Mostly done…or not. The Luna Moth dress

With a lot of help from Mrs C, who showed up on Friday evening and did almost 5 straight hours of beading, I got the Luna Moth dress mostly done for Saturday’s Art Nouveau dance. Unfortunately, I realised mid-day on Saturday that if I tried to finish it in time for the dance I would be very stressed, and tempted to cut corners.

So I did the sensible thing (for once), set the dress aside, pulled something else out of my wardrobe, and concentrated on dance planning.

Not wearing the Luna Moth dress turned out to be a good decision all around, as Saturday night was extremely warm, and my alternate dress was much cooler than the Luna Moth ensemble.

This is what the Luna moth dress looks like at the moment:

As you can see, I’ve got the main bits put together, and draped the bodice.

After trying a few draping combinations on Isabelle, I realised that the mauve velvet was going to look better than the green for the bodice, so I used a bit of green border around the neckline to tie the colour in. I’m not happy with the border, so I’m going to re do it.

In fact, the whole dress is looking a bit rumpled and in need of tweaking (and major ironing!).

At least the beading is looking rather magnificent thanks to Mrs C.

I still want to scatter pale green beads over both layers of the green skirt, mauve beads up the front panel of the top skirt layer, and a few silver and mauve beads at the ends of the sleeve points.

The dress still needs:

-The mauve velvet band sewn around the top of the lower skirt tier.
-A sash, which I have learned after trial and error should be mounted on stiff fabric, rather than the green silk, which warps and pulls.
-A few more beads (as mentioned above)
-A few domes (snaps) and hooks and eyes.
-Lots of weights in the skirt layers to keep it all smooth and hanging nicely

Here is what it looks like with most of the important bits roughly pinned on:

When it is done, I need an event to wear it to, as I missed the obvious one!