Bridal Gown Week, Day Three and Four

I've had almost a month off from blogging. It's not that I haven't had anything to say, I've always got stuff to say. I've been slowly plugging away at the dress. I did have to take several days off due to the remodeling project. No furniture meant no work. I have a wonderful cutting table in my sewing studio. Unfortunately, it isn't as wide as the dining table. I need a wide table to work on due to the width of the train pieces. Besides the furniture issue, I spent several days painting. I didn't want to paint the hallway then work on the gown. I wanted to paint to be completely dried before I walked fabric back and forth into the laundry room to press.

Anyway, back to bridal gown week. Days three and four were spent cutting out the silk organza and hand basting it to the fashion fabric. I ordered a bolt of the silk organza and I think it had between thirteen and fifteen yards to the bolt. Now comes the task of cutting out this unruly fabric. With the organza underlining cut out, each piece is now basted to the silk. The seven skirt pieces each take over an hour to hand baste together. Then we have all the bodice pieces that also needs to be basted. I don't want to baste with the sewing machine. The silk organza is not an easy fabric to control. I decide to underline with the organza to help give the silk satin strength and body. The best way to control this is to pin, pin, pin and then do the work by hand.

Things were going well until day four. The work is somewhat tedious but really not that bad. I do most of the stitching in complete silence. I try not to have the television on because that tends to zap my time away. I find that on day four, my finger can't take the pain of the needle anymore. I'm working with a small, fine Japanese hand needle. The head of the needle is so fine, it digs into my skin as I push it through the fabric. After a couple of days, I now have a hole in my finger. The hole doesn't hurt, it's when I push the needle along and the head digs deeper into the hole. Now that causes me pain. I decide to pull out my thimbles and see what will work be for the stitching. I find that I'm losing dexterity with the thimbles. I try pretty much all of them including the pink horse ankle tape. The horse tape works better but doesn't stay on the finger for very long. I decide to stop and give my finger a rest and to let it heal for a while.

The next day, the light bulb came on. I forgot about the liquid bandage product that I use when I hand quilt. So off I go to get it out of the sewing studio. I apply two light applications and let my finger dry. The liquid bandage gives a protective coating to the finger. Even with the hole in my finger, I'm able to continue working.