In under the wire...

 So that the Facebook thumbnail has a nice photo, here's a picture from the venue after last night's rehearsal dinner...

It's a gorgeous spot, and the weather was perfect.

And yes, the dress did get finished.  With time for me to hem a pair of pants for My Sweet Babboo.

But I did finish hemming his pants, changed clothes, slapped on some makeup and jumped in the car. 

I might or might not have actually applied my lip color whilst hubby drove us to the park, which was about an hour away.

I will post thoughts on sewing the dress either tomorrow or Monday, but I'll post the picture My Sweet Babboo took for me before we did our official pics with the groom.

I will admit to laughing right out loud when I saw the picture...it was a wee bit breezy up there on that verandah.

Photo by his sister, The Princess, since I stuck my phone in my purse and didn't pull it out.

The wedding went very well, but my sly son pulled one over on his family.

He had made a playlist for the ceremony.  Now, The Artist is an audiophile...I mean, he listens to music on vinyl...he is PICKY about his music.  And he had his younger brother running the blue tooth speaker with the playlist he had loaded onto an old phone.  At one point in the ceremony, they went aside to a table set up with a unity rope to braid and communion elements, and while they braided the rope music was playing under the pastor who was doing a reading.  When the reading finished and they moved to communion, the volume on the music came up and...

I recognized a recording he'd done of the family singing the Doxology as a meal blessing a few years back when we were all up in Indiana at my in-laws for dinner.

Not fair.

But then he upped the ante...that was followed by a similar recording done on Christmas Day in, maybe, 2016? of all of us singing the Seven Fold Amen, following a carol sing around the piano in the living room. 

Cue the waterworks.  I was FINE, y'all, until he pulled that.  And everyone BUT us and his siblings knew what was coming. They even had the photographer positioned to get our reaction to hearing that.

But what was going through my mind was all the family members who weren't there today...who were singing at his wedding.

Scuse me whilst I find some kleenex....

ETA ...I have since learned that the particular recordings he played were captured more recently than the dates mentioned above.  But, you know, it's the thought that counts...and it was still the same people, so...yeah. 

And...we're going down to the wire (as per usual)

 I had enough hours in at work this pay period that I could actually stay home today and sew.

And, boy howdy, it's a good thing I did.

The dress shell and lining are done to the facings.  

I was pretty pleased with the dress so far.  It fit well, felt good, and draped very nicely.  Sandwashed silk over bemberg lining is VERY nice, y'all.

All I needed to do was put together the lace overlay and then tack it down to the zipper opening and back vent, then put on the facings.

It sounds so simple... 'put together the lace overlay'.

I started to do the center back seam, then realized it would be a WHOLE lot better to do the long side seams first, while everything was flat.

Ya'll, it took about two hours for each of the side seams.  

First, line up the traced seam allowances.  Then baste along the scroll lines.  Then zigzag on top of the basting.  Then trim away the excess on both sides.  

Only it's black thread on black lace and I couldn't see diddly squat.  On the first one I actually got turned around and started sticthing back the way I came.  On the second seam I marked the directions with pins after I basted.

It doesn't look too bad...

I did the back kinda the same way, only just between the bottom of the zipper and the top of the vent.  I didn't trim anything because I wanted to see how it lined up with the  dress back first.

Then it was time for the shoulders...and disaster struck

Somehow I got whopperjawed.  After I basted, zigzagged, and trimmed the first side, I realized I'd sewn the left back shoulder to the right front shoulder.

So now it's 12:40 AM.  The bobble was unpicked, compared to the pattern, overlayed correctly, basted again, zigzagged and trimmed again.

I put the overlay on top of the dress shell and it looks nice but... I think I'm going to unpick the back seam and do a conventional seam  It's going to be too hard to transition from the folded-under-stitched-to-the zipper bit to the trimmed lapped seam to the back vent.  The seam allowance isn't too noticeable with the matte black silk behind it.  I'd post a picture but my phone battery died just as I was lining things up.

And...tomorrow is pretty much a non-sewing day, although I might get the back zigzag stitching removed and the motifs trimmed from the back seam allowance.

I think I'm going to do a short work day on Thursday so I can finish...I hope.

The Wedding is Saturday...Deep Breaths...

Piece work

 I have spent most of the day hunched over the cutting table, thread tracing my lace, and then working on piecing the shoulders in.

My back is killing me at the moment.  So, by way of taking a bit of a break, I'll document the process, lol.

I had to fold the lace so the blue thread tracing would show up, lol.

After I thread traced the front and both backs, I rough cut everything out so I would have the scrap bits to use to fill in the shoulders.  

This is an interesting lace; the leaf motifs are only attached by about five threads; they are free floating otherwise.  I had to trim all the motifs from the underlap area of the added bit....and I will be trimming them out of all the seam allowances as well.

