Poorly, again :(

[mlsdesigns]

I have a cold, again. But I'm still managing to sew a little bit - hand sewing while lying on the sofa! I had to come home from work early on Wednesday, yesterday was my day off, but I was hoping to go in today. Instead I woke up feeling very icky :( I went back to sleep till nearly lunch time and felt lots better, but still not 100%
Anyway, I have managed to get the neckline of the chemise fixed, the petticoat has fastenings and tucks at the hem, but I managed to measure wrong, so the frill is on too high, I'm either going to take it off again and make more tacks and attach it again at the right point, or hope I can order more eyelet and add another frill, either way it can wait!!
Yesterday I actually thought to measure the taffeta I have, I could have sworn I got 5yds of the blue and 4 of the green, turns out, I had 5yds of blue and 5 and a third of the green! So looks like I'm making my dress from the green after all!! Anyway, having decided this I then cut out the bodice and It's all sewn together! It just needs a good pressing and the hem at neckline pressed over so I can hem it down with cotton tape. Looking at the dresses in Costume in detail, and reading koshka_the_cat's posts of her newest dress, I decided to fold the neck edge over once and cover the raw edges with tape, creating a drawstring channel at the same time. I made the back bigger, so I can gather it in as per the original, but I don't want to have the gathers fixed, I like the flexibility of drawstrings! I'm still not sure how I'm going to do the rouleau round the neck with an adjustable drawstring, but I'm sure it'll work out! Ever the eternal optimist me!!
Talking of the rouleaux, I found super duper wide piping cord, it's cotton and really soft, I think it'll definitely work for the skirt rouleaux, and it'll help the skirt hang nicely - give it a pleasing weight. The bodice rouleaux I think I'll do with the quilting wool I've got, I'll have to use 2 strands at least to make it thick enough, but I think the cotton might be too heavy on the bodice, and I'm sure it wouldn't work well at the back where it's gathered.
I need to mockup sleeves before I can get to the rouleaux, I still can't decide between beret or regular puff sleeves!!

Comments

[chloeandrudy.livejournal.com]

I keep reading about rouleaux, and now I'm going to have to find out more about it. I've seen it, just don't know how.
Hope you feel better soon. Have a hot cuppa of something spicey.

[mlsdesigns.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I hope I do too :(

[koshka-the-cat.livejournal.com]

I used wool batting for the rouleaux around my neckline. It was very nice to work with and gave the perfect amount of fluff.

For my dress, I decided to just put the neckline trim in front.

Here's a picture of me I just found on Facebook. It's a great one of the back!



And I love the flexibility of drawstrings. First, it's pretty, and second, well, you don't have to deal with back fitting :)

My drawstrings start at the shoulders and side seams. I also have ties from about each dart on the inside. There's one in Costume in Detail like that. More than one, I think. I wanted the waist drawstring to go all around, but it kept getting stuck on the darts. Oops!

[mlsdesigns.livejournal.com]

I think we've probably had the same page open as our go-to reference :) I was planning to have the drawstrings go from the shoulders and the side seams too, with tape ties from the darts in front ;) That book is a godsend isn't it?!
I'm going to use wool batting for the hem padding I think, because I want it nice and fat, and my quilting wool seems like it will behave exactly the same way.
Thank you for pointing out your lack of rouleaux in back, I didn't notice before!! I just might have to try that...