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I swear, every time I sit down to work on this gown, I run into a brick wall. Either something's not working right, I need something else that I don't have, or something else happens that draws my attention away from it.
I spent Saturday doing yuck work around the house with Chris (cleaning out gutters before the "hurricane" hit, reattaching a duct under the house, redoing some insulation down there, running out a massive rat so he won't eat our brewing grain, etc.). So all the things I had planned for Saturday got pushed to Sunday, and half of those things just sort of fizzled into nothing.
So, Sunday, I spent a couple of hours just "getting to know" my sewing machine better. I've been trying to practice with my rolled hem foot so that I can use it for hemming this gown when I finally finish it, but I'm not having much luck. I just read something that might help me out that I'm going to go home and try tonight. Hopefully, it will work out better than what I've tried so far. I just can't get it to keep rolling like it should. The fabric keeps slipping out and flipping back to flat after a couple of inches. I read a site with some tricks and emailed Yvette at yvettes.net to see if she had any tips (since it was her pics from the Lavender Beaded Gown construction page I was using for reference yesterday and since she uses hers in combination with a zig-zag stitch for most of her hems to get that "fluttery effect). If anyone else has tips on using a rolled hem foot, I'm more than willing to try any advice at this point. I'm soon going to be ready to start endless hemming (8 yards of fabric!!) kinda wanted get the hang of it before I start tearing up my chiffon.
When I got frustrated with that, I just started playing around with scraps using the feet I haven't used before and trying out stitches I hadn't used. That was educational and kind of fun. Played with my double needle some, too.
On to the gown. . .
I started on the outer layer last night and, yet again, changed my mind on how I wanted to do it. Luckily, I haven't sewn my side seams yet, so it's easy enough to make alterations. I'm still working on getting slack out of the upper back. It's going to take altering the seams just under the arms to get that gap out of it, not just a simple take it in a half inch on each side at the shoulder straps. There's more of a gap than I thought there was. I'm finding myself in need of a full length mirror now for things like these. But taking in the shoulders is helping to keep it on my shoulders, rather than slipping off down my arm. I'm fighting a battle between my nit-pickiness and my laziness on this project. It would look just fine if I left it, but I'm not satisfied since it seems to go nice and straight across her back without any sagging there.
What I've decided to change, now that I've got the outer back panel pinned on, is to leave the two layers of flowy seam allowance there. First, I feel it drapes more vertically (if that makes sense) with the two layers there. It's still floaty like it should be, but hangs better with the extra weight of the second layer. Second, as if the first reason wasn't enough, I started looking at my ref pics again last night and looking at these three pics and comparing to how mine looked with just one layer, I'm feeling like there really is more than just one layer there on those sides. This changes how I do the side seams just slightly, specifically the side with the zipper. Now that I'm looking at it, it's a really good thing I hadn't done the side seams yet. I'm now thinking of doing them together (two layers into one seam), where before I had thought of only attaching them at the shoulders and of course the zipper.
Another observation here (easier to see if you click on the full size link under the pic), is that the outer layer hangs more loosely across the upper back, confirming to me that most of the fitting is done on the under layer and the outer layer just sort of attaches to it and drapes where it needs to. There across her back, it hangs a few inches below where the under layer hangs. Looks like a really wide hem there too, where the fabric wrinkles and pulls, looks like a 1/2 inch or so, but maybe that's not the hem. If it is, it's only like that across the back. The front looks like a narrow hem, but again, maybe it's not. My eyes aren't yet trained on all the things to pick out. Any thoughts from anyone who might have time to take a look at pics and give me feedback?
Other than that, when I cut the fabric for the outer layer, I wound up with a shorter train than was on my mockup. That's really not a problem though. My mockup had about a 10-12 inch train and this only has about a 4-6 inch one. Just enough fabric to drag the ground, but not really enough to step on (without stepping on me too).
When my 4 year old nephew was over yesterday, he was intrigued. He's seen the gown before, the weekend before last actually. He's in this phase (maybe it's a phase, we're not sure yet) where he likes to walk around in high heels and wear dresses or pieces of fabric tied around him like skirts. So, he glanced down the hall and looked at me asking, "is that your princess dress?" I said yes (we had a conversation the weekend before about how it was going to look like "Princess Arwen's" dress, because he's familiar with her and the movies). He then asked, "are you going to wear high heels with it?" Being 6 feet tall, I explained that I don't wear high heels because I'm already tall enough and they would make me a giant (I love conversations with 4 year olds). So then (at this time, we were in the room with the dress and talking about it), I asked him if he wanted me to make him a dress like that. He said, "right now?" I said no, but sometime. He said, "ok, but you'll have to make it fat". I reiterate, I LOVE conversations with 4 year olds. I asked, "make it fat?" He said, "yeah, I'm fat." I laughed, really hard, and said, "no, you're not fat." Then he asked if I was fat and I told him "sort of, look at this belly!" He laughed, then he asked if Spiderman was fat (since he had an action figure in his hand), and I said, "no, look at all those muscles, he's not fat." Then he changed the subject and got occupied elsewhere. Too cute though!
