Returning with Rememberance
Hello again. I apologize for being late in returning to blogging after promising to be back last week. But I have returned. I am grateful for the time off. I really needed to hunker down for the final push to complete what I could in time for the Renaissance Faire, which I did enjoy by the way. I will go ahead & warn you here & now that I am temporarily without a camera, so even though I would love to show you pics of what I have done while I was working on my projects, I can't. Once I have my replacement for the Relic, I will post pics of these projects.
I did manage to get my Aqua Mist Cloak & Water Lily Overdress to the best form of wearable that I have ever gotten to. They just need some minor tweaking to give them a more polished look that I can be comfortable in. I will admit here & now though that I did not have enough time to tackle the shift to go with the Water Lily Overdress. Since the skirt part opens in the front of the dress, I did have to get something to wear underneath it. Fortunately with all of the costume shops around for Halloween, I found something doable to work with the Overdress & Fairy Crown, even if it wasn't a proper shift.
Now than what I have completed for...
Aqua Mist Maid Marion Cloak: after ending the last episode with pinning the outer shell & linings together...
I ran the 3 Gathering baste stitches on both the hood & the body of the cloak. Then after cutting out the outer & inner collars, I pinned & stitched the hood & body to the inner collar 1st. The outer collar, however I began with repeating the decorative stitch from the hood earlier in the project. While progressing through this I had taken the outer collar to work to complete the detailing of the knot with gorgeous buttons & hook closure with sewn-in gems. Once this was completed I attached the outer collar to the rest of the cloak just in time for the Faire.
Water Lily: Since last ending with hand-stitching the darts on the bodice...
I went to work on the skirt's border trim. Not seeing any brocade trims that I liked, I combined Offray ribbon with silver squiggle trim & a skinny braid also in silver. Beginning with the Ribbon, I pinned it covering the raw edges of the dress with the squiggle trim on top. The ribbon didn't shift from the pinning unlike the squiggle trim. This being the case, I didn't see the point of wasting time that I didn't have pinning miles of braid that would wind up shifting. Therefore I carefully & a lil slowly, free stitched the braid to the uncovered edge of the ribbon.
With the detailing of the skirt completed, I moved back to the bodice where all of the sides & shoulder seams were stitched up. With the basic bodice done, I used the gathering stitches to pin the skirt to the bodice. Now knowing where the waist of the dress was, I could now add the ribbon & trim to both the waist & the collar of the bodice. Then finishing up, the zipper was added leaving the dress wearable.
Again I admit that these pieces are among the best deadline crunch "wearables" that I have done. I was content for all that I was able to achieve in the time that I had with them, however I am not sufficiently satisfied with where I left off with them and will be working on them in the future. Minor issues with them include the gatherings stitches, where some of them are seen on the outside & portions of fabric was stitched up in the wrong places. Since I need to take it slightly apart to fix this issue, I have been debating with Aqua Mist if I should add the bead detailing from the hood to the outer collar, even though I know that it won't be seen. Water Lily Overdress has a lil bit more to be done. Due to time I never bothered finishing off the gauntlets, which are cut out at the very least. Also the dress wound up being snug. So I need to add side panels to it. This means that the Bodice ribbon trim that already needs to be redone (primarily just the collar) has to be adjusted as well. There is also a better idea on how to attach the zipper, that I would like to do.
For me, sewing is a learning experience. I know that the list of "fix-ups" might make it look as if I hate what I have done & that they aren't perfect, but I don't. I am now a lil wiser in dealing with trims & sewing up miles of gatherings. Now its a matter of getting them to my satisfied point, where I don't feel obligated to fix them up anymore or look at them like they're a hopeless case like last years dress.
So until next week...
I did manage to get my Aqua Mist Cloak & Water Lily Overdress to the best form of wearable that I have ever gotten to. They just need some minor tweaking to give them a more polished look that I can be comfortable in. I will admit here & now though that I did not have enough time to tackle the shift to go with the Water Lily Overdress. Since the skirt part opens in the front of the dress, I did have to get something to wear underneath it. Fortunately with all of the costume shops around for Halloween, I found something doable to work with the Overdress & Fairy Crown, even if it wasn't a proper shift.
Now than what I have completed for...
Aqua Mist Maid Marion Cloak: after ending the last episode with pinning the outer shell & linings together...
I ran the 3 Gathering baste stitches on both the hood & the body of the cloak. Then after cutting out the outer & inner collars, I pinned & stitched the hood & body to the inner collar 1st. The outer collar, however I began with repeating the decorative stitch from the hood earlier in the project. While progressing through this I had taken the outer collar to work to complete the detailing of the knot with gorgeous buttons & hook closure with sewn-in gems. Once this was completed I attached the outer collar to the rest of the cloak just in time for the Faire.
Water Lily: Since last ending with hand-stitching the darts on the bodice...
I went to work on the skirt's border trim. Not seeing any brocade trims that I liked, I combined Offray ribbon with silver squiggle trim & a skinny braid also in silver. Beginning with the Ribbon, I pinned it covering the raw edges of the dress with the squiggle trim on top. The ribbon didn't shift from the pinning unlike the squiggle trim. This being the case, I didn't see the point of wasting time that I didn't have pinning miles of braid that would wind up shifting. Therefore I carefully & a lil slowly, free stitched the braid to the uncovered edge of the ribbon.
With the detailing of the skirt completed, I moved back to the bodice where all of the sides & shoulder seams were stitched up. With the basic bodice done, I used the gathering stitches to pin the skirt to the bodice. Now knowing where the waist of the dress was, I could now add the ribbon & trim to both the waist & the collar of the bodice. Then finishing up, the zipper was added leaving the dress wearable.
Again I admit that these pieces are among the best deadline crunch "wearables" that I have done. I was content for all that I was able to achieve in the time that I had with them, however I am not sufficiently satisfied with where I left off with them and will be working on them in the future. Minor issues with them include the gatherings stitches, where some of them are seen on the outside & portions of fabric was stitched up in the wrong places. Since I need to take it slightly apart to fix this issue, I have been debating with Aqua Mist if I should add the bead detailing from the hood to the outer collar, even though I know that it won't be seen. Water Lily Overdress has a lil bit more to be done. Due to time I never bothered finishing off the gauntlets, which are cut out at the very least. Also the dress wound up being snug. So I need to add side panels to it. This means that the Bodice ribbon trim that already needs to be redone (primarily just the collar) has to be adjusted as well. There is also a better idea on how to attach the zipper, that I would like to do.
For me, sewing is a learning experience. I know that the list of "fix-ups" might make it look as if I hate what I have done & that they aren't perfect, but I don't. I am now a lil wiser in dealing with trims & sewing up miles of gatherings. Now its a matter of getting them to my satisfied point, where I don't feel obligated to fix them up anymore or look at them like they're a hopeless case like last years dress.
So until next week...
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