Matched up the motifs with the pieced area underneath.    I hand sewed the scrollwork...basically permanent basting, because after I hand sewed it, I ran it through the sewing machine, zigzaging over that stacked curvy line.

Then I trimmed up the under/ overlap.  The design is not quite consistent; some of the scrollwork didn't match up exactly.  But with the black underlay that is not going to show.

Then I laid the pattern back over the piece and finished thread tracing the shoulders.

I have done both the back pieces and the front is about half done.  It's about a 4" repeat...I BARELY had scraps big enough to fill in all four shoulder bits, because I had to match the peculiar slant of the motifs.

But 'barely'...is enough.  Whew.

I am saving all the little leaf things that I'm trimming off; if I need to sew a few on after it's assembled to fill in gaps where things had to be removed from the seam...I have PLENTY.

Deja vu....

 Welp, I did it again.

This time it was a rotary cutter.

I don't even know how it happened; somehow, whilst cutting the very tight inner curve on the front facing, I caught the far side of my left pinky and cut right through the fingernail.  Then my fingernail wrapped up in the blade and tore loose from the nail bed...I think.  I have a nick on my actual finger, a horizontal cut into the fingernail that suddenly goes up at an angle and then turns again parallel to the first one.  I don't know how much of my finger underneath is cut...or if it just ripped up the nail.  I wasn't going fast with the cutter, but it was a brand new blade, 'cause I was cutting silk...

It's going to take that puppy a minute to grow out.  Gonna be a nice look for the wedding next weekend. :rolleyes:

So I didn't finish cutting the silk shell out until tonight.

But.. I have the lining put together, and I got the darts in the front and the back seam ready for the zipper. before I decided it was time to quit before I messed something up.

The next two days are pretty full; I'm going to try and get the zipper in after I get home tomorrow, then I can put the front and the back together on Thursday...and maybe get it hemmed. Then Friday morning I can baste the lining in...and start the process of cutting and piecing the lace.

I'm gonna be hand sewing all weekend.  And maybe Monday and Tuesday evenings.

At least the bummed up pinky shouldn't interfere with that too much.

Not expecting so much bling...

 I meant to post this over the weekend, but the surprise costume trunk took precedence, lol.

Anyway.

Number 1 Son, aka The Artist, is officially getting married in September.  Over Christmas, his Intended...whom we shall call The Dancer...showed me the colors she had selected for the bridal party: tan and a peachy pink.

Now, when the Flute Player was planning her wedding I stumbled onto pics of dresses from Nataya and was rather smitten...but her outdoor June wedding would have been too hot for the polyester dresses.   And, to be honest, the colors of most of those dresses wouldn't flatter me anyway.  But that whole vintage-y vibe really caught my eye.

So, when a couple of websites sent me emails with sales on their lace fabrics, I went looking.  I'm thinking something in blue would look fine with the tan and peach,  but I will let The Dancer's mom have first choice.  Still, I thought it wouldn't hurt to look and maybe have some options.

I found a 'teal' guipure lace at one vendor, and an embroidered net (like the Nataya dresses??? Maybe?) at another and ordered what I hoped would be enough for a dress from each of them, knowing there's another wedding coming up as well, once the Actor gets around to being official with his Little Red Haired Girl.

Anyway, the laces arrived last week and somehow the photographs on the 'net mislead me.  Both of them are straight up blingy.

The guipure lace has clear sequins sewn pave-style in the loops of the lace, and the net has a bajillion iridescent beads glued onto the embroidery.  None of that sparkly stuff showed up on the websites.

And, the teal ain't so much teal as it is a kindof weird muted mint color.   It looked like a more saturated/ deeper color on the screen.

Anyway...here's what we have so far...

The net is a border design; above is one edge; below is the other.  The sparkle really isn't showing in the pics but the dots on it are the iridescent beads

I think the colors are fantastic; the peacock blue-green color and the beige and and tan would look fine with the bridal party colors.  Will probably have to go with a contrast or complimentary lining.

This is an odd shade of... ok, we'll go with teal.  A lot more muted than I expected. I don't know that I'll be able to match it with a lining/ under dress.  Might have to just go with a contrast fabric and be done with it, if I make it up at some point.   And, why with the sequins?  This elegant lace doesn't need them.

I thought I would use the guipure lace for a more tailored dress, if that was more in line with the MOB's selections.  But unless she picks out a blingy dress (and I really don't expect that) neither of these will do. 

The venue is a state park; a very pretty patio on a bluff overlooking the Tennessee river.  Yeah, outdoors.  But towards the end of September it should be more temperate than in June.  We hope, lol.

The hunt will continue.  Maybe I'll make up the bling to wear to my hubby's 50 year class reunion this summer...#trophywife...LOL.