These past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of “tiny” things. It’s the fine details that take the most time. Here are just a couple of examples:

1.  Hand-stitching the lining to the boned bodice.
2.  Hand-stitching the flowers.
3.  Hand-stitching the sheer bodice fabric layer to the zipper.
4.  Hand-stitching the skirt lining to the main skirt.
5.  Hand-stitching the outer skirt hem.

Did you notice a trend of the word “hand-stitching?” Now YOU can also become wedding dress snobs. The next time you go to a bridal store and examine the hem of the wedding dresses, I will bet you anything they are machine sewn. If that doesn’t bother you, well, that’s fine. You have not yet graduated to the level of “wedding dress snob.” We all have to embrace where we are in life and go with it. I can never go back.

The next batch of pictures I am going to share with you are actually from a couple of fittings. You will not see the FINAL completed garment on Rachel until I take pictures of her at her wedding party. Her wedding is this Saturday, so you are just going to have to wait. SORRY.

In this first picture, you can see the 3 flowers that have been constructed and sewn on her thin shoulder strap. Rachel found a pattern she liked and wanted the centers to be pink to add a pop of color and match her pink sandals. I made the flowers by sewing both layers of fabric into a tube and gathering one side. The flower had to be turned and hand-stitched into place. The center is a covered button of 4 layers of sheer pink fabric. All I have to say is that working with all those layers of sheer….well let’s not go there, shall we?

At this fitting I am working on the outer layer of her skirt. You can see the pins going up the sides. We’ll get back to that later.

Let’s look at the back of the dress. You can see that I joined the three separate tubes in the back with one tube finishing that up. The strap that extends to the right side of her back I sewed a snap on the end as well as on the inside of the bodice to keep it strong. If I had sewn that strap to the dress, she would’ve had a very difficult time getting the dress on.

Here’s a better shot where you can see all the detail in the bodice.

Let’s look at some hand-stitching.

This is a picture of the inside of the dress. The main fabric has been pressed into it’s final hem and the inside lining has been turned under and hand-stitched into place. The darker non-shiny fabric is the lining.

This is what the outside of the main fabric looks like. You can see tiny indentations from the “prick-stitching.”

In this next fitting I am working on her outer layer of fabric and pinning up that final layer. I had to let the fabric hang for 24 hours to get the bias to stretch out as much as it would before the final hem. You can see on her left side that the sheer fabric was doing something funky and I had to pin it in some more to take out the bubble. The outer layer has been pinned up for the final hem.

The back of the dress with the outer sheer layer pinned for it’s final hem.

The sheer layer also must be hand-stitched using the “prick-stitch” technique.

Here is the dress finished but not steamed. I used a string to help hold the dress up on the hanger. Those hanger things inside dresses annoy me. They always somehow end up sticking up out of the dress while you are wearing it. Personal pet peeve.

Oh, and I just noticed right now the time on the clock. Yes, it was 2:30 am.

I went and purchased a decent garment steamer and steamed the dress up nicely. Rachel picked up the dress today and I will see her on Saturday to see the final product on her all gussied up.

A Few Words

1.  Well, it was a hard project. But, I wasn’t going into this thinking that it would be easy. If you are going to make a wedding dress and NOT cut corners (like you shouldn’t!), expect the project to be time consuming.

2.  My sister Megan was right. (I should just stop there, she would like it.) She told me that once I got started I would really get into it and enjoy the process. She was right. I did. I have always been up for a challenge.

3.  I am glad that it’s done. That is also true. It’s nice after a couple months of sewing mess (and those of you who sew know exactly what I’m talking about!) to get cleaned up and organized and VACUUM!

4.  Rachel has a beautiful dress and looks absolutely gorgeous in it! I really can’t believe that she started babysitting for us when Rosemary was 1 year old. She is the reason that Jon and I started to date again. And THANK GOD for that. And thank you Rachel.

I’m Going To Stroll Down Memory Lane And You Can Come With Me

We love you, Rachel! May you have a blessed life and marriage for always.

