Wedding Dress Sagas

So the work on my wedding dress continues.

I have finished the embroidery for the bodice top of the dress.  It was a total pain and I admittedly cried several times when there were snags or mishaps in the positioning and hooping.  Just like in regular embroidery you have to hoop the fabric for machine embroidery.  You want everything to be perfect and precision. The embroidery itself only does a set of two flowers at a time,  There was a lot of trial and error to figure out how to hoop over previous embroidery without making the frame pop out of the hoop.  I also started with no stabilizer and a single basting stitch down the length.  Both were bad calls.  After the first two sets were done I knew I needed at least a tear away stabilizer to help keep the hoop from popping out against the slippery organza.  Then I also added rows of horizontal basting stitches across the first length wise basting stitching to give the two layers of organza more stability.  After that it was all about marking and repositioning before the next set of flowers.  One time my heart stopped as I was working on it and the boy didn't realize I was there and turned the lights off which also turn the power off in the studio.

I'm really happy with how it turned out, now I just need to remove the rest of the tear away stabilizer and the basting stitches.  I've decided to use cotton sateen for lining of the dress.  I've still got a long way to go
 like figuring out my closure if  I want it to be hook and eye tape, invisible zipper or what.  Also since this is strapless how to keep it up.  I think I am going to use a combination of lingerie elastic that has the slightly sticker side like on strapless bras and maybe retro fit a strapless bra into it as well.

I've also finished one row of the three rows of pleats for the bottom.  This is the middle section of pleats, they are 1" knife pleats, above them will be 1/2" knife pleats and below some 1" rufflles.  I made these pleats using a "Pleater" board that I made which I will follow up with a tutorial on how I made it and how to use a little later.  The black stitches are just basting to hold everything together before the final sewing.  I like using a darker thread so that I can see where i needs to be pulled out more easily.

 

The full dress so far and I really am not that tall!  It had been so long since I tried to put my pieces together I forgot the end of the inner layer of organza was the hem bottom and the pleats needed to be about 8-12 inches higher.  but you get the idea.  I also tried on the extra crinoline that my cousin got at her wedding to see the fullness for once I am done.

 

Lastly I got this fantastic gem in the mail!  It is my replacement for a veil, I am going to attach a birdcage type veil to it and hotfix Swavorski rhinestones to it.  You can buy it already blinged out on Etsy but I knew I could do that and didn't want to pay that full price.  In honestly I could of done the entire thing myself but it felt dirty to copy someone else's work even if it was just once for the wedding.  I felt I needed to at least buy the base and help support another artist out.   This headpiece can be found here!