The Turtle Wins the RACE

I hope everyone had a joyous Christmas and New Year surrounded by family, love, laughter and good food.   

 

Break is over and now it is time to focus on more important things like the wedding dress. My blogs entries will be picking up from here on until it is finished.  We left off with the bodice construction AND that is where we pick up.

We don't think about the back of our clothes very often but we do with a wedding  dress.  In some cases it can be the focus as a bride walks down the isle or stands at the altar so the back must be as beautiful as the front.  So let me show you how the back of Brittney's wedding dress is going to be constructed.

Just a reminder to everyone I am working on sort of a pre-dress to make sure that the bodice fits Brittney’s body like a glove.  When I am satisfied with the fit then I will use this as my pattern...after that things will move faster. I sort of want to apologize for how long I am taking but you remember the story about the turtle and the hare...the turtle wins the race.

Today I worked on the back of the dress.  The sleeve attaches in three place on the dress 1. on the front like a strap then 2. back to the nape of the neck, and 3. down to the under the arm into the side seam.  It is an odd shaped piece and the one that has been the most challenging.  You can see in this photo...the yellow part that I had to revise three times.  Now it is perfect.

In the original design the two pieces that come together at the side seam did not touch but I decided to tie them together so it will fell more structured to wear and so it would give me more fabric to attach the lace to.  In the next two photos you can see the back/sleeve which is one piece.

 

Here is how I plan to tie the pieces together

with an crossed over lap.

This is a pretty good shot of how I altered the back slightly.  It may look odd but wait and I’ll show you how it will look with the lace over it.  By the way the purple stitches are temporary just to hold it together.  

Now you see it!

Now you don't!

I have that part of the pattern figured out…on to the shoulder piece.

Here’s the top of the back.  From the underarm where we just were the lace goes up to the mid back at the nape of the neck.

 

At the nape I am going to put some kind of fastener…maybe an invisible fastener or maybe a loop and pearl button but for now I am not going to worry about that.

 

I have one more piece to work out and then I’m going to begin cutting the silk. 

Are you lost?  That’s okay, it will become clearer as I reach the finish line.  See you soon!