I have been fighting with life as of late. Its funny to me that the things you do that bring you life tend to get pushed to the bottom of the list. Thus the progress of this blog.
I realized yesterday that I was avoiding my studio because of the mess that it was in. It tends to be the area of the basement that Steve, my husband, pushes all the things he doesn't know what to do with. Add on top of that, I really haven't been in my studio since making my nieces wedding dress this summer. So the first order of business - get my studio in order. Today I put together my new cutting table, cleaned and rearranged. I think its ready to go now.
And the last reason for not being in my studio, I had a job interview last week. The store is called "creativities" and I will be teaching beginning sewing and design. They offer all kinds of creative classes, with sewing, design and fiber arts being just one area. They are only about a year old and there's lots of potential for growth. I'm excited about it. You can check them out at artsandcreativities.com
And lastly, My dress form. I have this old dress form that I bought right after college. It was literally falling apart. The plastic under-form was cracking and the cover was falling off. The worst however, was when I would put a pin into the form it would come out covered with a sticky residue. Not good when you try to put the pins into fabric. The easiest solution was to buy another one. So I did. The problem, which I soon discovered, was that the new dress form is 4 inches larger under the arms than the old one. This meant that nothing I made would fit me correctly. Fortunately, I had not thrown out the broken one and have been spending the last few days recovering the old one.
Taking off the old covering was nasty. Sticky dust was falling all over the floor and a residue was left on the under-form. Once I got all that cleaned up I was ready to refinish.To refinish the dress form I adjusted it to my measurements and used "gorilla" duct tape to fix the form and hold it together. I then bought cotton batting that has a fusible substance on both sides. I fused muslin to both sides and put it on the form marking all the darts and side seams. I sewed the darts, half way up the sides, and a casing in bottom on the machine. I ran a ribbon through the casing.
Next I pulled the cover onto the form and then began to sew all other darts and tucks and side seams by hand. As you can see by the photo I have a few more seams to go.
PWC Gala Dress
Now its onto more fun projects - The PWC Gala dress. (see sketch)
I found this gorgeous grey and blue stretch velvet, with burnout design in it while in Chicago last spring. I want to use this for my gala dress. It has such a great drape I don't want to totally confine it.
To utilize the drape, I want to make it with a hood, that when put down falls into a beautiful cowl in the back. Having a deep V in the front and in the back I will need to keep the dress up. I will use something across the bra-line area for the bust and then probably use a clear elastic at the shoulder line or flesh-toned ribbon. I haven't decided yet whether to use frogs or lacing on the corseted waist. I also need to decide whether it is a wrap dress or faux-wrap.
I wanted to create the feel of a "dressing coat"; warm and comfortable.
I will start the draping next.
