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Wednesday, October 24, 2012

The Dress


Boy, once the wedding was over I thought life would slow down.  NOT!  So, long after the fact, here are pictures of the finished dress.  Like almost every other woman I know, I wish I was my younger, slimmer self, but all in all, I was pleased with how it came out.  I sewed on it right up to the night before the wedding.  Apparently starting 7 weeks early wasn't quite enough.  Or, perhaps it's that old adage that a job always expands to fill the time allotted.  
This has to be one of the most complicated garments I have ever made.  It required a lot of hand-basting of the lace and silk chiffon layers to each other before any construction seam could be attempted.  After that it was pretty straight forward.  It wasn't as hard as a tailored jacket but the bustier was tricky.  I kept allowing too much ease for the boning.  I had to remove the boning pockets twice, take in the seams, replace the pockets and the boning and check the fit.  I still could have made it tighter but adding a waist stay ribbon made it close enough.  I think the bustier alone took me about 3 1/2 weeks working on it off and on.
The wedding day turned out perfectly.  Even better than the dress.  We're taking it as a good omen for the rest of our days together.