I spent Saturday doing yuck work around the house with Chris (cleaning out gutters before the "hurricane" hit, reattaching a duct under the house, redoing some insulation down there, running out a massive rat so he won't eat our brewing grain, etc.). So all the things I had planned for Saturday got pushed to Sunday, and half of those things just sort of fizzled into nothing.
So, Sunday, I spent a couple of hours just "getting to know" my sewing machine better. I've been trying to practice with my rolled hem foot so that I can use it for hemming this gown when I finally finish it, but I'm not having much luck. I just read something that might help me out that I'm going to go home and try tonight. Hopefully, it will work out better than what I've tried so far. I just can't get it to keep rolling like it should. The fabric keeps slipping out and flipping back to flat after a couple of inches. I read a site with some tricks and emailed Yvette at yvettes.net to see if she had any tips (since it was her pics from the Lavender Beaded Gown construction page I was using for reference yesterday and since she uses hers in combination with a zig-zag stitch for most of her hems to get that "fluttery effect). If anyone else has tips on using a rolled hem foot, I'm more than willing to try any advice at this point. I'm soon going to be ready to start endless hemming (8 yards of fabric!!) kinda wanted get the hang of it before I start tearing up my chiffon.
When I got frustrated with that, I just started playing around with scraps using the feet I haven't used before and trying out stitches I hadn't used. That was educational and kind of fun. Played with my double needle some, too.
On to the gown. . .
I started on the outer layer last night and, yet again, changed my mind on how I wanted to do it. Luckily, I haven't sewn my side seams yet, so it's easy enough to make alterations. I'm still working on getting slack out of the upper back. It's going to take altering the seams just under the arms to get that gap out of it, not just a simple take it in a half inch on each side at the shoulder straps. There's more of a gap than I thought there was. I'm finding myself in need of a full length mirror now for things like these. But taking in the shoulders is helping to keep it on my shoulders, rather than slipping off down my arm. I'm fighting a battle between my nit-pickiness and my laziness on this project. It would look just fine if I left it, but I'm not satisfied since it seems to go nice and straight across her back without any sagging there.
What I've decided to change, now that I've got the outer back panel pinned on, is to leave the two layers of flowy seam allowance there. First, I feel it drapes more vertically (if that makes sense) with the two layers there. It's still floaty like it should be, but hangs better with the extra weight of the second layer. Second, as if the first reason wasn't enough, I started looking at my ref pics again last night and looking at these three pics and comparing to how mine looked with just one layer, I'm feeling like there really is more than just one layer there on those sides. This changes how I do the side seams just slightly, specifically the side with the zipper. Now that I'm looking at it, it's a really good thing I hadn't done the side seams yet. I'm now thinking of doing them together (two layers into one seam), where before I had thought of only attaching them at the shoulders and of course the zipper.
Another observation here (easier to see if you click on the full size link under the pic), is that the outer layer hangs more loosely across the upper back, confirming to me that most of the fitting is done on the under layer and the outer layer just sort of attaches to it and drapes where it needs to. There across her back, it hangs a few inches below where the under layer hangs. Looks like a really wide hem there too, where the fabric wrinkles and pulls, looks like a 1/2 inch or so, but maybe that's not the hem. If it is, it's only like that across the back. The front looks like a narrow hem, but again, maybe it's not. My eyes aren't yet trained on all the things to pick out. Any thoughts from anyone who might have time to take a look at pics and give me feedback?
Other than that, when I cut the fabric for the outer layer, I wound up with a shorter train than was on my mockup. That's really not a problem though. My mockup had about a 10-12 inch train and this only has about a 4-6 inch one. Just enough fabric to drag the ground, but not really enough to step on (without stepping on me too).
When my 4 year old nephew was over yesterday, he was intrigued. He's seen the gown before, the weekend before last actually. He's in this phase (maybe it's a phase, we're not sure yet) where he likes to walk around in high heels and wear dresses or pieces of fabric tied around him like skirts. So, he glanced down the hall and looked at me asking, "is that your princess dress?" I said yes (we had a conversation the weekend before about how it was going to look like "Princess Arwen's" dress, because he's familiar with her and the movies). He then asked, "are you going to wear high heels with it?" Being 6 feet tall, I explained that I don't wear high heels because I'm already tall enough and they would make me a giant (I love conversations with 4 year olds). So then (at this time, we were in the room with the dress and talking about it), I asked him if he wanted me to make him a dress like that. He said, "right now?" I said no, but sometime. He said, "ok, but you'll have to make it fat". I reiterate, I LOVE conversations with 4 year olds. I asked, "make it fat?" He said, "yeah, I'm fat." I laughed, really hard, and said, "no, you're not fat." Then he asked if I was fat and I told him "sort of, look at this belly!" He laughed, then he asked if Spiderman was fat (since he had an action figure in his hand), and I said, "no, look at all those muscles, he's not fat." Then he changed the subject and got occupied elsewhere. Too cute though!
