Wedding Dress - Sneak Peek

So blogging takes a BIG back seat these days.  Mr. Bill and I are 9 days away from our wedding.  (Deep breath!)  I have been making my wedding dress and I haven't made a garment in, probably, 7 years, and never anything NEAR as difficult as a wedding dress.  Here is the fabric, a sea foam silk chiffon, covered by a modern lace with tiny, clear paillettes scattered across the weave.  Lovely, but oh so very fussy to work on.  There has been a lot of hand basting involved, but first I started with an organic white muslin that became the dress underlining once the final fitting was determined.

I changed the original pattern a bit.  I ruched the lace layer of the center panel of the bustier.  I didn't want to add that volume all the way around, though.  On the remaining 8 sections, I ruched the silk under layer.  Since the wedding is taking place on the Oregon coast, I am taking my inspiration from the ocean.

This shows the center panel of the bustier with two side panels already attached.  The unfinished piece is the silk, gathered by hand on each edge of the section.  At this point I took my steam iron and just flattened the gathers in a irregular pattern.  I just thought about the random way waves wash up on a beach.  Then I layered the lace piece over the top and hand basted the two layers together.  After neatening up the cut edges to match the original pattern, I attached the section to the main body.  Eight of the nine seams has spiral steel boning, inserted into cotton pockets, along the length of the seam. The ninth seam, the center back, has a separating zipper hidden under a row of fabric covered buttons.  The whole garment is lined with white Bemberg rayon. 

Here's the finished bustier, with a lace bolero over the top.  I finished the edges of the bolero with the selvedge from the lace yardage.  It had a wide piece of plain netting  without the grid pattern woven into it.  I will add the same raw edge to the 3/4 length sleeve hem.  The skirt is almost finished.  I just need to tackle the yards and yards of hemline.  I think I'm avoiding it at the moment.