Excitement

Yesterday I bounced off the ceiling with joy! 

You all know about this dress and some history. I know some of you are enjoying it as much as I am and I know some of you are as annoyed with the dress as I am. But I haven't let on my fears about the dress. 

I had one fear and that was about the front of the dress, in my opinion, the most important part. Well I finally faced my fear and ... it all worked out fabulously!

This weekend I spent hours finishing up that piping. 

I then decided to approach the undersleeves. What are undersleeves? Well they are the same as under garments and treated as such. 

Under garments were easier to wash than these big dresses. 

I rolled up my sleeves and I sat down at my sewing machine and I attacked a piece of linen till it looked just like the picture in my head. (I had just woke up from a power nap after dreaming of how the sleeves should look.) Needless to say, I was pretty proud of how they turned out. 

Remember the dress last week (just ignore my creative mess around the dress).

Now that I had tackled the sleeves, I HAD to do the front of the dress, darn!

There wasn't anything else to do to avoid it. 

You see, my Gold Nugget girl wanted a fancy lace up front. Her idea came from a blurry picture and I'd been trying to figure out how it worked since we started. I kept hoping she would change her mind. 

Besides the look she wanted, I had to figure out how it closed up the bodice.

It wasn't until we had a guest speaker at our guild last week who was a garment marker, (sorry I can't remember her name) that Pieces started to fall in place. It was then that I had a light bulb moment when the speaker said that it was better for garments with loop closures to loop together in opposite directions instead of all on one side. This would keep your garment from hanging lopsided. 

That light bulb popped! I now knew how the picture dress worked and how I was going to make my dress work. 

But I still was fearful. I was afraid of my loops looking unprofessional. And well, I'm not a professional. I just sew because I like it. But sometimes I just make up rules and pull ideas from a hat (I'm trying to use ladylike phrases here but that's not what I really said). 

I remembered that I had this funny tool from my Grandmother. 

I read the instructions several times before attempting to do those loops. In fact the house needed cleaning instead of making loops. 

Then after vacuuming, dusting, moping and lighting every smelly candle in the house ( I had to get rid of the boiled cabbage smell!) I sat back down and just did it.  

I made an empty sleeve from my piping strips. Easy so far. 

Then that tool said to tie it off, blah blah, then roll the tube over the end. Ok...

Not too bad. Every now and then I get hung up but it's working. 

I finally rolled the entire tube off the tool and gave it a bit of ironing. Ok, everything was still good.  

Then I made a piece of fabric for the front to cover that modern zipper! But I want that zipper to stay because it works so much better than the hooks and eyes. It just needs to be covered. This was going to be a faux loop closure. 

I cut my loop fabric into string bean lengths. They looked good enough to eat! 

I attached them. Everything is still going good. 

Added piping up both sides. Still good. 

Then I lined it up on the bodice front, very carefully!

Then I add some buttons and started to buzzing with happiness!

It worked! It really worked! 

All that fear, all the delay, all for not! (Or is it naught?)

Ignore the right side, it's not pinned straight but I was super excited and I had to take some pictures! And keep ignoring the background. 

So there it is, my Sergeant Pepper/Civil War dress. 

I faced my fears and my heart is still beating and I'm high on happiness. I'm pretty pleased with how it came out. No that doesn't mean the dress is done. I still have buttons and hooks and eyes to add, oh plus the lining. I don't not want to see or have anyone else to see my loose threads or seams. 

Ok I think I'm done ranting. Aren't you glad it's a happy rant inside of a grumpy rant?

Take care!

Brandie