Katherine Bodice Progress

I think I accomplished a good bit over the weekend, despite feeling like I wasn't home much. Namely, I'm done with the base garment for Katherine's bodice. (Reference picture here.)

From the front

 Here's the base bodice not yet ironed and with one of the lace options pinned to it. More details about the goings on after the cut.



Normally I sew with a 1/4 inch seam allowance due to the fancy foot guide (#57), but when I tried it on, that just wouldn't do. I could pull it where the seams connecting the next panels touched. I didn't want to cut panels off, so I instead up'd my seam allowance to 5/8" and that made it just right, where it was almost together, but not quite. It's gonna lace in the back, so I would say that's pretty good.

Yesterday I made the conscious decision to work on the lining, get it done and add the boning. Task accomplished. And I sewed the 2 together (and then realized I had never ironed the top layer, whoops. I haven't hemmed it at the bottom yet, so that should be okay.

Since it was on hand, I went ahead and tried a lace option, pinned to it. Not sure about it. Also, the bodice looks looser on the dress form than it did on me. When I sewed the 2 layers together, I tried it on. Let me tell you, the boning is gonna serve it's purpose. It was SIGNIFICANTLY tighter. I'm not sure I've ever noticed a garment doing that before, but I'm not sure i ever tried to make one as tight as this before. I'm still happy with it. I'll probably need to toss in a modesty panel but that's not all that difficult. And I can't wait to add in grommets so I can lace it! But I couldn't do that and watch Game of Thrones, so the grommets will be later.

now you can see the sleeves hanging off the side.

I also did the first test run on how to do all the pleats on the skirt. It's a lot of pleats; I don't want to hand pleat them. I would much rather take advantage of my ruffler. I found the right spacing (12 stitches) but it was still leaving the fabric looking more ruffled than pleated (hence the name). I top stitched them and it helped, but I'd rather not need to top stitch EVER pleat. Seems like that is just as difficult/time consuming as hand pleating. But it didn't use as much fabric. Instead of making a really really deep pleat like I would do hand pleating, there was barely a difference in the finished length. That may be beneficial.

Tonight I think I'm gonna hand sew a few things. Tomorrow I'll be embroidering things and working with the cricut (gonna try to do them simultaneously). I'm also gonna start working on a better chart for me to work with on my cricut, I'm tired of looking through the books.

I went on a bit of a craft shopping spree (I blame my mom, she told me to buy myself something to cheer me up!) so more on that when it all comes in (it's a lot). And if you're thinking of doing the buy 3/get 1 free cricut deal at michael's...don't do like me...skip it. They are $40 at Michaels but $30 at Joanns. For the $120 I spent at Michael's, you could have bout 4 at Joann's. And you wouldn't have to pay $9 in shipping/wait on a rebate. They've got them on the website and a little digging can find you a free shipping coupon for Joann's.

I think when I iron the top layer, I'll take a picture of the boning so you can get a good idea of it (if you want). I didn't use steel even though it called for it as I intend to put a corset underneath this. I didn't need steel on top of steel. But the next corset I make will have steel boning. I'm very excited.