All posts tagged: classical influence

Juno dress: ruching tulle and pleating silk

I’m plugging away at the Juno dress. It’s at the point where everything is incredibly labour intensive and I spend hours and hours on it without seeming to get anywhere.  It’s all going to come together soon and look amazing though, I swear! First I pinned and draped the tulle, and then hand sewed it on, and tacked it down with invisible stitches all over the place so it holds the drape. Then I had to figure out the bottom pleating, and make it fit perfectly around the width of the skirt. Felicity helped with that part.  Her instinct for expensive fabric is amazing.  I lay the skirt down on the floor to pin the pleats, turned around, picked up a pin, turned back, and she was lounging on the fabric as if she had been there for hours. Finally, I spent an entire evening making silk ‘poofs’ for the border at the top of  pleating. I peered and analyzed detail images of the inspiration dress as best as I could, but the silk is …

Juno dress: draping the skirt

The Juno dress is coming along. I’ve been draping the skirt. First I needed to patch the last bits of support fabric (the dark blue) that weren’t covered because the duchesse wasn’t wide enough to drape all the way across the skirt. I just used scraps of fabric for the patching, because it is all in areas that will be hidden by the tulle With that all done, I sewed the back of the skirt on, and arranged the pleats: Now, I’m sure you have all been looking at this and thinking “that doesn’t look like train on your inspiration picture!” And no, it doesn’t. But it will. If you’ve been following my facebook page you may have an inkling of why it doesn’t look like the train above, and how it will. If you don’t follow my facebook page, you’ll have to wait a few days to find out. I’m off to go drape some tulle now.

Trials and tribulations of dyeing

Having decided that the Juno dress really needs to be closer to the original, and that the only draping option I have that will really give the same effect is some silk tulle and mesh, currently coloured gold, chocolate brown, and black (which I dyed over the gold), my only option was to un-dye and than re-dye the tulle to match the duchesse silk of the dress. So this is what I started with: This is what I got after 60 seconds in the un-dye pot: Well, sweet tiny Jamie, that wasn’t what I expected!  Now I have a problem! Luckily, after a LOT more soaking and stirring, and a whole new packet of un-dyer, I achieved much more satisfactory results: Even the chocolate silk mesh un-coloured with a lot of encouragement: Having finally achieved colours neutral enough to attempt re-dyeing, I tackled that.  I picked a navy blue silk dye. Unfortunately, on my first go I forgot to add vinegar to help it set, so the colouring was a little insipid. A dry, a …