Craft Rage

I finished hand-tacking the Pink Abomination together last night and tried it on.

It fits, it's fine, it's over.

Since it was the first test dress for the wedding dress I plan to make, originally, I had thought to finish the whole dress, including embellishment and whatnot. What a dumb idea - why spend hours on beading I'll never wear? What was I thinking?

Anyway, further work on that dress is unnecessary - it's pink and I'll never wear it in public. Gee, do I sound like I'm still trying to convince myself? Anyway, I started the second test dress last night, in slightly less intimidating fabric. Since it's still a lace overlaying something moderately slippery, though, it means that, once again, I find myself hand basting the lace to the fabric on all of the pattern pieces. Is this what interlining is? Where you take two pieces of fabric and use them as though they were one?

Well, in any case, the new dress has the new bodice front, as well as a much wider skirt. It's such a simple dress to put together; just six pieces; the front skirt and back skirt, the right and left back bodices, and the right and left front redrafted pieces.

I'm not kidding when I say it's going to take me longer to tack the lace and the fabric together than it's going to take for me to assemble the dress to a wearable state - the actual assembly is about five minutes to install the invisible zip, and fifteen to pin and machine tack the rest together.

With luck, I'll have pictures later today!

Labels: pink abomination, wedding dress

So, I'm pretty freaking proud of myself! Not because it worked perfectly (as you'll see) but that it sort of worked.

As I said, I decided to try draping a new bodice, because I was having some problems doing an FBA on the pattern piece I was working with.

I ripped out the old bodice front (and may I just say, I've learned a VERY important lesson about stitch width on a test piece - it took me the better part of an hour, and I said curses in many languages, many made up just for the occasion) and pinned the dress on Clarice, then went about draping a new bodice.

It's far from perfect - but it did actually work. I couldn't figure out how to translate the pinned gathers into useful information, so I used a pencil to mark up the test fabric, then unpinned it, trimmed it, and cut out two pieces of pink fabric. This is what I ended up with;

Note that it's only sewn on the shoulders and sides, not the bottom, and it's held together with binder clips, which explains the weird ripple on the one side. Plus, I did a pretty bad job of tacking the shoulder seams together, but all in all, I'm pretty confident that I'm heading in the right direction, at least.

I'm going to cut out the lace, and see if I can't figure out a way to include the lace in this thing, because otherwise, the shiny fabric makes my boobs look scary, and the fabric for my real dress, while slightly less shiny, will still probably have the same effect. It's worth a try, at least.

Labels: pink abomination

I think I had a breakthrough.

The Pink Abomination, (AKA giant transvestite skating costume) is kicking my ass, and I finally figured out why. They say the definition of insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over, and expecting a different result. Hey, I never claimed to be sane. I've tried editing the pattern for the bust area in a number of ways, and none of them work properly, so maybe I need to stop trying.

The last time you saw the top of the dress, it looked like this;


I had converted the bust gathers to bust darts, then realized that this, in addition to the repetitive floral pattern over the bust, REALLY make things look bad. And there's no getting around this - there is NOTHING I can do with those flowers so that they aren't either directly over my lady-lumps, or else just sitting between them.

Here are all the things I've tried so far;

Tried
Following the pattern exactly
Result
Massive monoboob (where two become one because there isn't enough fabric), along with wicked underarm gaposis

Tried
Adding 2" of length along the bottom seam to give more chest room
Result
Baggy gathers that sit right under the breast line and make me look like gravity has been particularly cruel.

Tried
Doing an FBA on a pattern without darts (which I made up as I went along, because I couldn't find a tutorial on the 'net)
Result
Strange curved seam at the sides, moderately...lumpy appearance of excess fabric.


Tried
Redoing bodice #2 and changing gathers to darts
Result
Monoboob again, plus gaposis under the arm, which only went away when I made a really awful-looking seam from the underarm to the bust point. That's the picture that's shown above.


The Bottom Line
I like everything about this dress except for the front of the bodice. It's high-backed, which I like, and the length of the skirt is pretty good. I'd like the skirt to flare out a little more, which I think I have the skills to do just by cutting the skirt a bit wider. The only problem is the bust area.

I think I might try draping a bodice for myself - I have a dress dummy and all the right materials, so what I think I might do is remove the front of the bodice, pin the whole hot mess to Clarice (too much Silence of the Lambs), and then see if I can drape a simple halter. I'll probably try it with the lace, just to see if folds make the flowers less boobcentric, but I'm starting to think that leaving the lace on the skirt and doing the whole top of the bodice in just the satin would be perfectly fine.

Once again, I'm REALLY glad I went out and bought pink fabric for this test dress. If I'd have experienced failure on this level with the silvery green fabric I intend to actually use, I'd probably have given up and bought a dress by now. It's kind of an expensive muslin, since it's the same fabric as my actual dress fabric, just in a yucky color, but honestly, it's still cheaper than giving up.

