My very own Scarlett O'Hara, GWTW Moment

Been busy and way backed up with posting here, even without the glitches-  I am once and for all going to finish my custom made wedding dress series,  right here and right now - before I get back to leather & before my first anniversary!!!!

(…and yes to all my :) customers….before you ask…I am still married!!!  & I do love you guys…)

For those of you who've not been here before and are not interested in looking back,  in a nutshell, this dress is my very own Scarlett O'Hara moment.

It's made from my husband's Mother's (& we think, her mother's) antique hand-embroidered, cut-work linen tablecloth.

I will leave my former fiance's initial reaction - when I announced what I was going to do with this very old,  very well loved and very, very stained tablecloth - to your imagination...

Ta Da!

...and this was our "First Dance" Music!

My very own Scarlett O'Hara, GWTW Moment

The Wedding Dress- the Final Stretch

Coming up to the final stretch here!   That is: getting that monster panel of a skirt onto the bodice, which means pleating about 175" of length, that the skirt edge now measures, (after reducing it) into the 26" that the corset waist measures.

The answer is cartridge pleating, this type of pleating, used mainly in costumes and period clothing reproduction today, serves several purposes.  It reduces a very large length of cloth much more effectively than simply gathering and the construction causes the pleating to stand out and creates volume. Here, it will give a very pretty and controlled volume to the skirt and I can make full use of the uninterrupted panel of embroidery.

I do a little test and find out that the floral motif in the solid section of linen does not take to the pleating at all. I decide to pick it out. I discover that all these flower petals are incredibly, & beautifully, padded out with layers of under stitching in a cream colored cotton yarn. The embroidery covers this pad stitching perfectly and it is a lot of of work to pick out. But I can't pleat it properly otherwise. So I pick out all the petals that intersect the pleating area.

The beautiful padding stitches- partially removed

Then I line the skirt, I was lucky to find in the perfect shade of china silk. It is simply attached at cut edge and the layers merrowed clean. I also just merrowed the lining hem, I am starting to feel stressed.

The pleats are formed with a running stitch, by eye,  as evenly as possible and using super strong thread. Then stitched, all by hand,  by catching just the top fold of each pleat to the bodice. My hand sewing is rusty - not much call for it in leather (best if there's none).   Here's another test shot- kind of a straight cross view:

At the bottom you can see the tabs that will lie under the skirt.

The silicora thread only comes in black and  dead white, but the non-match won't be a problem

Inside showing final cartridge pleating

outside  of cartridge pleating, my hand stitching sucks but it will not show( at all) when on- That's the beauty of this beast!

The front of the skirt has no pleats and is stitched to 'float' under the extended front of the corset

See!

On a hangar, you don't get the effect of the pleats

I still need figure out what to replace that zipper pull ribbon with!

Next : The Finishing Touches.

The Wedding Dress- the Final Stretch

Adventures with a Cutwork Tablecloth, part 8

Looks like I am not going to get this series done before the Honeymoon! I will try and condense it a bit and stick mainly to pictures.

I left off at the almost finished bodice here.  Now to finish it off:

oops, remember to change needles when working with silk chiffon!

Clean finished Bodice.

Since this is a corset that is cut at the waist, it will dig into my hips if not tabbed, Tabbing also prevents what could be called "reverse" muffin-top.  The tabs - one side is silk over canvas to prevent any possibility of show through on skirt.

The tabs are simply finished on the merrow machine for less bulk and hand stitched to top of inside binding edge.  A waist stay tape is added to keep bodice snug and anchored and prevents it from riding up.

This is the inside of the finished bodice:

Prussian tape zip pull for fittings - only way I am able to zip it up without help!

Now to tackle the skirt, which as shown here is a huge rectangular swath of embroidered linen, the center section of which made up the bodice embroidery. (you can see the curved edges in some of the earlier detail photos) I did minimal cutting to retain the motifs, and scooped out some more at the front so skirt will be shorter in front.  (You can see the original curved edges of the central embroidery on the 2nd image in this post)

The skirt panel is huge, measuring about 185" on the long sides. I say 'about' because when I fold it in half lengthwise it I discover the sides are not the same length and the motifs do not align. Seems in laying out the embroidery those many, many years ago, rather than flipping the (asymmetrical- as it turns out) pattern. It was rotated. So now there is about 4" extra fabric on each side of the skirt, but extra is at front on one side and at back on the other side. Somehow a teeny bit of the motif was traced out on the pattern twice. But it messes with me. So I have to fix it:

whoa!

what gets removed

that zig-zag machine comes in handy

almost invisible

The finished skirt panel.  Opening is quite curved now since I removed a lot of fullness from the waist edge,  removing little wedges and zig-ging it like I did the embroidered section.  Too much fabric to be gathered to corset even with the cartridge pleating I am going use.  The seams will disappear very nicely into the pleats.

Some of our custom Wedding work in Leather.

Adventures with a Cutwork Tablecloth, part 8

Custom Made Cutwork Linen Wedding Dress Parts 6 & 7

Yikes!  It'll be my one year anniversary if I finish up this series at the rate I am going. 

Ok,  here we are almost September and I've been married almost 3 months- which is over 2 months longer than this dress took to finish!  I had a couple of very fortuitously quite weeks in May, so I took the time and made it into a luxury for myself and started this project.  I have not worked in fabric in ages so it's a little bit of a treat (plus a p.i.t.a. since I am not set up for it)  &  7 Is the halfway point.

