Luna's Baublebilities

So I mentioned in my last post that I am busy sewing dresses for Zombie Prom.  I was worried about Molly's because her dress has a curved, dropped waist and she is very curvy and short waisted herself so I thought it would be wise to sew a muslin before cutting up teh expensive fabric.

Well, muslin wasn't on sale at Joanne Fabrics but quilting cotton was and ended up being about the same price as cheapo muslin so we bought a fun chocolate brown with big white polka dots for her "muslin."  The result is a fun dress she can wear just about anywhere.

I did have to alter the pattern a bit - the neckline is supposed to have another 'ribbon' of fabric around the top of the neck and then a self-fabric facing but I couldn't get them to lie correctly.  My solution?  I left off the neck facing and used the second 'ribbon' thingy as the facing for the neck. Not perfect, but it works.

Here's the almost finished product.  I need to take it in a bit at the waist.  She is soooo skinny around the middle - just like I was once upon a long time ago.

It will look so awesome with her red pumps!

Also - check out the Beorningstead blog for photos of recent bathroom improvements.

P.S.  I forgot to mention that she has gone temporarily blonde.  Her character's name is Ginger and she thought it would be fun to go ginger for the show.  She is liking the blonde but I'm not so much.  It's too orange to look really natural but I think the red will be fun.  (The last photo is bad - she so exhausted from all the dancing they are dong for rehearsal.  This is going to be a very dancy musical - something very different for SLC!)

Now for cutting and sewing the gold and pink fabric for the two "real" prom dresses - one for her and one for the lead, Toffee.

Success - more or less - on the dress and a major Craft Fail on the purse.

As I suspected, the dress pattern flew together pretty smoothly once I got the pieces cut. A serger would have made it twice as quick but, alas, I have no serger. The trickiest part was hemming up the dress - the skirt part actually loops all the way under the dress to be attached to the lining of the overdress panel. This makes the bottom of the dress very heavy and full. It could possibly be made more full by adding some tulle to fill out the bottom, but the pattern says nothing about that sort of addition.

Because I had to shift the pattern by 90 degrees, I was able to cut the shoulder and neck along the beautiful selvedge edge so that there is a lovely decorative gold and purple band along the sleeves. The sleeve hems need some work and the overdress is screaming for some beautiful beaded & sequined embroidery but none of those things are going to happen before tomorrow.





The purse concept is sound but I encountered some problems.

1.) I was not careful in cutting out the lining shoulder/side piece so it ended up being a few inches too short, which meant that I had to cut down the length of my back and front panels, to, making the purse about 2 inches too shallow, which makes the purse feel a bit too wide. I really wanted to be able to carry a binder and lesson manuals in it for church but those would probably stick out the top now and my planner swims around in there hopelessly. It will be a loose junk nightmare, in spite of the purse organizer I made. No photos - really - you don't want to see them. Go buy one from JPATPURSES instead. She makes great organizers - maybe I should just send her some fabric and some cash and have her make me a purse!

2.) The construction in general is not firm enough. I was running low on interfacing and didn't want to cough up more cash while buying the enormous amount of fabric Molly's dress took. I thought that the velveteen would be sturdy enough without interfacing. It is very sturdy, it just isn't stiff. I think a heavy weight iron on interfacing on the front and bottom panels would have done the trick nicely. The sides are pretty firm because of all the layers of pockets I've got there. A piece of cardboard stuck in the bottom might help.

We'll see because that's the purse I'm stuck with until I get home and can make another attempt someday. I hate to have wasted all that beautiful duponi - maybe I'll even try to extend the bottom a bit.



. . . . .

And she had better like it!

We will be taking Maxx to the temple of Wednesday, staying in Rochester overnight and then dropping MB off at a Youth Conference on our way home. She wants a special dress to wear to Maxx's sealing plus there is a fancy dance at the Youth Conference. We've been contemplating this Folkwear pattern for a long time but I haven't felt prepared to shell out the cash for all the fabric it takes.

This seems like a likely occassion. The overdress section will be made of that beautiful pale blue silk duponi I spoke of earlier and I let MB choose a gorgeous purple and gold sari fabric at Joanne fabric on Thursday. Unfortunately, I am a knuckle head and didn't realize that the fabric's pattern is directional until I got it home. Now I have to shift the patern by 90 degrees and add a seam to make it look right for this pattern. I lack about half a yard of fabric for this trick and have to drive all the way back to Malone before I can start cutting and sewing. I hope I can find the same fabric again - or a likely compliment.

I hope I get time to make a new purse, too. My old one is thrashed and filthy and I've been lying awake thinking about those gorgeous paisley velveteens in the middle of the night.