The Bridal Veil

Is there anything more that signals bride than a veil? You can put a woman in a bridal gown but a mother may not shed a tear until the veil is put upon the bride. That is the crowning touch in the bridal ensemble. The veil makes the bride.

Bridal veils have a long and varied history. Veils in times past were used to protect the bride from evil spirits. In arranged marriages, the bride was veiled and the groom did not see his bride until after the ceremony. In some cultures, the veil is used to shield the bride from other men who may make an attempt to steal the bride. In modern times, the veil is used to accent the bridal gown.

If any of you have gone bridal gown shopping, you know that veils can start anywhere from $50 to over $1000. The amount of lace, quality of the lace and the length of the veil will determine the cost. You can also save yourself hundreds of dollars by making the veil yourself. A couple of weeks ago, I posted the week of edging experimentation. Today, I'm just going to show you the final result. I took roughly 130 inches of bridal tulle. The width of the tulle is 108 inches. I cut the tulle into an oval. You could certainly have more of a rectangular edge. I then took 25 inches in the middle of one edge and gathered that. I handstitched the gathers onto a metal comb. I purchased the comb from Lacis.com. The gathering and handstitching came after the pencil edge finsh. Here is the finished result.

Say Yes to the Dress!

The wedding came and went. Quickly. Thank goodness the gown was finished and the flower girl dress fit perfectly.

The day before the wedding, I decided to redo the bustle loops. All night long I worried about the loops and the bustle not holding. So when I got up the next morning, I clipped off all the loops and redid the loops with a double strand of upholstery thread instead of a single strand. By the grace of God, the bustle held.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures. I was just too busy and actually too exhausted to think about pictures. Here is what I have for right now gleamed from others.

The Edge

The past couple of weeks I've been experimenting with different edge finishes for the bridal gown. The great thing about a bridal veil is that you can do almost anything, simple or elaborate and it looks like a veil. Whitney had toyed with several options. We thought we were going to make an alencon lace-trimmed mantilla. As the clock ticked, I opted not to do it. Did I really need a project with more lace to stitch down? If the gown required it, certainly I would have placed an order for more lace. Whitney finally decided that with all the lace on the gown, she wanted to keep the veil simple.

So the experimenting began. I took scraps of veiling to both the sewing machine and the serger. I used different threads and different sewing techniques. I tried gold and silver metallics, plain thread, thread over rattail, thread over gimp. I tried a zig zag stitch, 3 thread overlock, 4 thread overlock, a rolled edge. I tried an the overlock stitches with zigzagging on top. I even tried a double row of serging. That was a neat effect but didn't think Whitney would like it.

The use of the gimp made the edge stiff plus it really didn't show up very well, even with a metallic thread. The rat tail was way too thick. Not the look we wanted. It certainly would work for some brides. I really, really wanted to get the silver metallic on the veil but it was not to be. My serger did not like the thread. Too bad, I spent $15.00 for that one spool of thread. There will be other projects for that though.

The winner was using a rolled edge on the serger with white polyester embroidery thread. I felt the embroidery thread gave the edge a little more umphhh than plain serger thread. Whitney loves it. I'll show pictures of the veil later.

Update: The Modesty Panel Is In

Well this had to be the quickest part of the entire dress. I tacked the panel down to the waist. I may decide to take the stitching lower but I'll wait until Whitney has tried it on. I almost started crying once I got it the back laced up. This has been a long project and I'm almost home. Only the bustle now. Yippee!

The lacing looks a little bit off but I didn't want to pull on the lacing too much but it should look fine on the bride. The waist is sitting a tad low on the dress form.

The Modesty Panel

Here is one of the final tasks for the bridal gown. The modesty panel. The only thing left now to do is the bustle. I don't want to chance pinning the bustle on the dress form. I will have to wait until Whitney gets home and do it the old fashioned way.

