and she must care about wedding dresses. :)
I adjusted all the darts to get the center back edges of the bodice and skirt to line up. I basted it all together and basted in a zipper. Susan came over for a fitting.
It worked.
It fits.
Well, I suppose it could still be a smidge tighter (she could breathe), but I think I'll leave that adjustment for the buttons. ;)
It hangs beautifully.
I don't have to re-order & re-cut the lining, and I'll be able to use my existing muslin as pattern pieces to cut the underlining and silk - all I have to do first is adjust the darts.
I'm kind of in shock and still waiting for it to sink in. But I definitely feel a smile growing from deep inside... :)
Friday, February 8, 2008
Sunday, February 3, 2008
26. I am an idiot. :(
What in the world made me think I was good enough to take on this project? Add a few expletives and a hint of despair and you have a good sense of the thoughts and emotions running through my head on Sunday night when I went to bed. I (like to) think I'm reasonably intelligent and I have been trying so diligently to be slow and careful at each step of the process - and yet I can still make a mistake this big and this late in the game… It really makes me doubt myself. :(
Okay, I'll try to get off the self-castigation kick and report what happened. I cut out the pieces for the lining and basted them together - first the bodice and then the skirt. When I went to attach the bodice to the skirt (for another fitting - this isn't the actual assembly process), the bodice extended a total of 6 inches (3 inches per side) beyond the skirt. Six inches! When the muslin was assembled, these pieces lined up correctly. In the process of disassembling it and preparing it to become the pattern pieces for the real fabric, I somehow managed to insert an error of that magnitude… :(
Not surprisingly, I didn't have the heart to take a photo.
I've been trying to figure out what happened and here is the most likely explanation I can generate: At our last fitting, the dress was still a bit big in the bodice. I determined the amount that it needed to be taken in. I had the options of (a) re-doing the muslin yet again and having another "last" fitting or, (b) just making those adjustments "on the fly" as I took apart the muslin and prepared the pattern pieces for the real fabric. I selected option (b). I think that, when making those adjustments, I must have accidentally taken that extra width out of the skirt twice (once at the back seam and once at the back darts), instead of just once. That would account for the discrepancy.
So, what's done is done.
And let's all take a moment for a silent prayer of thanks that I only cut the lining, not the silk!
What are my options for moving forward? I have two, actually. One is to order more rayon and start the lining again. This may very well be where I end up, but it turns out that I do have another choice worth investigating. There are 4 darts in the skirt, taking up a total of 8 inches in width. I can open them, free up 6 of those inches, and then put them back in, distributing the remaining 2 inches between them. This should result in the center back edges of the bodice and the skirt lining up.
In fact, I'm going to try this and have a fitting with Susan, to see if I at least have the size right! Then Susan and I will assess the look of the lining (Do all of the seams line up correctly? What is the impact of making such tiny darts on the way it hangs? Are there too many tiny holes in it? etc.) and decide whether it can be used or I need to get more fabric and start again.
Of course, I also have to figure out how to fix the error in the (muslin) pattern pieces for the underlining and silk satin before I do any cutting there. I really didn't expect to be having problems of this magnitude at this stage. The whole purpose of the muslin was to have all of this worked out before touching the real fabric. What in the world made me think I was good enough to take on this project? :(
Okay, I'll try to get off the self-castigation kick and report what happened. I cut out the pieces for the lining and basted them together - first the bodice and then the skirt. When I went to attach the bodice to the skirt (for another fitting - this isn't the actual assembly process), the bodice extended a total of 6 inches (3 inches per side) beyond the skirt. Six inches! When the muslin was assembled, these pieces lined up correctly. In the process of disassembling it and preparing it to become the pattern pieces for the real fabric, I somehow managed to insert an error of that magnitude… :(
Not surprisingly, I didn't have the heart to take a photo.
