Tarted Up: Darcy & Shawn's Wedding

My handsome fellas

After hustling to finish the border-print cherry dress last week so as to be able to wear it to a wedding, I almost didn't wear it.  Typical.  I started to have second thoughts about whether or not a cotton frock would be appropriate to wear to a late afternoon wedding.  Yes, I am ever critical of dressing appropriately.  But I do know that I have, and do, miss the mark from time to time.  I wanted to make sure that I didn't on Saturday.

Enroute

A quick review of clothing etiquette suggested that I allow the wedding invitation to be my guide.  Sometimes the invite will specify the level of dress, of course.  This one did not, but it was certainly non-traditional, so I ultimately decided to wear the dress, but to dress it up a bit.

In his suit

To emphasize the Dior-esque New Look silhouette, I wore my Morticia corset underneath.  It whittled away my waist to a gorgeous hourglass while slimming the curve of my hip.  I added seamed stockings, a touch of jewelry and wore my beloved Remix shoes in green.

I pin curled my hair in a wet-set Saturday morning and it turned out lovely.  Very 1950's Elizabeth Taylor, I thought.  Make-up was also retro, but I was most disappointed by how much my liner transferred to my upper lid.  Both the church and the reception hall were on the warmer side and I must've looked like I was melting by the halfway point of the evening.  As such, not many photos of me were taken.

ALL DONE: Cherry, border-print dress

Well, as of last night my new cotton dress is finished!

Yesterday, I added the fuller skirt (definitely the way to go), put in a lapped zipper, hand sewed on buttons, hemmed the skirt, and made a matching cummerbund.

This morning, I decided to give it a wash (I did chose cotton partly for easy care, after all).  In the wash, the cummerbund lost a bit of gathering stitches (easily mended), and the dress bodice lost some stitches tacking down the facings (another easy fix).

Post-mortem:

• I MUCH prefer using my toile/muslin as my pattern (versus using the tissue paper).  Using the waxy paper, I transferred the pattern information from the tissues to the muslin, which I later used as not only my pattern, but my underlining.
• I'm in love with underlining.  It's given the bodice great body, and since I've used cotton I've not compromised the dress' comfort.  I did not underline the skirt, which is fine, but I think that next time I will.
• Horsehair hem tape is divine, but I think that I'll try to find the better (thicker than a half-inch) tape for a full skirt.
• Fitting by my lonesome is a less-than-ideal, but necessary evil at this point.  While I have a helpful husband and daughter, I am awful at getting the information for fitting from my head to my mouth thus negating their usefulness in such an endeavor.  My dress form is a close, but not an exact match thus leading to a few inconsistencies.
• It's a mixed blessing when a dress started a week ago ends up being a touch too big by the time I'm finished thanks to more weight loss.  Yay for being closer to my pre-pregnancy size, boo for now having a slightly large dress.
• Printed border cotton will lead to some frustration when the weave shifts a touch to reveal whiter areas of the thread.  Alas, it's only a cute cotton frock.

Step Two: Prepare Pattern--check!

I bought several yards of muslin a while back.  While I didn't think that I had used it all, I must have.  I have searched high and low and it's not turned up.  Today I decided that enough was enough--if I was going to get sewing, I'd damn well better do so.

And, ta-da--PROGRESS has been made!

I decided that I wanted to employ more couture techniques in my garment construction.  Even though I am working up some very easy patterns, why not add some luxurious touches, right?  I decided that I am going to underline my border dress.  I found some lovely white cotton to use as both my toile and my eventual underlining.  I pressed the fabric and readied my supplies for cutting.

Because I am adding a couture touch to this dress, I took time to mark the sewing line on all my pattern pieces.  Additionally, I used the recently acquired waxy tracing paper to transfer my pattern information from the pieces to the underlining cotton.  The large paper is a DREAM to work with!  Yes, I did have to be careful about accidentally transferring some of the wax, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it could be.  I envisioned red fingers and smears of red on my work surface, but nope.  Only got a touch of red onto my fabric where the weight of my magnetic pin cushion touched my fabric to the paper.  Not bad at all!

Had I started earlier, I probably could have made good progress on stitching my thread tracing, but I'll leave that for tomorrow.  (Or maybe tonight after my jog/walk.)