Dancing Seamstress

22 April 2009 @ 07:54 pm

So I think I am going to make Mina's green walking suit from the movie Bram Stoker's Dracula. Or at least something like it.

Pictures that someone else has kindly collected here: http://periodmovies.blogspot.com/2008/07/minas-green-walking-suit.html

I know little to nothing about this time period, I just like the dress. Is it even remotely accurate or is it just movie fantasy time period-ish?

I plan to get patterns from Truly Victorian and start in the next few months.

If y'all have any recommendations, warnings, or thoughts, holler out!

Tags: dracula

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27 October 2008 @ 10:36 am

More Wedding Madness

I took a few more pics yesterday with a friend of the ceremony dress, since I wore it so little at the wedding.

( Pics and more behind the cut )

Tags: wedding

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24 October 2008 @ 12:49 pm

Save me from me.

ARGH!

Why am I so drawn to the 1920s when the clothes from that era are completely wrong for me? Short round hourglass girls should look away from the 1920s.

Halloween looms next week. I have the cute 1920s bob haircut. My fingers are itching to make a cute 1920s outfit to go with it.

NO! I MUST NOT! I tried to do this last year and although the coat was fabulous, the Decades of Style ZigZag dress (through NO fault of the pattern, which is wonderful) did not look so good on me.

Oh Eva Dress, why must you issue this pattern in multisize, to tempt me into fashion disaster once again.

http://www.evadress.com/3240.html

I hate you.

I love you.

Sigh.

Current Mood:

uncomfortable

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20 October 2008 @ 02:28 pm

I'm Married!!!

Here is a slideshow sneak peak of my wedding photos from my wedding photographer....

Wedding Slideshow

I have LOTS to catch up on, but since this is the first day back at work from the honeymoon, no time to blog now. But I will be giving all the nitty-gritty in the upcoming week, never fear. :-)

Current Mood:

giddy

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09 October 2008 @ 09:36 am

Practicality Wins

So as much as I would have loved a gorgeously hand-sewn hem on my reception dress, the fullness of the skirt beat me over the head with the impracticallity of doing that with so much to do and so little time. So I cheated and just did a rolled hem on my serger.

Does it look fabulous and is it what I wanted/dreamed of? No.

Is it passable and unnoticeable to 99 percent of the people that will see it? Yes.

Sometimes you just have to go with what is easy.

So the reception dress is almost done. I brought it to work today to do the finishing details, so hopefully it will be done when I get home and just need a good pressing. Work proceeds on the suit, but I have so little time left it might just be a two piece rather than a three piece.

But in the meantime, I am soothing myself with these pictures of the Cutest Cake Topper EVER!!

( Pictures Behind the Cut )

Yes I made it. Yes those are tiny replicas of us and the cats in clay, dressed in real live scraps of fabric. The little paw prints represent my kitty Joe who passed away last year. The kitty poses represent the personalities of the kitties (George is saying Mommy Mommy look at me while Fred goes straight for the cake) while the humans are in a swing dance pose that even ended up vaguely heart shaped. AWWWWWWWWW.

Yes, I am a crazy person. :-) I will try to get better pictures, including ones that show the kitty faces because they turned out really cute.

Current Mood:

anxious

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01 October 2008 @ 10:09 am

Button Button, who's got the button?

As promised, here are some pics of the ceremony dress in progress with the two button options. I only had a few buttons done---in the final look the buttons will go all the way up the back. Ok, so the red ones are just scraps of fabric cut in circles, but it gives you the idea.

( Read more... )
A separate issue.....anyone out there know how to make the train keep that pretty pretty circle shape even as I walk down the aisle in it? The beaded edging definitely helps some, but it does collapse a bit as I walk.

AAAHHHHH!!!! Less than two weeks!!!

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27 September 2008 @ 12:35 am

Looking for my Inner Tim Gunn

So when I first started working on my dress design, I keep hearing Tim Gunn in my head, telling me to edit my look. Thus the conglomeration of every idea I ever had for a wedding smooshed into one dress eventually got edited down to what I think is a pretty classy design.

But this one detail I am working on now, I am not sure if Tim would exclaim "Fabulous" or tell me I have "too much look".

I am so inspired by the gorgeous beading detail

jennylafleur is doing on my train. She started with the beaded edging I loved so much from Summerset's Midnight Garden outfit. Then she did a sort of sunburst pattern with bugle and seed beads, and now she is doing some scatter beading in several shades of red in the panels.

I loved the sunburst idea and it really went along with the art deco-ish feel I have for the wedding in general. So I thought I would introduce the idea in the covered buttons I am doing all down the back to the point where the red train starts.

I have really struggled with the buttons. Red ones were too harsh against the ivory. Ivory ones I thought might look a little plain against the magnificence of the train. So I embroidered a sunburst pattern in red on some buttons and came up with this.

Of course these aren't attached to the back of the dress yet, just laid down on some ivory fabric to see how it would look. But now I am not sure if this is too much or if this makes the look. If these enhance the train idea or distract from it (I am getting the train back this weekend, so maybe once I see them together that will tell me). I asked my Tim Gunn, but he ain't talking.

Tags: wedding

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19 September 2008 @ 12:20 am

At least the train will look good.

The reception dress is now mostly put together. And of course now I am seeing all kinds of problems. Pics and more behind the cut.

( Read more... )

Tags: wedding

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10 September 2008 @ 08:38 am

underlining

would underlining a dress in cotton muslin (rather than cotton batiste) be horribly tragic?

this is for a dress made of ivory peau de soie, a high quality poly blend, not the real deal silk. with many many seams that show through to the other side which is not attractive.

i have silk organza and china silk, but with my experiments with both of those, the seam allowances still show through. and i don't have enough of either of those to do a double layer.

plus this is a dress i am dancing in and not planning to line, so cotton might be better against my sweaty skin than silk would be anyways.

cotton muslin is cheap and readily available.
cotton batiste is more expensive and would need to be ordered so would put me behind deadline.

any thoughts?