For the modesty panel, I took the measurements of the opening then added four inches total for the sides. I added an extra two inches on the length. All I need to do is to slip stitch the bottom and tack it on. I debated on using interfacing on the modesty panel. In the end, I opted not to do that. I didn't need it stiff. But I did baste silk organza to the satin to give it a little more oomph.

It's Been a Long Two Weeks

This is what I've been up to the last two weeks. Yes, it took exactly two weeks to sew the hem and the lace on.





































The hem took about a half a day. I ripped out part of the hem and had to redo it. Remember waaaaay back when I cut out the satin? I took the excess fabric and added it to the skirt. I didn't add any to the front but I did start the increase about six inches from the side seam. Well, all that had to come off. Because I'm not a couturier in real life, I don't always know what I'm doing. In order to make a graceful slope from the front to the back, all that extra fabric had to be cut off. Oh well. That didn't bother me as much as I thought. What bothered me is that because of the excess fabric, my slope is a little wonky at the side seam. Don't ask me how that happened. I'm being brave by posting the underside of the garment. You can see how the hem is wavy. And I have excess fabric in the hemline. I had no issues with the rest of the hem, just at this one particular seam.















My estimate for the time spent on the lace was about 30 hours. The lace is heavily beaded. I could not do a simple basting stitch. In order to get the lace to lay correctly, I had to lay it out on the floor. I only work on three to four scallops at a time. I then had to pin the heck out of it. In certain parts of the hem, excess lace had to be cut out so the lace could lay flat. I'm taking a flat piece of lace and trying to curve it with the curved train.

A Bad Day Sewing is Better than A Good Day at Work?

You've all seen that bumper sticker or t-shirt, "a bad day fishing is better than a good day at work". Well I don't know about that. I like my job, pretty much stress free. However, get me into the sewing room and that's where the frustration begins. Most of it is my own fault. Sometimes you think there is a shortcut only to find out why there should be no short cut. Sometimes I'm the roque sewer, going off on my own. Like the bridal gown. After I made the decision to change the neckline and the back of the gown, I was basically on my own. No directions, no one to lead the way. Just me and it's scary to have me in charge.

It all starts so simple. How hard could it be to make a 12 foot piece of satin lacing for the back of the dress. I chose to cut the strips on the lengthwise length of the grain. I didn't want that puppy to stretch, at all. The problem with this is that the fabric lends itself to fraying. Cutting on the bias would have prevented the unraveling. Anyway, I'm ahead of myself.

I make four 36 inch length strips and stitch those together. I then use the old safety pin technique to turn my strip right side out. After about half way, the safety pin rips from the fabric. Dammit. I mean really, I should have known. I then cut the end off and figured that I would have to hand stitch the end. So once again I start to turn my strip right side out. I'm over 50% of the way. I'm getting excited because the safety pin is still holding. Then out of left field, my seam allowance unravels and the seam is exposed. Dammit.

Now what do I do? I do what any lazy sewer would do. I go to the internet to see if I can buy the *&#%$@& stuff. No dice. So back to the drawing board or to the internet. I decided that maybe I needed to make my strap a hair wider. So instead of a 1/2 inch width, I decide to make the strap 3/4 wide. I then also found this tutorial on turning a strap inside out using not a safety pin but a bobby pin. Oh my gosh, worked like a charm. Thank you Jules from Handmade Things for this great tut.

Other problems this week with rogue sewing. Now came time for the hem and bodice lining. I decide that my priority is to machine stitch the bodice lining to the button loops. I didn't want to hand stitch it in place. I wanted just a little extra strength there. Well, that smart idea didn't work. I needed to turn the dress inside out to stitch the skirt lining to the skirt. Now, I did think about this before I took the dress to the machine. I had it all figured out. It would work. I stitched the lining to the bodice then I went to turn the dress inside out. What the heck. I had a fabric rubics cube puzzle on my hands. There was no way to correct this except for to take out the stitching at the loops. Wouldn't you know I stitched that sucker not once, not twice but three times to make sure those loops stayed in place. Smart me also made the stitch length smaller. As you can imagine, it took a while to rip out. My perfect templated loops are no longer perfect. The picture is dark but you can see some of the stitching lines.

