black taffeta, with some sort of pink accent. I'm wondering if there's any way to change that bow in the front to a bright pink sash. Or maybe just make the bow pink and wear a pink necklace? I'm really not sure--what do you all think? I'd love your opinions, and preferably as soon as possible, since I only have a month! Other pattern or color suggestions are welcome as well.

(Don't worry, I have every intention of having a back-up dress. I am realistic enough to know that I may well not have the time for this project.)

Photo-less sewing update

Apologies for the lack of pictures in the last few posts. I would love to give you a good excuse, preferably one involving saving someone from drowning and thereby ruining my camera or something equally impressive, but the truth is that I don't really know where my camera is. So that's why I have no pictures.

On Saturday, I spent an impressive amount of time sewing. I got nearly all of a pair of Jalie 2908 jeans done. Mine aren't really jeans, they're made out of black stretch poplin, but whatever. Everything is done except the buttonhole and the hem. I am waiting on the buttonhole, because I am working on figuring out how to do a bound buttonhole. My regular buttonholes look extremely bad, and my machine doesn't do buttonholes, sadly.

Today, I worked on Simplicity 6699. I would have made more progress, but to my great distress, I decided I wanted to raise the neckline more than I already had. I wound up making it three inches higher! Today's patterns. *sigh* I think that part of the problem is that my shoulders are very narrow, but I also think the pattern neckline is lower than it looked on the envelope. I'm making this dress out of a white seersucker with purple and green and blue flowers on it. I think it will be perfect for summer.

I feel like a ditz

Today I decided to cut out the pattern pieces for New Look 6699. I have waay more fabric than I need, due to the fact that this is a mix and match pattern. Also, when I bought the fabric, there was an extra 8 inches on the bolt, and the lady at the cutting counter asked me if I wanted the end of the bolt for half off. I said sure, figuring it was such lovely fabric I could think of something to do with it. Much to my surprise, this turned out to be a frugal decision--since I bought the end of the bolt, it was all 50% off! And it was already 50% off, since it was on sale. So I got over 3 yards of fabric for about $6.50. Good deal? I think so.

Anyway, I laid out all my pieces and pinned them, only to discover I couldn't find my sewing scissors. I lost the pair that is technically mine a few days ago, so I borrowed my mother's. [If I were my mother, I would not lend things to me.] Somehow, though, I managed to lose those too. I used them Friday night! Where could they have gone in a weekend?! I also don't understand how I lost my own pair in the first place. My room is so small, there's not much place it could have gone. I'm currently cutting out my dress with pinking shears, which has the advantage that I won't have to finish any seams. The disadvantage, of course, is that these shears are old and stiff, and cutting with them makes my hands hurt.

I think this may be a sign from Heaven that it's time to clean my room. Too bad I have gardening, sewing, Bible study, baking, and a possible shopping trip to do today.

I'm getting bored--prom dress photo!

Okay, so I was originally going to wait for a few more prom photos, but I got bored waiting for them. So I'm posting the one photo I have, and will just make a new post if/when the others show up.

I think that this prom dress worked out quite well. Quite honestly, when my friend A described the dress she wanted, I thought a white dress with a blue sash would look weird. I'm very glad I trusted her judgment, because it turned out looking beautiful!

What we did was I did a lot of the sewing, but whenever A had time, she would come over to my house and do the sewing herself. I think this worked out well--it took a lot of the pressure off her, since she didn't really have time to sew the whole thing herself. But it also is much more fun for her than just having me make it for her. Besides, I enjoyed sewing the dress together with her more than I would have enjoyed sewing it by myself. (Although, honestly, I think there are few conditions under which I wouldn't absolutely love sewing something that uses 15 yards of tulle for the skirt!)

I reviewed the pattern itself, Simplicity 3878, here. The basics of the review: I thought it was a lovely style. I think that there was way too much ease in the pattern, though. We made a muslin of the bodice, and altered the pattern pieces to make the bodice tighter. However, I also felt like the amount of ease in the dress kept growing--every time we tried it on, we had to take a little more out! It worked out very well in the end, though. I folded over the extra fabric, rather than cutting it off. If A wants to lend her dress to someone bigger than she is, the dress can be enlarged by taking out the lining and zipper and taking advantage of that extra fabric. (I don't think that was well explained at all. Does that make sense?)
We didn't quite follow the pattern--we shortened the skirt and left off all the ribbons, beads, and trims Simplicity wanted us to sew onto the sash.

I went over to A's house the afternoon before prom, so I got to see her in dress and make-up and shoes and everything. She looked beautiful! A took the extra fabric from her sash and sewed her date's tie and handkerchief herself.

Back to the drawing board...

...but only sort of. Yesterday when I was working on my Simplicity 8884 dress, I realized that there was a little hole in one of my pieces. I also noticed that the fabric shed (shedded? shud? :P) like crazy--there was a fine black dust all over my sewing table and all over my hands. I brought the fabric down to ask my mother if she thought it would keep shedding. She noticed something I hadn't, namely that the fabric was quite weak. It didn't take much at all to tear it. So I've decided that with the shedding and the weakness of the fabric (which is probably due to old age), I'm going to scrap the black version.

Teresa and I went to Jo-Ann Fabrics today. I've been planning to make McCall's 5525 for Teresa, so we bought fabric for that--a lovely green linen/rayon blend. I am going to line it with silk from my stash. What we haven't yet decided is whether or not to add a layer of windbreaker fabric. When Teresa visited Notre Dame, it was extremely windy, but we're not sure how representative that is. For the Simplicity 8884, I bought a dark blue lawn with flowers on it. I also bought some green, blue, and purple seersucker for another dress, New Look 6699 (pdf file). I also bought ten yards of tru-grid, as I was running out. The Jalie 2908 jeans are next on my to-do list, and I want to trace the pattern pieces on tru-grid, as I can easily see myself using several different sizes to make jeans for several different family members.

I hope to have pictures up tomorrow, but I have to babysit shortly, followed closely by youth group, so I doubt I will have time to put any up today.