All my energy has gone into piping.
The bodice has almost 8 yards of piping and I'm not even finished yet! I still have to cover that modern zipper.
This is the first time I've used a zipper in a civil war dress and I feel like I'm cheating but we love the stability that it gives us. But it must be covered.
For the last three days I've been putting the skirt together. Remember I said that most of these skirts use seven yards of fabric? And remember how we only started out with eight yards total?
After cutting out the bodice and the Pagoda sleeves (which use close to a yard each) I had a little over five yards left.
I worried and pondered and then decided to cut the yardage lengthways giving me two lengths at 22 inches in width.
I then added cheap muslin to "stretch" the skirt length. You can't see it, right?
Then I added over 24 yards of piping to her "accent" ribbon. Boy oh boy!
I ran out of that piping three times. Every time I went to the shop to buy more, the owner laughed. But I think after a bit of ironing, it'll be perfect. I'm liking how our homemade ribbon coordinates with the box pleats on the sleeve.
This is a heavy skirt! With all those layers and the tight fitted bodice, I don't envy the woman of yesteryear. Or the girl who will be wearing this dress!
I promised to give a bit of history as to why our rural town does such an odd celebration.
In April of 1851, a 54 pound gold nugget was found in our hills. At that time the nugget was worth $10,690.
Today we relive that discovery by having a contest with local high school juniors who compete to be "Miss Gold Nugget Queen".
The festivities start on Thursday evening with the crowning of the queen.
On the weekend the whole town gathers on our main street to watch the parade. It's quite the event to us country folk, even if it closes off the main road for hours.
All the girls who participate will also make tours of all the local grade schools and rest homes. This girls will be plume tuckered out by the time they remove their dresses on Sunday evening!
It's kind if a big deal in our neck of the woods, and I will try to keep you all posted so that you can giggle at the hicks-ville I live in.
Take care and have a Wonderful weekend! Brandie
7 comments:
That's quite an undertaking, but the dress is very pretty. It must be nice to live somewhere with such an interesting history and deep roots.
What a fun sounding event. Your dress is looking wonderful. So much work- I hope it will be worn more than once!
Unique festivities like this are awesome. Big areas miss out on such fun :)
Very cool.....and what a great job.....we live in a small town of 2000 and have fun things like that happening during the year.....it's the fun part of living in a very small town....I am also lucky I have 2 great quilt stores within 14 miles of my house.....what more could you ask for....
Oh my gosh that is a lot of piping!!!!! Beautiful dress Brandie, what a lot of work it is, but it is stunning. Very clever idea using the muslin to stretch your fabric.
That dress is amazing on several levels, imagine wearing a dress like that in the hot summer without any airconditioning!
Brandi, that is so cool! I love this town tradition! It just amazes me the work that goes into producing these clothes -- Nowhere near the work that goes into them today.
I love it!
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