Love, your second family,

The Galloways

**UPDATE**

Please check out Rachel’s wedding pictures HERE!!!

And the creating continues! This post will be a combination of the last 2 fittings I have had with Rachel W. I have been super busy working away and the clock is ticking! My goal is to get this dress finished and out of the house on Saturday, October 1st. Less than 2 weeks! Ahhhhh!!!!

Starting the Straps

I started making tubes for her thin straps here. The fabric is cut on the bias so when it stretches with the tube elastic, it will look smooth.

Boning the Bodice

I am also separately working on the lining of the bodice and am boning it. I chose small plastic boning because both Rachel and the garment don’t need anything hard-core. Once your lining is sewn together, you sew the boning in on the wrong side directly over the seam lines. You want to make sure that the curve is facing the correct way once everything is put together.

I like to trim the ends of my boning after it’s already been set into the lining.

This is a picture of the “right side” of the lining with the boning in place. This is what you will see on the inside of the bodice.

The Outer Bodice Shell

I finished prick-stitching the initial draping on the right side and trimmed away all the excess fabric.

Rachel W. wanted the back to be smooth so I made a french seam on the side of the bodice and am laying out the overlay to cut out.

All pinned and ready to cut!

As I flip the bodice to the inside  you can see that I’ve hand-stitched down the seams. I don’t want anything looking bulky or getting out of place once everything is put together.

Here is the right side of the bodice.

Here is the end of Rachel’s fitting after I draped the second side of the bodice. I purposefully didn’t get her face because she was feeling dizzy from standing for so long.

Time to start hand-stitching the second side!

And

Time

Goes

By

And

By……

and then it’s done.

Putting the dress together.

Now it’s time to start putting all of these pieces together. I stitched the boned lining to the main bodice piece and here I am carefully under-stitching the lining so that when I turn it it will be very crisp and clean.

And don’t forget about the skirt!

I know. The skirt gets some attention now too. I have already attached the lining to the main skirt fabric, but now it is time to attach the sheer overskirt to the other pieces. As you can see, I am doing a small cluster of tiny pleats in the center front to give her a tiny bit of fullness. Tiny.

And here is a preliminary picture of the bodice attached to the skirt. “What about all those other pictures I saw before?” you may ask.

“Well,” I will respond, “they were fake. The dress was either basted or pinned together. Now it’s SEWN!”

Now, the original sketch involves some flowers  on the shoulder of the dress. Let me remind you.

Ahhhh…yes. The dreaded flowers. Well, today Rachel W. found a flower she liked and in the pictures below we are testing it out with fake “paper flowers” just to get a feel of size and position.

I want you to notice her bodice and how crisp and clean the top line is. The boning added that extra bit of hold (remember how the left side drooped a bit before the boning was added?)

The small flowers were agreed on. I kind of like the paper. Could be a bit avant garde, don’t you think?

Now this fitting is the last one before I do her hem. It’s a critical one because I need to get her straps and zipper perfect. Once you zip her into this dress, it needs to stay SNUG!

The zipper will be a challenge as well because the fabric panels down the center back seam are not cut on the straight, but on a slight bias. Sewing a zipper on a curve and while the fabric is curved is tricky. Hope I don’t screw it up! Hee hee.

The strap the goes all the way to the right side of her back will have a separate closure. If I sew it directly into her dress she will have a difficult time getting it on and off. I am going to put a hook on it so that it will be secure. At the top of her shoulder where the three straps meet, I will cover them with a thin finished tube of the same fabric so they all blend together and look like they are coming from the same place.

Next time I will be hemming this dress. Believe it or not, Rachel W. would like the tiniest of trains so the majority of this back fabric is going to end up in the trash.

I’ve had so many people ask me why the heck am I doing this? “You’re so busy. Blah, blah, blah.” All I have to say is….

“Look at this beautiful face. Well, her heart is even more beautiful and I would do anything for this girl.”

Love,

Rachel