Eugenie skirt in-progress
I have my base skirt assembled with the 2 tiers of black lace. I realize my lace is rather heavier than in the original, but ah well, it *is* a lovely embroidered lace and the pattern. I think, overall, my gown is going to be darker than the original. My purple is darker, my lace is heavier — this wasn’t intentional (Bridget and Kendra helped pick the fabrics!), but go figure, mine’s turning into a gothic Eugenie maid!
So in the same vein, I think I should use the slightly darker chiffon I got instead of the slightly lighter (and stiffer) organza I originally bought. I pinned the two side-by-side — pix are on the Y!group, though the difference doesn’t show up very well. In person, the lighter color looked really off to me. Worse of all was contrast where the base skirt shows through the lace *above* the organza ruffles. Looked really bright compared to the pale organza, but it wasn’t so obvious with the darker chiffon. Also, I still like how the chiffon drapes better (even after washing the organza; thanks for the tip, Bridget, it helped some, but not enough :-).
Testing fabrics & trim on the Eugenie overskirt
So now it’s on to cutting and trimming those ruffles. Oi.
Btw, the silk embroidery ribbon from Cam Creations looks great. Really soft and floaty, plus great customer service and FAST shipping. About 2 days! Highly recommended. It’s definitely the light, non-faced ribbon, but perfect for trimming, imo.
Later that day…
Let the hand-sewing begin!
Massive 140″-ish skirt hem is pinned. Now I have to hand-sew it.
Boy, this would be the ideal for iron-on hem tape or stitch witchery! But I am resisting temptation for you folks. Just thought you’d like to know the sacrifices I’m making 😉
However, I don’t think I’ll get to the ruffles today, because it’ll take a couple hours to hem by hand as I’m slow.
Nothing new, but I am still the world’s slowest sewer, especially hand-sewing. Oi, I don’t know why you people enjoy sewing by hand! Freaks. My fingertips will be bleeding by Monday (all blistery sore right now). And don’t even talk to me about the cricks and aches in my back, neck, and shoulders, although some of that’s from machine-sewing too. However, this has been an 80% hand-sewing (or unpicking) weekend.
Upside? I got through the entire More Hip Than Hippie podcast backlog. Now I’m listening to old Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me (althoughI didn’t miss many of those) and I have a ton of Grammar Girl, Podictionary, Writer’s Almanac, and TreeHugger Radio to keep me going for the rest of the afternoon. Podcasting is my new NPR. No pledge breaks.