Elsa progress
Jun. 2nd, 2020 02:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theladyrebeccaI'm not sure how I keep letting this languish for so long. Whoops.
Anyway, since my last post like three weeks ago, I finished the entire Edwardian ensemble (here's a pic) and started on 1890s Elsa, which feels like it's going very slowly. I had some hang-ups in the supply chain, where I needed to first wait for a twill order to pick up (I had to wait I think 2.5 days for my pickup order, and drive 45 mins to the only store that even had it in stock), and then needed to wait for a dharma trading order of silk organza (or technically, two orders, one of which I'm still waiting on but don't quite need yet.)
I mocked up a hip-length version of Elsa, which is an 1890s princess gown (similar to this one). Then once I had fit that, I cut out the twill I was using for the interlining, but cut it to the full length. Just cutting it took me a couple days because trying to make my brain work to figure out how to cut an 80" long piece on a 60" long table, which also needed to not flare out so much at the bottom that it wouldn't fit on the fabric was really difficult. The first two pieces literally took me two hours to cut. Eventually I got it, though, sewed it all together, and determined that the train had waaay too much flare. So I took out the two CB gussets, plus about 16" more, for somewhere upwards of 50" removed from the train flare. Much better.
And it was a good thing I did. Because then I started cutting my silk, which was a silk satin faille that I bought from fabricmartfabrics in October during a flash sale for $12/yd. But after cutting half my pieces out, I saw some marks on one side of the fabric (luckily only about 1" from the selvage), and when I measured where those marks were in the length of the fabric to tell Fabric Mart about it, I discovered that they had only sent 9 of the 10 yards I ordered. Luckily, their customer service was super good about it, and within about 12 hours of me emailing them about it, they had not only refunded me for the missing yard and damaged section, but had refunded me half my original purchase. I so appreciated that!
In any case, if I had not removed all that flare from the hem, there is no way I would have been able to cut everything out of 9 yards. But since I did, I managed to cut the dress out in 8, which will leave me more than enough to get the lower sleeve cut out later.
Then I cut out the silk organza pieces, which were the same size as the twill and silk satin, but with a little extra flare. This again took me two days because silk organza is the worst. I have since flatlined the silk satin and twill together, and assembled those pieces, and have assembled about half of the silk organza pieces. I will be flat felling these seams, but am waiting to do that till I try everything on.
I have to figure out what I'm doing for the neckline, since I'm paranoid about doing just silk organza, after what happened with Mary Poppins's silk tearing. I tried ordering some nude mesh to go underneath to help support it, but I picked it up yesterday, and it is only "nude" if you've spent the summer on an Italian beach. So I think I might try dyeing some muslin a pale pink, to see if that winds up a little closer. I want to have a mockup of the neckline done before I bother trying the dress on, since I think that's really going to affect the fit.
Anyway, that's where I am with my sewing currently. It's been hard finding motivation for the last couple weeks, and if it wasn't for the fact that I have unfinished edges of a ton of silk in my sewing room right now, I would probably be putting it aside for a bit in favor of something a little easier...
Anyway, since my last post like three weeks ago, I finished the entire Edwardian ensemble (here's a pic) and started on 1890s Elsa, which feels like it's going very slowly. I had some hang-ups in the supply chain, where I needed to first wait for a twill order to pick up (I had to wait I think 2.5 days for my pickup order, and drive 45 mins to the only store that even had it in stock), and then needed to wait for a dharma trading order of silk organza (or technically, two orders, one of which I'm still waiting on but don't quite need yet.)
I mocked up a hip-length version of Elsa, which is an 1890s princess gown (similar to this one). Then once I had fit that, I cut out the twill I was using for the interlining, but cut it to the full length. Just cutting it took me a couple days because trying to make my brain work to figure out how to cut an 80" long piece on a 60" long table, which also needed to not flare out so much at the bottom that it wouldn't fit on the fabric was really difficult. The first two pieces literally took me two hours to cut. Eventually I got it, though, sewed it all together, and determined that the train had waaay too much flare. So I took out the two CB gussets, plus about 16" more, for somewhere upwards of 50" removed from the train flare. Much better.
And it was a good thing I did. Because then I started cutting my silk, which was a silk satin faille that I bought from fabricmartfabrics in October during a flash sale for $12/yd. But after cutting half my pieces out, I saw some marks on one side of the fabric (luckily only about 1" from the selvage), and when I measured where those marks were in the length of the fabric to tell Fabric Mart about it, I discovered that they had only sent 9 of the 10 yards I ordered. Luckily, their customer service was super good about it, and within about 12 hours of me emailing them about it, they had not only refunded me for the missing yard and damaged section, but had refunded me half my original purchase. I so appreciated that!
In any case, if I had not removed all that flare from the hem, there is no way I would have been able to cut everything out of 9 yards. But since I did, I managed to cut the dress out in 8, which will leave me more than enough to get the lower sleeve cut out later.
Then I cut out the silk organza pieces, which were the same size as the twill and silk satin, but with a little extra flare. This again took me two days because silk organza is the worst. I have since flatlined the silk satin and twill together, and assembled those pieces, and have assembled about half of the silk organza pieces. I will be flat felling these seams, but am waiting to do that till I try everything on.
I have to figure out what I'm doing for the neckline, since I'm paranoid about doing just silk organza, after what happened with Mary Poppins's silk tearing. I tried ordering some nude mesh to go underneath to help support it, but I picked it up yesterday, and it is only "nude" if you've spent the summer on an Italian beach. So I think I might try dyeing some muslin a pale pink, to see if that winds up a little closer. I want to have a mockup of the neckline done before I bother trying the dress on, since I think that's really going to affect the fit.
Anyway, that's where I am with my sewing currently. It's been hard finding motivation for the last couple weeks, and if it wasn't for the fact that I have unfinished edges of a ton of silk in my sewing room right now, I would probably be putting it aside for a bit in favor of something a little easier...
no subject
Date: 2020-06-03 01:25 pm (UTC)And slow cutting is agony. Ugh.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-03 03:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-03 04:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-05 12:25 pm (UTC)https://www.skintonemesh.com/nudemesh
no subject
Date: 2020-06-08 04:20 pm (UTC)