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| All the pleated pieces awaiting final assembly |
The wet pleating process is awesome. The skirt & sleeves dried exactly
perfect. They’re crispy & they
change color in light like the original designer described the real
dress. My original bodice was awful. Patterning
for smocking is very different from patterning to get a tailored fit, so the yoke
looked stupid & broke up the line of the dress. I fussed with the original pieces & it looked
horrible no matter what I did to it, so I revised the design, got out some
draping fabric & spent a couple hours draping & basting on myself in a
mirror trying to get the fit & look I needed. Draping is something you do on someone else or on a dressform that
matches the measurements & shape exactly, so doing it
on yourself is difficult & frustrating. It takes a certain level of skill
& a special level of crazy. I
finally got what I wanted, cut it out, made it up in the real fabric, wet it
& pleated it.
While it was drying I started working with the wig &
headpiece. After
trying to force the whole thing to sit properly on my head with all the extra
weight of my own hair, I realized there was no way with the tight fit of the
dress I would be able to dress myself. I
can’t even hope to get the wig on myself once I’m in in the dress (it’s nearly impossible
NOT in the dress). Also, I can’t drive in the wig assembly so I’d have to get
dressed and have my hair fixed after I got to work. There’s no way I’ll be able to wear it at work
tomorrow. I need a dresser with mad wig
skilz and at least an hour of help to get me into my clothes. So at 3PM I did a hard stop. How do you blog crushing disappointment? There is no way I can make this work alone, even
though I had enough time to finish the dress.
Sometimes, life just sucks that way.
I’ve put a little over 8 hours into the dress. It needs ~3 more to
finish. But not tonight. Tonight I just need to rage at the universe for tasks
that take 2 people.
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