Dinner Dress Begins . . .

As promised, here's a bit of a diary on the Edwardian corset construction. I used a striped sage satin as the outer fabric, and lined it in a heavy twill and cotton, using a three-layer construction to protect the silk outer layer from shattering.

The construction itself was fairly straight-forward; I ignored the boning chart included with the pattern (as I usually do) and boned along the seams, and it was just a matter of putting everything together. The only real altering I did was to give the front a slight sweetheart shape, which I find more flattering than a straight edge. All told, it took two days, which is about average for me and corsets;)

Once again, I hand-tacked lace at the top edge, threading a mint green ribbon through. I think it sets off the sage silk nicely.

I used Sandra Altman's #106, the 1901-1908 "Straight-Fronted" Corset. It doesn't give me a straight front, but I don't have a particularly straight front to begin with, and even corsets can't do miracles;)

I also started beading the black lace overlay for the Edwardian Dinner Dress. Don't worry; I'm not crazy enough to bead all of it. I'd go blind! I'm intending to bead the bodice (which is what you see the beginning of here), and then 3-4 inches of the edge of the over-skirt. Once it is placed over a white fabric, as you see here, the lace really pops.

There's still a metric ton of beadwork to do, so I guess I better get busy! I do have until April to get it done, so at least I've given myself enough time . . .

A Night to Remember . . .

Those of you who aren't history nuts like me probabaly aren't aware that next April marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Those of you who are history nuts are probably already planning your wardrobe for the occasion;) As ghoulish as it seems to celebrate so many people dying with a party, that's still what plenty will be doing, serving it up true Edwardian-style with eleven courses and music and fabulous ensembles.

I've had to shelve my Halloween plans for budgetary reasons, so instead I'm focusing on something slightly farther out, and I'm starting work on a 1912 dinner dress. I already have some of the material for it and I'm beginning to bead a lovely black chantilly. As for the rest, I'm planning to make the dress out of white silk taffeta with a black silk velvet sash.

I don't have any extent garment images that exactly match what I'm planning so I posted these as a more general idea. I like the sleeves on the above image, and the stark white and black of the top image was the inspiration for my color palette. Hopefully I'll be able to post some in-progress pics; I just finished my Edwardian corset, and I'll try to do a short diary on that soon.

Tabitha's Dinner Dress Diary: Final Entry!

The Victorian Birthday Dinner Extravaganza was a huge smash on Saturday; I was so overstuffed it's taken me this long to write a post on it;) Seriously, though, a huge thank you to my sister Tabitha and my BFF B,who had been planning the thing for months. It was seven courses of sheer heaven, and I only wish my corset had let me eat more of it!

Now, on to the dress:

 As you can see, the dinner dress underwent a lot of changes, but my sister was much happier with it this way. It fit her perfectly, and though she usually chooses green while I choose blue, she looks absolutely lovely in this navy dupioni silk. Given the thing to do over again, I would have used my friend Andrew over at Silk Baron for the fabric, but I got an amazing deal on the 20 yards I needed for this dress and I couldn't pass it up. It was pretty light-weight and was harder to work with than the green silk I used for mine, but you can't tell how thin the silk was on the finished product.

You can see a bit of the bustle here; I didn't get any pics of her from behind, so I'll have to take some proper ones later. Here she is mugging with B and my friend M, while I look on from the background.

I was very happy with the end result, in spite of my earlier issues with it. She looked beautiful, which was the only thing that really mattered! And, yes, that is one of my pieces in her hair; she's wearing Trixie for the evening!

 Now, onward to the next projects: Regency dresses for the 2010 Regency Ball in Lansing!

Tabitha's Dinner Dress Diary: part 2

So, Tabitha's Dinner Dress has undergone a lot of changes this week.

You know when you create something and you're really proud of it, and then the person you made it for tells you they don't like it? If you haven't had this experience before, you've obviously never done any commission work. Though I tell myself I work for the client, it's hard to let go when you think you've created something beautiful. Still, when it's for someone else, it's not your opinion, but the other person's that finally matters.

All that beautiful cream reembroidered lace? Gone. In its place is a black pointe de sprit with a black lace edge. I cried a little as I took it off, but I think the pieces are mostly salvagable for something else, so hopefully I can use them again.

Before and After.

The beading is done, at least. I ordered 15 strands of jet czech glass beads from Fire Mountain, and when they came I thought I had ordered too many. After 15 hours of beading, I have 7 beads left. Boy, did I wipe my forehead after just squeaking by with that one! There's no way I would have had time to order any more; the party is this weekend!

The skirt got a pointe de sprit ruffle edged in lace, and a jet beaded tassel. The dress is pretty much complete now, with the exception of the regrommeting and a placket in the back. I'm definitely ready for this stress to be x-ed off my list!

Tabitha's Dinner Dress Diary: part 1

I'm sure you all remember the post a while back about Tabitha's Dinner Dress project; it took a little while to get going, and weathered several car issues and empty savings accounts, but it's finally on the way to being finished in time for the party on the 21st! Yay!

If you remember, the basis for the inspiration is this original 1870's wedding dress with beautiful beadwork and double apron. I adapted that to something appropriate for a dinner party in a color that looks smashing on my sister:

For the patterns, I once again used Truly Victorian's TV 422 for the bodice and TV 225 for the underskirt; they both have good bases to alter and trim. For the overskirt, I used TV 326, the Hermione, based on a pattern found in Demorest Monthly. It was fussy and you had to follow their pleating instructions to the letter, but it went together beautifully, as always.

The bodice got a lovely panel of pleated reembroidered cream lace that I got in a grab-bag from a high end fabric store and was dying to use on something;) I'm awaiting the jet beads I ordered last week, but here it is so far:

Naturally, it's missing sleeves at this point. I always seem to wait to do sleeves until the end, as I kinda hate doing them with the passion of a thousand suns, but oh well.

Still on the list:

-sleeves, with a double ruffle and a beaded cuff

-retacking some of the lace panel on the bodice

-beading the crap out of the bodice

-putting a placket in the back of the bodice

-regrommeting and couching the grommets up the back

-putting a bow on the back of the overskirt

Stay tuned! Almost finished . . . .