The Dreamstress

As part of my whole “doing the mending, cleaning the house” binge, I have tackled my pile of UF-pros (un-finished projects).

On the top of the pile was the 1930s dress I made as a trial run for my wedding dress (yeah, I’m blogging about that next week – don’t worry!).

The dress had two problems:

1. It was blush pink georgette, lined in beige.  Not a good idea for someone who is already basically blush pink and beige.
2. The bodice never fit properly.

Unfortunately, there are no images of the original dress for me to show you what it looked like, or what I looked like in it.  But it needed help.

So, after a go at re-lining the whole dress in a maroon-fuchsia (I just can’t describe the colour right now!) satin, which did improve the whole blush pink and beige problem a bit, but made the bodice fit even worse than it had previously, I chopped off the whole bodice.

Then, I did the worse job ever of stay-stitching along the top of the skirt to keep the bias fabric of the bodice front from warping while I attached a waistband.

And then I attached a simple calico (muslin) waistband to the skirt.

I indulged myself and did some fancy stitching on the waistband.

To add a bit more colour, I took some leftover satin lining fabric, and fashioned a simple ruched cummerbund to hide the waistband.

It adds just the right ‘pop’ to the skirt.

The skirt and sash/cummerbund are finished for now, but I still need to make a 30’s style evening blouse.  I’m thinking of something along the lines of this:

Or this:

I have a bit of white silk from a kimono lining that will be perfect for the base fabric, and I’m planning to embellish it with big flowers made of the lining satin and the scraps of georgette from the skirt.  They are both synthetic, so will do beautiful ‘melt’ flowers.