I've been trying to figure out what happened and here is the most likely explanation I can generate: At our last fitting, the dress was still a bit big in the bodice. I determined the amount that it needed to be taken in. I had the options of (a) re-doing the muslin yet again and having another "last" fitting or, (b) just making those adjustments "on the fly" as I took apart the muslin and prepared the pattern pieces for the real fabric. I selected option (b). I think that, when making those adjustments, I must have accidentally taken that extra width out of the skirt twice (once at the back seam and once at the back darts), instead of just once. That would account for the discrepancy.
So, what's done is done.
And let's all take a moment for a silent prayer of thanks that I only cut the lining, not the silk!
What are my options for moving forward? I have two, actually. One is to order more rayon and start the lining again. This may very well be where I end up, but it turns out that I do have another choice worth investigating. There are 4 darts in the skirt, taking up a total of 8 inches in width. I can open them, free up 6 of those inches, and then put them back in, distributing the remaining 2 inches between them. This should result in the center back edges of the bodice and the skirt lining up.
In fact, I'm going to try this and have a fitting with Susan, to see if I at least have the size right! Then Susan and I will assess the look of the lining (Do all of the seams line up correctly? What is the impact of making such tiny darts on the way it hangs? Are there too many tiny holes in it? etc.) and decide whether it can be used or I need to get more fabric and start again.
Of course, I also have to figure out how to fix the error in the (muslin) pattern pieces for the underlining and silk satin before I do any cutting there. I really didn't expect to be having problems of this magnitude at this stage. The whole purpose of the muslin was to have all of this worked out before touching the real fabric. What in the world made me think I was good enough to take on this project? :(
25. The Lining - For Real! (part 1)
I started on the lining today. First up was pressing. The fabric is Ambiance Bemberg Rayon and I wasn’t sure how to set the iron – how hot? Steam or dry? Then I remembered a book that I had bought years ago – More Fabric Savvy by Sandra Betzina.
It is a reference book, organized alphabetically, with 2 pages per fabric. One page has a photo and general information such as how the fabric is produced, common uses and some sewing tips. The second page addresses the same 14 topics for each fabric: pre-shrinking, layout, marking, cutting, interfacing, thread, machine needle, stitch length, presser foot, seam finish, pressing, topstitching, closures and hemming. Sandra recommended pressing rayon with a dry iron set to a medium temperature.
I wish I had remembered this book a bit earlier, as I had already pre-washed both the rayon and the silk organza (the underlining fabric). But a quick check indicated that I hadn’t done much damage. (Of course I had used cold water and the delicate cycle on my machine.) According to Sandra, pre-washing is the right thing to do for rayon, and softens silk organza. Luckily, I’m not depending upon the underlining to stiffen the silk satin, so I don’t think that’s going to be a big deal. Phew! ;)
Oh, one quick tip I picked up on PatternReview for pre-washing. Unfortunately, I can’t remember who recommended it, but someone suggested serging the two cut edges of a piece of fabric before pre-washing it, in order to prevent (or at least minimize) raveling in the washing machine. I tried it, and it worked like a charm! :)
Anyways, back to ironing the rayon. The first time through, I took my time and let each section cool on the ironing board before moving on to iron the next section. Even so, when I finished I noticed that there were wrinkles where it had slowly piled on top of itself on the floor. This may be overkill for lining, but given that I have a lot more pressing to do for this dress, I tried rigging up a solution. I found a long and relatively wide piece of PVC pipe in our garage, cleaned it and quickly sewed up a “sleeve” for it. Then I used existing furniture and a TV tray to hold it about 6 inches below the surface of my ironing board. I attached one end of the lining fabric to the sleeve with a few pins. After I finished ironing a section and let it cool, I rolled the freshly pressed fabric around the tube and was ready to iron the next section! Cool, huh?
I think it would work better if the sleeve (or slipcover) fit more snugly, but overall I really like it, and may try to work up something a bit more permanent than a freestanding TV tray… And I can envision something like this on my cutting table too.After ironing - the big question: Is it on grain? The answer: Pretty close! :)
Next up – cutting, basting and one final fitting! :)
Parting shot: Sammy snoozing in the Florida sun...
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