 
While it's not leather,  it is still a fair overview of what can be involved in the making of a fine and truly custom-made garment.  And the many (often unexpected) problems and solutions that come into play in during the construction of  specialty custom made items.

I won't go to much into detail, it bores me completely now so I can imagine from your end. (But I am going to finish this series and that is probably the end of my experiment into following the "process")

As for this project, it is my tiny contribution to keeping very specialized & fine construction out there.  Enough!

notice;  there is a seam that will be boned  in the middle of the under layer
aka- sewing yourself into a corner.




inside view of seam before boning


boned


basted to stitch-inside



basted to stitch-outside




God forbid the strap needs shortening...

But that's what the muslin is for.  

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Custom Made Cutwork Linen Wedding Dress Parts 6 & 7

Custom Made Wedding Dress Part 5

OK, I am back to this project...on to the back section now.

I chose a section of the center tablecloth medallion that allows for matching and seam allowance and inset the zipper on one side. Finishing the top edge as far as the point where the strap will be inset: 

zipper sewn on left, right is roughly pinned

The zipper has a plaquet to protect the skin from the teeth, and the bone of the underlining will butt up right against the zipper, but inside- between the layers:

left side stitched- right foundation layer

First,  I match up the lace overlay- it takes several tries to get it very close- nothing on this cloth is a perfect mirror since it is all hand embroidered:

 Right side, lace overlay only, pinned

I hand baste it & then I match up the body-underlay, the layer of cotton with the silk basted on:

 Body layer placed

Then the boned underlining/ foundation layer- each step gets hand basted:

Foundation layer, placed

How it looks from the inside:

How it looks from the inside

Both sides, matched & finished along top edge to strap inset point and turned the side panels wrap around and complete the back so lace is not yet hand-stitched down to body layer: 

At this point I'm thinking I can match the shaped edge of the medallion at the bottom to either the finished edge of the corset or to the seam attaching the bodice to the skirt- since still don't know if skirt is going to be absolutely attached. 

Next comes the really tricky part.

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Custom Made Wedding Dress Part 5

Cutwork Linen Wedding Dress, Part 4

Getting down to the wire now!   1 week…. excited!!!   (a little stressed, too many little, time consuming things to do on top of real life)  Dress is done so I am back tracking here- it's all a distant memory so I hope to catch here up sooner rather than later.  
Lace is already applied to backing material, so now the inner workings of the corset and the body start going together.   It's odd construction (ie: nobody does stuff like this anymore- it's closer to couture)  since I don't want any seams in the lace past what is absolutely necessary.  There are quite a few more seams on the inside than the outside which I know will complicate construction down the line. I say screw it...I am more than momentarily sorry later, but I get over it. 


Inside Layer, with corset workings:

 Inside Center Front

Side layer:  lace overlay will continue in one piece from front to side,  hiding the side front seams of the corset.  Side is one layer of cotton with silk overlay- to cut down on weight.  It's about 95 degrees and insanely humid in NYC while working one this dress.

Inside Side Panel-silk basted to cotton-from back

Inner layer and  side layer are attached to bodice layer, turned out, and seams folded and stitched to form casings for last two pieces of front boning. (Oops-forgot some pix here- not sorry)

 Inside & outside together- shown from inside.

I want to use some of the edges in the cutwork-to frame the neck accent & add a little interest, so I have not stitched clear through it, I've allowed little bits of it to poke out framing the neckline:

Cleaned up, trimmed and hand-stitched down:

Maybe a little subtler than I expected, but I like it, these are the sort of little close up details that make things special.

Here you can see the single layer sides extending beyond the edges of the lace medallion- the ace edge  was stitched down with a tiny matching zigzag, trimmed with applique scissors, and the remaining was stitched - by hand,  through the chiffon layer only.  The medallion continues up the shoulder straps - 

without a seam that corresponds to the strap seam on the underlying foundation layer. 

All of this I am doing by gut, I do not know what is going to happen with the skirt or the final fit, since I expect the  fit will be different than fit in muslin and checked at every juncture.  I have not worked in fabric in ages so I don't know what to expect and accommodate for at this point.

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Cutwork Linen Wedding Dress, Part 4

Antique Cutwork Lace Wedding Dress, Part 3

In real time I am almost done with the dress.  (I expect to be done by Sunday the 30th,  tomorrow-barring any massive changes /adjustments or fits of complete anality which don't belong in this project!) Anyhow, I know its now a dress. Rather than a bodice and skirt or even a semi-attached…whatever…

But since I started to do this in actual segments, in blog time,   I'm sticking to that!  You've seen the rough layout, but I will refresh you: 

This is just the front panel, the lace will wrap around to the sides.  I plan to make use of some of the oval edges as well as the motif edges. Just not sure which ones or where at this point.

The lace is carefully back stitched down to the layer of twill and silk.  not too close to the edges, since the sides need to be stitched on later.  I've cut the straps in one piece on the lace layer.  I want the motif as continuous as possible. The basting line 3/4" inside the cut edge is the finished edge I've drafted for.  Parts of this are likely to change since fit was done on muslin and the finished piece entails several layers and will be thicker so we'll see…

Thread is wrapped around needle, for portage.  (I watched "In Cold Blood" while doing the handwork- Great movie!  It took far too long for me to get to...)

From the front, stitched in a mocha/taupe along edges of cutwork- I was very lucky to have an old,

old spool of thread that was a perfect match to the embroidery! 

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Antique Cutwork Lace Wedding Dress, Part 3