Making plans...

(Dear Doug: Spoilers.) 

Just had to make a note for my fiance--he's been extremely supportive of my sewing and such, and has admitted to reading this on occasion to get a better understanding of why I enjoy it so much. (That, and there's often pictures of me on here.) He knows I'm sewing The Dress, so I've warned him to read at his own risk. Anyway.

Thanks for all of the congratulations and encouraging comments on the last post! I know this is going to be the biggest undertaking yet. Though I don't think it's quite as crazy for me as it sounds. I've sewed formalwear before. Including the dress for my senior prom (while taking a full credit load of honors and AP classes, working a part-time job, being involved in youth group, and normal teenage social life stuff), and the dress for my masters' degree recital (while being a full-time grad student and a TA, getting my first real batch of students outside of the university setting and still having several through the community music school there, and practicing for hours a day). So surely I can handle sewing a wedding dress when I have almost a year to do it, right? Gail in particular requested to hear what my plans are, and I was planning on posting this soon anyway! (Sorry to hear about your ring, by the way.... I hope you get it back, somehow!) So I figured I'd kick off the first in what I'm sure will be many, many posts on this particular subject with what's inspiring me and what my plans are at the moment.

I have to admit that I wasn't entirely in the dark that this would be coming. Doug (my fiance) had dropped some pretty strong hints that he'd be asking me sometime before the end of this year. So naturally, I've been pinning interesting-looking dresses on Pinterest for awhile now, in moderation. I was never one of those girls who has been planning my wedding since I was 5, especially since I spent most of my 20s questioning whether I'd ever get to have one, but there was 3 things that I always knew about The Dress:

1. I wanted to make it myself. (Especially after having worked on one up-close and personal for one of my friends, and being rather unimpressed with the quality of materials and construction that they got for the money.)
2. I don't want strapless. (Which eliminates about 80% of the dresses on the market right there.) I don't think that straight-across cut is the most flattering on me, and I do fear the wardrobe malfunction!
3. I don't want a train. (Which eliminates probably 95% of the dresses that would be left after the strapless cut.) I'm clumsy enough that I'd probably trip on it on my way to the aisle, and frankly, I hate the idea of the bustle. (My backside doesn't need to look any bigger, thankyouverymuch.)

Source: oncewed.com via Becky on Pinterest

I was thinking at first that something along the lines of this might be neat. I liked all of those criss-crossy bits, and the ruffly-but-not-frou-frou skirt. And I know it cuts straight across, but straps can always be added to detract from that. But that would be really difficult to figure out the pattern for--lots of draping of little strips of chiffon or something, and probably not the easiest thing to do on myself. So it obviously would have had to be a toned-down version.













Two things changed my plan. The first was that I found this on Etsy:

Source: lacefactory.com via Becky on Pinterest

I'm not much of a lace girl, usually. But the 4th and only other thing I knew long ago that I'd want in my wedding was sunflowers! I justified buying this by telling myself I could always be on-trend and make a lace top for myself, but I do have to admit that the thought of a wedding dress was kind of in the back of my mind. So I have 3 yards of this stuff, all washed up and ready to go.
The second was Sewaholic's Cambie dress. As soon as I saw that, I knew that the bodice cut and especially the cap sleeves would be the perfect way to use this lace. I'm thinking an overlay on the bodice and by itself on the caps. And a border around the hem, if I can swing it.  So tell me--is this not the long wedding version of the Cambie?

Thought so.

I am planning on changing some things in the pattern. The length, obviously, since I'm traditional enough to want a long dress. And I think I'm going to do some big box pleats in the skirt instead of the gathering. Once I factor in any structural aids like boning, and underlining and lining the skirt, I'm not going to want that much gathered in around my waist, so I'd like it to be sleeker. Either that, or just a smooth A-line, though I'm leaning more towards the pleats since it would add some skirt fullness. I take big steps when I walk, so ease of movement would be good.

I'm also very strongly considering adding some color into my dress--with this design, most likely as the waistband. (And possibly fun with lining.) We're doing green as one of our wedding colors, since it's his favorite. And if you've been around this blog for any length of time and seen my usual fabric palettes...well, you can probably guess that green is one of my favorites too. Doug also requested that I make him a tie for the wedding day, so I think it would be kind of cute to use the same fabric for his tie and my whatever color bit.

Where I'm a little stuck so far is what, exactly, to do with the back. I've long liked the corset-laced look, and that would have a definite fitting advantage since I could just keep it a little looser if needed, or (more likely scenario) if I'm so stressed out from all of the last-minute details of wedding planning and getting ready to move and whatever is going on at work that I'm too nauseous to eat half the time, I can just tighten it up more. So maybe something like this... 

But, you know, with the cap sleeves extended down and the corset would end higher and there might be green at the waist. And no train. (But hey, it's got the pleats!) I do have one pattern already that would help me to get that look with the Cambie bodice front, with some modifications.

I love the modernized corset-look of this one:  

And I did find a pattern that's very similar. Minus that big butt bow, which again, I don't need. The main thing I'm not sure about with that one is how to handle the cap sleeve back. There would pretty much have to be a lot of redrafting. 