So, it's back to hand stitching the bodice lining in place and cross my fingers that the loops are securely fastened.

Lace Up Back

Last week I worked on the back closure of the bridal gown. I was so dreading the loops. I kept finding excuses not to go into the atelier. Well I had to bite the bullet eventually. All in all, it really wasn't as bad as I feared. After getting the hang of the first tube, it went fairly quickly.



I started out with cutting one inch bias stripes with the satin. After stitching out, the tubes were about an 1/8 of an inch wide. That's the part I was dreading, turning the suckers right side out when they are so narrow. However, with a lot of internet research, I was able to figure the best way to accomplish this task.


I needed to draw out a template. I wanted the loops to be one inch apart and I wanted the loops to stick out 1/4 of an inch. The opening on the bridal gown is 20 inches. I decided to make the loop strip 17 inches on both sides. After the loops were pinned, they were basted right onto the paper. The paper strip was then taken to the gown and basted onto the bridal gown. I have to say, it looked pretty perfect. Looked you say? Ya. I decided to reinforce the edge with horsehair braid after the fact. The braid was a tad too wide. It did not look right. So out it came. And with that, the ripping out of the horsehair braid, the loops started to not be so perfect. The final stitch out with the lining, the loops holes are a tad larger than I wanted.


















I took the gown back to the dress form to take a trial run. At this point, everything is just basted, no permanent stitching. I grabbed some ribbon to check the look. So far, so good. Now on to the making of the satin lacing.

The Innards

On this day, besides cutting out the lining, I stitched together the cotton batiste layer and all the lining pieces. I then added the boning to the cotton batiste. In addition to boning, a waist stay is stitched on. The waist stay had to be tacked down in 52 spots. This will help to support the weight of the skirt. This is extremely important in strapless gowns. Really, how many times have you seen brides continually pull up the bodice of a strapless gown? This tells me that the fit isn't quite perfect and it needed additional support via boning and a waist stay.

The batiste layer is layer number three. I will need to make buttonholes in the lining for the waist stay to exit from. The stay will have hooks and eyes so we can attach around Whitney's waist.

It's taken months to of work to get to today's stage. Certainly, there have been several speedbumps to cause daily, weekly and monthly delays in working on the ground. However, building a bridal gown is so similar to building a building. The architect comes up with the design. Doesn't it take a couple of years for that design to be a real live building? You don't see all the changes in the design. When you tour the building, you don't see the time that went into the plumbing, electrical, heating, foundation, etc. All you see, is the architectual details, you see the landscaping, you see the interior design with the furniture and the artwork. You see the paint colors on the wall. You see all the flooring.

There is so much actual hand work that has gone into the gown. So much book and internet research on the design and construction techniques to support the gown. I'm finally getting closer for this project to turn into a real live bridal gown. Each layer has had the seam allowance stitched down with a catch stitch. I don't want to run the risk of the seam allowance going all wonky and being able to see that from the right side of the gown. So it's stitched into place, it won't move on me.




The skirt is now basted onto the bodice. Whitney has been busy working on the invitations, that she hasn't had time to try the gown on. I'm hoping we can take care of that tonight or tomorrow. Once the fit is double checked, the skirt will be permanently attached to the bodice. The bodice lace is being hand beaded right now. It will then be attached to the midriff band. Nothing else can happen until that is attached. Then comes more scary stuff. The cutting out the back and turning it into a corseted back. It really is an easy closing to make, a little time consuming though.

More of the Same

You are all probably beginning to wonder if I'm really going anywhere. Is the bridal gown all talk? Believe me, sometimes it feels like I'm a little gerbil spinning around on that wire wheel. Tuesday was a productive day. I started out with beading and cutting out the pattern. AGAIN. This time, it was the lining that needed to be cut out. Can I please be finished with the cutting? Stay with me, the bodice was cut out a total of eight times, four practice, four layers on the real deal. The skirt was cut out four times. Once for practice and three layers on the real deal.