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08 September 2008 @ 09:50 am

No Name

I did some work this weekend! Muslins for both dresses are done and fitted, The Boy's pants are started, and the petticoat for my reception dress is about halfway completed. Here are some pictures of the ceremony muslin.

( Read more... )

Tags: wedding

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04 September 2008 @ 09:49 am

No Name

Work proceeds on the wedding clothes. I have settled on designs for and made muslins of everything. Some final tweaking for fit and I will start cutting the "real" fabric this weekend.

( Read more... )

Tags: wedding

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30 August 2008 @ 12:04 pm

what??!!??

the g street fabrics in potomac mills is closed! when did that happen???? have i been living under a rock or something???

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21 August 2008 @ 08:14 am

Where Have You Been??!!??

My long absence. There is no good excuse. I just haven't been sewing much lately. After I decided to make all the wedding clothes, I felt guilty when I sewed anything other than them. And I have been all procrastenatey about doing the wedding stuff. Result being I haven't sewn anything lately.

But as the wedding is in less than two months and I have two dresses and a suit to make, I can't put it off much longer. So hopefully I will be posting more as the wedding stuff progresses.

I have a semi-muslin of the ceremony dress--Jenny-Rose saw it, so it does actually exist!--that I am going to start fitting next Monday after I get all the underthings purchased. I almost have a muslin of the suit jacket and pants. So there is SOME progress.

The Queen of Sparkle made some recommendation on some embellishments for the gown. Of course, making it should prolly come first. :-) I am a little intimidated by doing beading, but I think she is right that it is the best choice. Although I don't know how well my anal retentive self will deal with doing something random like scatter beading. Maybe I can lay out a grid and do not-so-scatter beading. Or maybe I can just talk the Queen of Sparkle into doing it for me. :-P

I will be working on it this weekend, so hopefully will post some pics of my progress then.

In the meantime, my poor kitty Fred!!

My orange cat Fred is injured again. When I got home from work Tuesday, his front paw was all swollen and scary looking. Turns out he fractured all four toes on his foot. We have no idea how. The vet splinted his foot and he sees the specialist on Friday. This is the kitty that had two knee surgeries back in March on one of his back legs. The Boy emptyed out a room so we can shut him in without fear of him jumping on something and hurting himself. I put a mattress on the floor so I can sleep in there with him, so he won't be so scared. Which of course doesn't bode well for getting wedding sewing done.......

Tags: fred, life, wedding

Current Mood:

crazy

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14 March 2008 @ 06:20 pm

Wedding plans…you asked for it!!

"Wedding - how is the planning going? I want all the juicy details, what kind of flowers, how big will it be, what are you most excited about?

And your kitties, update please!"

Pretty much everything except making my dress and making his suit are done…..of course, those are two BIG exceptions!!

We are doing it on October 12^th, a Sunday, in the afternoon at a little country club near where we live—reception and ceremony will be there. 100 people, lots of hors d'oeuvres (instead of a meal). We are having a very yummy cake with one tier chocolate (with either raspberry or fudge filling) and one tier white cake with raspberry filling. The only flowers we are having are a couple bouquets and boutonnieres. My bouquet is going to be a couple varieties of red roses with some red mini callis and little orangey-red berries-- bridesmaid is the same only in shades of orange and yellow and red. Just one bridesmaid and one groomsman. Right now we have centerpieces of ivory colored ceramic punkins that we are going to put on little bed of leaves (however, I am not sure if I want to do that or do glass containers full of cranberries with white flowers. Still thinking on that one)

The colors are "fall colors", but mainly reds and browns. Particularly since my dress is either going to be red or have lots and lots of red in it. (I just got my wedding band back from being made and it is full of ruby and diamond goodness too!).

We have a GREAT swing band called the Boilermakers Jazz Band. And that is what I think I am looking forward to the most—dancing to our favorite band. We are planning on having some of our dancing friends do a little mini swing dance lesson during the cocktail hour for those that don't dance already.

We are honeymooning in DC. Strange I know, since we live there, but neither of us have really done all the fun touristy things around here, and there is SO much to do….and most of it free! So we are getting a fancypants hotel room in town for a few days and hitting all the museums and such.

Kitty update coming soon.

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13 March 2008 @ 10:45 pm

Baaaaaaa!

"Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don't blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post about it. Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, thoughts on religion, favorite type of underwear, random techniques, etc. Repost in your own journal so that we can all learn more about each other!"

Current Mood:

amused

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14 January 2008 @ 12:32 pm

shoes

oh fake vintage shoes, how do i love thee.

( let me count the ways.... )

Tags: shoes

Current Mood:

nostalgic

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16 August 2007 @ 11:22 am

blah! i say, BLAH!

i have been in a severe state of sewing poopiness. i have the blahs.

joe kitty's death was the start of it, but i haven't sewn any thing since......wow, since i helped jenny-rose with her fire outfit. i have been feeling better in general lately, but can't seem to get back on the sewing horse.

if any of y'all have any extra nuggets inspiration, throw 'em my way. or if you have pics of 1930s or 1940s stuff that would look cute on a short girl with a "dumpy" figure (which is how i overheard a bridal store sales girl describe me to her co-workers. yeah. nice.), then share share share!

i will be over here in the corner with my chocolate pudding. cause really, is there any more perfect food? chocolate that you don't even have to chew! heavenly.

Current Mood:

blah

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