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 …

After, many, many toiles of the bodice, I was ready to do the first toile of the full dress for Carolyn’s wedding dress. Of course, it was at this point that I discovered that all of the discardable toile fabrics that I could fine in my stash were in weird patterned colours, which is fine for my own mock ups, but not ideal for bridal mock ups as I want the brides to be able to get an idea of what the final dress will look like. So I did something rather stupid.  I used one of my ugly patterned fabrics, and then I flat over-lined it in very thin white sheeting (too thin for a proper toile on its own) I do not recommend this for toiles!  It was tricky to work with, and made fitting difficult. Of course, immediately after going to all the trouble to cut out every pattern piece twice, and flat line them, and sew them all together, and having sent the toile off to Carolyn, I discovered an entire …