I have been playing around with my croquis a bit to try and refine my ideas, and to play around with different skirt options and the straight across vs. sweetheart neckline. So the silhouette I'm leaning most towards is the one to the left, with the original bodice and the pleated skirt.

The back is still the tricky part. My sketching skills don't make the middle look that great, but I do still like the openness of it. But I suspect that the pattern will be easier to modify and manipulate if I do the one all the way to the left with the more straight-across back. (Minus, you know, building in a corset. On the plus side, that would be a lot easier to build structure into than a dress with an additional slant for a v-neck back.)

So that's where I'm at so far. If I can manage to get the Vogue pattern on sale, I seriously might just play with two bodice muslins and see which one I like better when it's on.

In the meantime, while I ponder these design choices, I have some reading and research to do.

in between

I seem to find myself at an in-between point on several projects.

• I'm actually pretty close to finishing up the blue jacket! I got a nice chunk of sewing time yesterday, and so all I have left is one hand-stitched seam and 3 buttons to sew on. No pictures, because at this point I'd rather wait until it's done.
• Regarding the Onyx sweater: I still don't know what I did wrong. I spent a good chunk of the evening chatting online with my KAL-partner-in-crime tonight, and the solution we came up with involved cutting the yarn and treating the wrong side like it was the right side. Which worked really well in that it put the mistake stitches on the wrong side, and I was able to just knit an extra row to get back on track. Only problem is that once I got caught up, we went on to the first row of the next section, and where the instructions say to knit the reserved stitches for the back in the same row as the front, the back section is doing that exact same thing! So far, we're both having that issue. At this point, I might just purl all of that section instead, since I can't make heads or tails of it otherwise.
• I cut out the Butterick convertible dress today. I had to do a last-minute change of plans on this one. My mom gave me two pieces of fabric for my birthday specifically for this pattern, since I had no stashed pieces of knit that it would be ok to show the wrong side of. I was originally planning to go with the blue hemp jersey, but it was cut so crookedly that I basically lost a quarter-yard of fabric once I got the fold to lie flat. And since two of the three pieces were cut on the fold, that part was kind of important! So I went with the green rayon instead, and I'll have to come up with a fun top to make out of the hemp. Maybe some kind of Anthro-inspired embellished Renfrew... The dress should sew up pretty quickly, though, given that it's basically 4 seams, 3 edge finishes and a hem. The drape itself is left completely raw-edged, so other than getting it in the side seams, I don't even have to mess with that. It'll probably take me more time to get the serger rethreaded and the tension right than to sew the actual dress!
• I am reknititng my swatch for the knitted tee, purposely forcing myself to knit less tightly. It's a little early in the swatch to tell, but I think that the width may be good now. (So maybe what I can do is just knit more tightly on purpose when I hit around the waist, to give it some shaping!)

 I did also decide to go ahead and rework the dress I wore on Saturday a bit, which is essentially resulting in my taking a dart out of the bodice seam. I realized pretty quickly that it would actually be a lot easier for me to stitch the new side seam by hand than for me to undo the entire lining in order to get to it by machine. So I'm taking the opportunity to practice a couple of the stitches from my Couture Sewing Techniques book. The bottom row of stitching is my backstitch, since that's supposed to work the best for a strong, permanent seam....how am I doing?

I've also been playing around in the last couple of weeks with my croquis. And, well, I'm not sure how helpful this is! I was sketching out the pants and blouse combinations from two different Vogue patterns that I have, in order to help myself decide what to make with the charcoal denim and coordinating silky print I was given for Christmas. And, well, the pants on both just look awful in my sketch! So either this means that I took the picture at an oddball angle which apparently gives me more of the little teapot look (i.e. shorter and stouter), or maybe pants just don't work on me. At least the straight-legged ones. Isn't that supposed to be the cut that looks good on everyone? So I'm wondering if maybe I should ditch that idea altogether and go bootcut or something. (I am still kind of inclined to like the top in the middle sketch better out of the two options.)

At least it appears that my Beignet will look good.

Anyway, I'm hoping that maybe I'll have time to squeeze in that regular pair of pants shortly after the convertible dress and jeans, because I did sign up for Me-Made-May this year. Hopefully I won't totally flake like I did last March. I'll have been back to work longer, so hopefully that means I'll be more adjusted to the schedule and can squeeze in some photo-taking!

The one productive thing I've done all day....

Apparently my motivation to do anything productive decided to take a leap out the window in honor of February 29. But I can halfway check one thing off the list from the last post-- I made a croquis! (Yay, I can delete those swimsuit pics off of my computer now!)

So here's me, in sketchy form. And here's what I've noticed from looking at this so far:

1. I guess I'm a little more pear-shaped than I thought, at least it looks that way from the front view. Though my shoulders balance it to an hourglass pretty well. But this explains why empire waist stuff always makes me look pregnant.
2. I'm not dreaming it... I do have proportionally extra-long arms!
3. Helloooooo, reason why I always have so much trouble fitting pants--my stomach is pretty flat, but look how far my thighs stick out in comparison!
4. I think I need to add "swayback" to that list of alterations I need to learn to do and use on a regular basis. I didn't realize my back curved quite that much.

Yeah, I should go cut something out now.