Bodice makeover

I spent a lot of Friday morning playing with the chiffon sash for my bodice, and decided in the end that I HATED it. I had seen another bodice I liked with box pleat trim, and decided to copy that. Here's a photo of it just pinned on, but I have it all tacked on now with little seed beads. I also made some adorable fabric butterflies to attach on one shoulder. I'll get those done and a final bodice pic. I love how it looks!

I also found some great teardrop pearl trim that I will use on the overskirt as my white spots. And ordered a new chemise pattern for a ball gown chemise that is low cut, since the one I made is not working, even tucked in.

I'm in the home stretch now!

Everything is coming together and I got a lot done this past weekend. I sewed ribbon on the ruching on the under skirt. It is finished, although I do have some lace butterfly appliques I might sew on.

The over skirt still needs its white spots, possible trimming back of the black ruffle along the front edges, and a big black bow on the butt!

The bodice is also nearly finished. I got all the edges bound, using self-made bias strips, and boning is attached. I tried basting in a sleeve out of my silk chiffon and it looked horrid, so sleeveless it is. I am going to do a sash out of the chiffon though, and am going to bead it with ocean colored seed beads. I think I am going to back the sash with some of the satin, but want to see how that looks. Here are some views with/without the sleeve and sash, and the nearly finished bodice. Clearly my chemise is not working, but I found a pattern for a ball gown chemise that I ordered and will make.

Bodice fitting

Let me just say that trying to fit a bodice by yourself is not an easy task. I decided to do spiral lacing up the back, and trying to explain to my 10-year old son how to tighten the lacing, plus the accompanying moans and groans at having to help mom out, was not so much fun. 

The bodice is the same satin as the under skirt, flat-lined with some super cute cotton butterfly fabric. I decided to couch all the eyelets so they would look like hand-made eyelets - I do not hand sew well enough to do hand-made eyelets. It took forever to stitch 31 eyelets (odd number since I'm spiral lacing) but I think it came out pretty good.  

I knew that the mockup was a bit big. I decided to go ahead and make the bodice and fit it afterwards, since I will be finishing my inside seams (and covering with boning channels). I knew the armhole needed to be a tad bit bigger so stitched my shoulder seams at a lower seam allowance, and that worked out perfectly. The back over the butt/hips was too big but I think I figured out where to take it in. The bustline also gapes in the front, so that will be taken in (the pattern notes this seems to be a common issue). I am seriously considering putting in a hidden front opening of some kind though, as the spiral lacing is a major PITA to get in an out of. I put in 5 yards of ribbon, which is too much, but regardless it needs to be long enough to loosen it to get on/off, then you have a lot of extra ribbon hanging down. Here is the pinned bodice, back and front (doesn't that train just look delicious in the back? OMG I love it.). Yes, I should not have been standing in front of the window when taking these, but it's enough for me to see that the fit looks pretty decent now, so I just need to adjust the seams and try it on again.

The sleeves will be a lovely pale green silk chiffon, and I am going to do some kind of draping of chiffon at the neckline. I intend to bead it and bought a beautiful mix of seed beads in an ocean color theme mix. I am going to bind the upper and lower edges with self-made bias in the same fabric.

Both skirts are almost finished

I made a lot of progress this past week with my kids gone! Funny how that happens. The under skirt is ruched, I just need to add some white ribbon over the gathers. I like how it turned out. 

The over skirt has been a bear. A lot of fabric management, and very poor directions on the pattern. I believe there is supposed to be a burnous pleat in the back, with a back closure, using the pleat as extra space to get into the skirt. The skirt is supposed to be mounted to the under skirt so that makes sense. I decided to make it a separate skirt though, and decided to put the opening in the front. I think I am still not quite understanding the scanty directions because there is NO WAY that this would be small enough to fit the listed waist size, no matter how I interpret the directions. So, I just started playing with it and draping it on Petunia (my son named my dress form ...). I think it looks reasonably like the photo. Boy is it heavy! I tried it all on so I could do a bodice fitting and noticed one set of my hip pleats was way forward compared to the other, so I fixed that. This skirt is done other than I need some kind of white spots on my black ruffle, and am not sure yet if I will (a) paint them, (b) sew on beads, or (c) use a beaded tassel trim. I am leaning towards option (a). I also may trim back the black ruffle along the front edge to a narrower width so you can see more of the under skirt.

Now if I could just get the cats to stop sleeping on the train ....

Under skirt progress

The under skirt is almost done, other than trimming it. I was sewing along with my serger to flatline my skirt pieces when a thread snapped on the serger. I haven't re-threaded it in forever, and with my nails and poor eyesight for detailed things, it took about an hour and a half to get it working again. I have a lot of trouble with my lower looper thread, I get it through and then it snaps when I start sewing. I also mistakenly serged one seam on the wrong side of the fabric, so had to cut it off and start over.

The finished skirt pattern is a few inches smaller, so I omitted the darts and made the box pleats smaller to get it to fit. Also I only had two hooks/bars so for now it will have to do.

I got the lace butterfly appliques on eBay, and am playing around with placement. I won't be able to finalize until I get the over skirt done and see how it drapes with the under skirt, but I think they will look nice. The lower edge trim is going to be an 8" wide panel that I am going to ruch with two lines of gathering, then sew white grosgrain ribbon over the gathers. I think it will look nice.

The original pattern has a much bigger booty, so I might need my bustle pad on top of my bustle!