A little blood maketh the bodice...

Friends, I have now three working sewing machines in my possession.  Woohoo!

I took a personal day off of work today, Wednesday, to catch up on all the sewing I've been missing over the last two weeks.  It's been a grand, quiet day...and it got me thinking...

The first half of making this dress was all about the structure, the fashion fabric, quick results (i.e., seeing the actual dress take shape), and a lot of machine sewing.  Meanwhile, the last half of making this dress has been all about the details on the inside of the dress and involves a load of hand stitching.  So, while I now have more working machines than any girl could possibly want to sew on, I spent ALL DAY today on tasks that required hand sewing!  This couldn't be any more ironic.

I did do a FEW stitches on my newly repaired machine, just enough to get grease from the machine's tune up on the silk lining.  See that little black stain?  Grrr...

You don't really expect to get grease like this on things you're sewing, but believe it or not big fluffy petticoat wedding dresses get all bungled up and lofty and touch things that ordinarily wouldn't be touched by your project.  I finally figured out that the grease was coming from where the needle goes up into the machine.  I swabbed it as best I could with a tissue and was just grateful this wasn't the outer garment.

Next up on my list of hand sewing is something called a waist stay.  It's a grosgrain ribbon (that will not stretch) that you stitch to the boning of the bodice at waist level.  It acts like an internal belt for a strapless dress so that no indecent moments happen at your big event.  No one wants to see that.  No one.  Okay, maybe Craig.



I didn't want to do this step but my sewing buddy, Denise, bullied me into it.  Like Julia Childs' advice on adding butter to a recipe, "You could leave it out, but you'll be sooooorrrrrryyyyyy!"

Here I'm showing you my crappy button hole I had to make so the waist stay could pass through the lining.  Sigh.  Not my best work, but no one (but you) will know because it's on the inside of the dress.  Shhhhh...

 

 So, I did it.  The bugger is in.  Are you happy, Denise?  (Actually, the dress does feel more secure now that this step is done.)

All I need to do now is put hooks and eyes on the ribbon so I can fasten it around my waist before I tighten the bodice laces.









Now that every step that was internal to the bodice is done, I was free to hand stitch the lining of the bodice to the waist of the dress.

 So you're thinking, "the bodice is done, right?"

No.

The next hand sewing task was to install a bra into the dress.  I put on a slightly padded bra I already owned (and was willing to sacrifice), tried on the dress, laced it up, and VERY CAREFULLY pinned the bra to the bodice of the dress without drawing blood.  I was successful!

I took the dress off and clipped the bra straps off.

Then I used a catch stitch to anchor the bra to the lining and the inner layer of organza (the fabric that gives the bodice its body).  Voila!  No need to buy a special bra.  I saw this technique being used by several blogging seamstresses on the vanguard of the strapless summer dress movement.  I figured if it was good enough for their little frock, it would work for me on this one very special day.

If you look really closely, you can see that I drew blood on my thumb performing the VERY LAST of the bodice sewing...and I blame Denise.  She started this bloody tradition of bleeding on the bodice and I thought I could end the curse as I'd not shed a drop thus far.  But as it turns out, a little blood maketh the bodice!

Denise and I will be getting together in a few weeks to work on the lace overlay for the bodice.  Until then, my wedding dress homework is to hem the skirt...BY HAND.  Ugh.