The whole bodice and belt of Carolyn’s dress will be beaded, and the belt is fastening with a vintage buckle, so I got to have lots of fun picking up sparkly pogey bait to show to Carolyn so she could decide what would go on the dress. First, we picked buckles.  The two best ones I could find were these: Carolyn, having excellent taste, of course picked this one: A few of the diamantes need to be replaced, but that is easily fixable. With the most important thing selected, we moved on to beads. Each bead will be centred on one of these beautiful, pearlised pailletes: The colours of the beads will range from silver beads on the design around the bust and on the sash, through to silver greys and clear glass beads. The silver grey and pale grey glass beads will help to accentuate the curving lines on the bodice: Clear beads will add extra sparkle: We had originally considered including dark gunmetal beads, but Carolyn decided that they were too stark, and …

Rather than showing you a finished project today (even though I do have quite a few to share), I thought I’d keep you updated with the project that is currently consuming all my time: Carolyn’s wedding dress. I’ve got the bodice all done (well, except for thousands of beads and piping trim and a corset back), and now I’m working on the skirt. I’m extremely pleased with how the bodice has come out, and I am totally in love with the fabric. It is the most indescribably gorgeous colour.  It’s white, but it has depth and dimensionality and a subtle, luminous glow.  And the colour name is ‘vintage’.  Swoon! It also shows the seaming beautifully, which makes it perfect for this dress, but does mean that I have to be extremely precise with my sewing. I want to buy every bit of the fabric that is left in my stash just to have it. The skirt is time consuming, but pretty easy, and very meditative.  It’s just one strip after the other all the way …

UPDATE: I wrote this post a few days ago, before the Christchurch earthquake.  I don’t know what to day about the earthquake, and about what is happening in Canterbury.  There are no words.  So I’m just leaving the post as it is, and hoping that my prayers say enough. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This may be the most boring post ever (or at least the most boring post about Carolyn’s dress, which is not a boring project by any means!) because I completely forgot to take images of the second toile I made for Carolyn. It’s really quite a pity, as the second toile us quite spectacular.  I made it as a finished garment, because doing so was only a tiny bit more work. Anyway, here is what I do have images of: The fabric I used for the lower part of the skirt.  Isn’t it drool worthy?  It’s a crushed, patterned, rayon velvet that I picked up for almost nothing at an op-shop just a few weeks earlier. It was partly so cheap because it had two …