I found out that a fabric store in Green Bay was closing down. I know that in the past, this store had carried silk, lace and heirloom supplies. I bee-lined it up to Green Bay the following day. The owner had a silk-cotton blend which was exactly what I was looking for for the lining of the bridal gown. However, she didn't have enough. She had about six yards of the white. She also had a whole bolt of ivory. The ivory was a slightly different percentage of silk/cotton. The white was just a "white". The bridal gown is more of a diamond/silver white due to the high thread count. The white lining is not as bright. I decided to buy one yard of the white for the bodice lining.

I don't know if this was a huge blunder but I purchase the ivory fabric. I bought the whole bolt. You see, the ivory was one shade off of the white bolt. It actually didn't look too bad. When you see the pile of fabric, yes it does look ivory. I hemmed and hawed for over thirty minutes about the purchase. I've spent so much time researching each and every purchase. 99% of the supplies, fabrics and laces being purchased online. I really want to avoid yet another purchase with a week wait for shipping. I decide to go with it. I suppose I could always rebuy the fabric online. I will have to see how the skirt lining looks once it is basted onto the skirt. The pictures that are posted, the lining isn't too far off. I suppose there's a reason that I'm not a designer in real life.

Bridal Gown Week, Day Five

Day Five of Bridal gown week was uneventful sewing-wise. I got a little bit of basting done. Taylor and I ran a lot of errands. How many times can someone go to Home Depot in one week? She's been a good sport about helping with the house remodel. Before we left for errands, I was becoming very frustrated trying to press the lengths of fabric before cutting and pressing the pieces after cutting. You see, I have one of those built in ironing boards. Yes, it's nice to have it on the wall and out of site. It isn't the best product for someone who does a lot of quilting and sewing. In addition to being small, it is made for a left-hander. I don't know if the builder just added it without thinking or if the previous owner was left handed. It is impossible for me to work with though.

I decide to call around before we run errands. After all, I'm on vacation this week, I'm trying to be as efficient as possible with my time off. I call Bed, Bath and Beyond. There is an ironing board that I want. The Rowenta super-sized board. I want to make sure they have one in stock before I drive across town. There was no Rowenta board to be found at the store. In fact, there was no board to be found in their region which went to Ohio. He tries to sell me a Revolution 360 board. Of course, his store doesn't have one in stock so I would have to order it and wait. I toy for about three minutes on ordering one. The price is $130.00 plus shipping plus tax. And it isn't long like the board I want which is cheaper, about $100. This Revolution board spins like in all directions. You can press shirt cuff and necklines with ease. But quite honestly, I don't need an ironing board that I can perform heart surgery on, I just need a large board to press a bridal gown.

I decide to take to the internet. I go on Craig's List to look for rummage sales. I want an old, I mean OLD ironing board. I can't see paying $25.00 for a piece of crap ironing board that will move across the floor with every move of the iron. God was looking out for me. Right there on Craig's List some one was selling an old ironing board. That was all they were selling. Turns out the ironing board belonged to the man's mother who did a lot of sewing. He and his wife were downsizing. That's it? That's all you're getting rid of? Oh well, it worked for me. Did I tell you I wanted something old? This sucker is heavy. It won't be moving anywhere while I press. It does need to be cleaned up and a cover placed on it.


Look at the label. Made in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Hmmm. Mother was a sewer, made in Milwaukee, from the 50's. This is perfect for me. All for a whopping $8.00. Can you see the label where is says "Mrs Housewife"? I'm pretty sure this is from the 1950's, certainly before women were burning their bras. Unfortunately, that beautiful label got ripped while in the back of my Tahoe. I need to now research on a glue that can take the heat from an iron. I'm not going to get rid of the label.

I'm so happy with my CL find. And you know what, it's so sturdy, I actually think you could perform heart surgery on it.

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.