Deep Fried Moths
In my last post, I mentioned that I'd just returned from the lake. Every year, we try to get out with the Hotness' family - his older brother and wife (I'll call them Fred and Wilma) and his younger brother and wife (I'll call them George and Judy). This year, Judy is very pregnant with the Hotness' new niece or nephew, so it was just the Hotness and I, Fred and Wilma and their two boys, and Wilma's parents.

I come from a hardcore camping family, as does the Hotness, so I'm used to a certain level of discomfort while camping. On past camping trips, we've mostly tented, and as much as I enjoy actually camping, I LOATHE setting up and taking down, particularly since taking down always seems to happen in the rain.

This trip, however, was our first trip with our new (to us) 29 foot travel trailer. We bought it late last year as insurance salvage - it was written off due to "hail damage" which in this case, equates to five, dime-sized dents across the top and a small crack in a fiberglass panel at the front of the trailer, invisible to the naked eye.

We paid less than $2000.00, and the thing has an awning, a working fridge, stove, and oven, a full bathroom including a little tub, a king sized bed and AIR CONDITIONING. Yes, AIR CONDITIONING, all caps, and maybe even some exclamation points!!! Gaylen and Marjie, you mentioned that you aren't really into roughing it, but I think you'd both enjoy doing it this way!

On Friday, it hit 39 degrees Celsius (102.2 Fahrenheit) before 12:30 in the afternoon, so we cooked brunch outside, then went inside and sat in the air-conditioned shade and had a leisurely meal. That night, it was still pretty warm, but over the course of two days, the Hotness had caught enough fish to feed six adults and two children (his limit plus reeling in mine - I'm an indifferent fisher; I love to sit in the boat and fish, but I could not care any less about actually catching a fish).

My future sister in law Wilma has magical fish fry powers - I'm not sure how she does it, but she's like the Macgyver of fish batter - she can take a few seemingly unrelated ingredients and turn them into deep fried heaven. Of course, if you deep fry bear turds, I'd probably eat them with gusto, which in part explains my large rear end, but I digress.

Each of us fired up the camp stoves and started cooking - she did the fish, I did the chips. Halfway through the process, the Hotness decided we couldn't live without a lantern on the cooking table. Wilma and I eyed one another doubtfully, but the Hotness couldn't be talked out of it. Until ten minutes later, when Wilma and I were living a scene from a horror movie in which moths descend on you and...uh...flap their wings at you. Okay, so it wasn't really all that scary. Until the moths started landing in the hot oil. They really crisp up nicely, but I doubt they taste very good.

It wasn't quite as horrific as Camilla's spider (thanks, by the way - I've been dreaming of giant spiders for two nights, now), but it WAS pretty gross.

Anyway, I'm off to try to figure out how to drape a bodice. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Labels: family, pink abomination

Well, three posts in one day, then nothing for a week! Go figure!

I spent part of the weekend tackling the Pink Abomination - there were some issues with the front of the bodice. The pattern shows the dress with a round neckline, which I normally find quite unflattering, so when I cut the pattern, I made an attempt to redraft the bodice to give it a more square neckline. Since this was my very first attempt at ever sewing anything from a pattern, I really shouldn't have tried. I kind of neglected to remember that the front attaches to the back, and cut from the existing shoulder into a square, resulting in this;

It actually looked all right on me, but the shape of the neckline didn't support the shoulder enough, so it kept slipping off my actual shoulders, like a giant, creepy brastrap.

Luckily, I bought enough fabric to make at least one big mistake, and since this was it, I recut the bodice front. I still changed the neckline; I made it a bit scoopier than the original, and I may yet change it one more time, but here it is now, at least;

Another change I made was that instead of the front gathers, I put in a dart, and then another dart at the sides to eliminate any gapping.

Neither of these darts are probably "correct" as far as technique goes, but the fit is sort of all right.

I think I'm going to re-cut the front again - thankfully, I have enough fabric that I can do this without rushing out to buy more, but I think I'm going to return to the original bust gathers instead of the dart - my bust dart is pretty pointy, and I don't want to fiddle with it anymore. And I also need to figure out how to eliminate the gapping at the edges near my arms - I think I know what to do, but I'll probably cut the new shape on a muslin first, to make sure. That should eliminate the weirdness at the armhole.

Wish me luck!

Labels: pink abomination

Well, the Pink Abomination (PA) has taken a turn for the worse. The Crap Sieve kicked in last night, and when I cut the hemline so that it's shorter in the front than the back (per the pattern, I might add - this isn't just me getting creative!), I decided that rather than cutting straight, I'd use the flowers on the lace as edging. Suddenly, the whole thing has taken on the appearance of a skating costume. A large, two-toned pink skating costume. For an ungainly skater, or a transvestite lounge singer. I'll post pictures later, but I just wanted to prepare you for a little bit of amusement and/or dismay.