Pourquoi est si elle le signifie pour moi?

What did I do to deserve this type of treatment? It's not fair. She's so mean to me. You all know that I've been cooped up in this place for weeks on end now. No fun whatsoever. This family is boring with a capitol B. Just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, along comes an opportunity to, um mingle. Yes, that's the right word, mingle.

The designer and her spouse hired some American men to work on their house. Oh my! Finally some glimmer of hope for conversation and fun. I told her that I wanted to be part of the action. She wouldn't hear of it. She said I would cause too much trouble and distraction. The American men are here to work and get the house ready for the big event.

What does she do? She makes me wear this hideous dress. Mon Dieu! It's like yellow and old. It doesn't even fit correctly. Who wore this? I thought all American women had Amazon bodies, not slim like the French. I voiced my dislike. This dress is not soooo not me. She told me that it is a "vintage" piece and that her sister bought it for her. I see her taste in fashion is genetic.

As if that wasn't bad enough, she put me in the corner. Well, no one puts Gigi in the corner. (Haha, that movie made it to Paris. That line works for me.)


Fella's, oh fella's. Over here.














À bientôt

Gigi

Bridal Week Day Two

I'm on day two of Bridal week. I was very busy but it doesn't look like that much got accomplished. Before the remodel, I had cut out most of the bodice and the front piece of the skirt. Now was the time to start cutting the rest of the gown.

I've been dragging my feet on this. Why? Because this is the scary part. One mistake and I'm done for. The pattern pieces all have to face the same direction. Satin has a nap and if not careful, the gown would appear to be made out of two different color whites. I have to make sure that I have a right and a left piece. During most garment construction, that is fairly easy. However, when you get into the larger/wider pattern pieces, you can only cut out one piece at a time, not two. I have to make sure that I do indeed have enough fabric. I should, I purchased 30 extra inches. But hey, it's me we're talking about. Murphy's Law prevails, a lot.

The first order of business was to measure all the pattern pieces and times the measurement by two. I had 348 inches of pattern. I didn't want to do it, but I unrolled the bolt of satin. I had 342 inches of satin. Hmmmm. (Remember Murphy's Law?) So technically I'm 6 inches short of fabric. My fabric is 54 inches wide and not 60 inches so that caused a lot of the shortage. I decided that once I put the pieces on, we would be fine. The pieces that make up the sweep of the train are not cut straight, so I knew that I could gain a few inches with each piece.


I need to finally commit. I take the fabric and cut it in half. I pray that my calculations are correct. Even though the fabric is white, I can't just order more white if I make a mistake. White also has a dye lot. I would have to purchase the whole 11 yards again. Remember that there is a nap so I mark the top of the length of fabric and the bottom of the fabric before I cut. I now have two pieces of fabric and place them one on top of the other, right sides together.




While working with the fabric, I just kept stopping to look at it. It's gorgeous. I'm pinching myself that I'm fortunate enough to have this in my hands.










I laid the skirt pieces out. At the end of the line, I find that I now have nine inches extra. Whew! Now the next question. What to do with the nine inches? I'm German, can't let that go to waste. So I decide to do what any true romantic would do, I add the extra length to the train. So to do this, all the pieces had to be removed for me to start over. Now, I just can't add the nine inches to the very back piece. All the pieces except for the front need to have additional length so there is a gradual increase for the train. I probably spent an hour moving the pieces to make sure that I would have a gradual slope and enough fabric to do what I needed. So starting from the side front piece we went from zero to the back piece that is four inches longer than the pattern intended.

Even after several trial runs on the bodice, the shoulder strap is too big. We tried different adjustments, but none that we tried was the perfect solution. What I'm doing right now is taking two small tucks on the side nearest the neck. I don't want to make the armhole smaller. Yes, I am basically guessing on expensive fabric. If this doesn't work, I have enough of the satin scraps to continue onward.

I spent four hours this morning on the layout and cutting of these pieces. I also hand basted the bodice pieces and the midriff band.