I myself am quite amused. After all, I have no intention of wearing this dress, though I fully intend to finish it and bead the lace. It's a muslin of a muslin, after all - if I don't practice my technique somewhere, I'm going to end up getting married in a reasonable facsimile of a gunny sack, since the option of just buying a dress is now completely out. If I don't follow through with making my own dress now, I won't be able to live with myself.

Karen, whose blog I stalk all the time (moi-ha-ha-ha!), commented on my last post about how she wouldn't have thought to buy fabric she didn't like in order to jumpstart a project. She's completely right - what sane person would actually buy fabric in a color they detest? Ha! The answer is a NOT SANE person!

The thing is, I have all this fabric I totally adore, but until this dress, I hadn't even managed to make myself cut out a real purchased pattern, with the exception of the blue abomination, (which I made from fabric I have to wear gloves to touch).

I was afraid to cut up any of the stuff I liked, just in case I really, truly sucked. Like, what if I couldn't cut out a pattern without ripping it with my big bear paws? What if I couldn't read the pattern at all? What if I couldn't figure out how to work the iron correctly? Stupidest fear ever, since I've been ironing military uniforms of one variety or another since I was 13 - seriously, I can pull a long-sleeved cotton uniform shirt out of a ball, from the bottom of a cold dryer, and have it on and ready to pass inspection in less than three minutes. I have many useless talents - this is one. Still, ironing a 100% cotton shirt is different from ironing pretty much anything in my stash. Other than my 100% cotton. Wow, Rachelle, ramble much?

Anyway, the PA is probably only half finished, but I already consider it a success. I cut out the pattern, which I've never done before, I cut up some fairly fancy fabric, which I've never done before, I sewed darts, which I've...well, you get the picture. I even successfully set in an invisible zipper, edited the pattern a bit so that the skirt and bodice fit better around my middle, still managed to line up the darts on the bodice and skirt (more or less), and stitched all the pieces together, all while using two very slippery fabrics. As far as I'm concerned, even if I chuck the whole thing now, I'm light years ahead of where I was seven days ago - I'm practically a whole new me!

Before PA, I was scared of every single step. I truly worried that I'd cut up some pretty fabric, get stuck somewhere, and lack the foundational skills to get unstuck. Now, I know that if I DO cut the nice fabric, I might still wreck the project, but I CAN figure it out, and I WILL be able to finish.

Anyway, as far as what's left to do, I'm going to finish the hemline, and if it DOES end up looking like a skating costume, I'm going to embrace that as a theme for the finished product, and I'm going to embellish accordingly. I still want to finish it properly, inside and out, because I need the practice, and when it's all done, I'm going to photograph it extensively, and then find someone to give it away to.

One last point - it's more to console me than to assure you - I got the fabric for the PA off the bridal fabric sale table at Fabricland, and I only needed six metres for this project - three of each fabric, though I did end up with an extra half metre of the lace, because it was destined to become a bolt-end otherwise, and the lady at the cutting table recognized me from the day I bought 66 metres of taffeta because it was on for $1.00 per metre. That's a whole other post, though. Anyway, both pink fabrics were 70% off, so between the fabric, the zipper, the bias binding, and the thread, I only spent $22.62 on this project, including tax. As far as waste goes, I can live with that. Plus, six metres in, six metres out - the stash remains in balance!

Labels: crap sieve, pink abomination

As I promised in my last post, here are pictures of the pink abomination!

The front isn't quite done - the dress is supposed to be cut higher in the front than the back, but because I decided to leave myself lots of room for error, I didn't cut the whole front out yet. I figured I should concentrate on the top, and leave the easy part to the last.

A close-up of the front. The gathers are wonky, but the front is just tacked together at the waist seam, so I'll be able to pull it and redo them with minimal effort.

I'm especially proud of the back - the darts line up perfectly. Yay me! Also, there's an invisible zipper, which I bought a special foot for. Worked like a charm!

Here's a closeup of the back. I haven't ironed anything yet, so it's not as crisp as it should be.

Labels: pink abomination, wedding dress

The fabric I bought last year is two tones of light, silvery green - a bridal lace and a stretch satin.

I actually bought more than double what I need, because my original intent was to make my test dress out of the same fabric as my real dress. But because I actually like what I chose, I was always hesitant to waste any of it, even though I bought extra just for that purpose.

So the fabric I bought yesterday had to be the same fabric, only ugly. This is what I bought;

Labels: pink abomination, the colour pink, wedding dress