Ze Dress in all its Altered Glory!

I had a little bit of a hard time with this since I gained a bit too much "happy" weight since a year and a half ago when I bought the dress. My whole goal was to start going to the gym beginning sometime in March to start getting in shape, but that didn't take. I blame a lot of it on stress from the massive accounting project (I had no idea was going to take so long or be so difficult) and started consuming about a fifth of rum a week and stress snacking for the two months I was working on the damn thing. It took almost a week to recover from this before I started a summer business law class that also had a large group project that took more time than expected.

Overall, I failed to go to the gym like I planned, but I did join up with the Rolling Hills Derby Dames in an attempt to make friends, get some exercise and learn a new sport. Granted it had been a while since I had been on quads and I'm a bit klutzy, but it is a great workout and the gals are fun. This has finally gotten me motivated to go to the gym with my fiancee (who's been going regularly for over a month) because I've been quite pissed at myself for getting so out of shape. Hopefully I'll be able to at least shed 5lbs before my wedding date so I don't look too chubby in my dress.

With that, my first fitting in late May was really disappointing because I knew that I had gotten fat, I just didn't know if I had gotten too fat to let the dress out without damaging the dress. At this time the David's Bridal seamstress and I had decided that we would stick with changing the neckline from straight across to a sweetheart and put in the bustling since I had a goal to loose some weight.

The second fitting came at the end of June and I still hadn't made any progress. I had expected this and thought that putting in a corset backing would help. The seamstress was very kind, pinned in the concept for me, and viola the dress finally felt like it fit and I could breathe again. Once again the dress went into alterations and stayed out of my closet which made me a little upset but I knew that it would eventually be in my possession.

This last Wednesday I got my dress back and couldn't be happier! The corset ribbon that I made for it worked perfectly and looks beautiful. The dress even accents my curves instead of squashing them into the dress and I couldn't be happier with the way it looks on me. So this is what the dress looks like now in all its glory, but I might need to re-work the sweetheart neckline since it looks thrown in instead of thought out.





















































So happy! 19 days left!

Corset Ribbon

I forgot to take pictures throughout the process so my doodling will need to suffice.

Step one: find your ribbon
I chose a light blue sheer ribbon and a white satin ribbon so that I could see the light blue ribbon. My dress also has a sheer organza overlay and has around the same color of blue already in the dress so this works well. I believe I chose a 1-1/2" wide ribbon for both and bought at least a 4 yard spool.
















Step two: sewing together
This is where the doodles come in because I just went for it, sewed it all up and then realized I should have taken photos. Line up the sheer ribbon on top of the white satin ribbon and sew straight across the ends to have them together. Make sure that they're aligned because this is a guide for sewing the rest together.







Step three: the pull
I call it the pull because later, after all the sewing is finished, you will be pulling this to turn the ribbon right side out. Pretty straight forward, find something long, durable and thin like twine or thick string and also sew straight across this to the ends that you just sewed together. Make sure the pull is secure so you don't loose it while turning the ribbon right side out, this may require you to do a few passes over it with the sewing machine.






Step three: fold
Fold the ribbon over the twine hot dog style so that the twine is on the inside with the ribbon you eventually want to be on the outside. If you want to, take the iron to the fold so you get a crease and make it easier on yourself in the next step. I didn't do this and I wished later that I had individually ironed a crease into the layers because it probably would have made things easier. Oh well, live and learn.




Step four: lots of sewing
This requires lots of patience because you need to make sure you are sewing both sides of the ribbon sandwiched inside and ribbon currently outside without running over your pull all while trying to get the stitch as straight as possible. Don't worry if you don't get everything completely straight because no one will really notice unless they look over the entire length and are looking for imperfections.







Step five: pull the pull
VERY CAREFULLY pull on the other end of the pull that is not sewn down so that the ribbon on the sewn end starts to roll inside to turn the ribbon right side out. This also requires lots of patience but doesn't take nearly as long to do as the sewing.






Step five: spot check
Most likely there will be one or two places that the organza ribbon did not get sewn into the satin ribbon. Calmly and patiently turn the ribbons inside out until you get to the trouble spot, pop some of the seam until you can correct the positioning of the ribbon and run it over with the sewing machine again. Turn it right side out and double check the correction.

Step six: iron
What I did to help was grab a long metal rod, feed it all the way through and used it to make sure everything inside was laying flat and not bunched up. I ironed on a medium heat to crease everything and made sure my seam remained on the same side and didn't twist around as I removed the rod and then went over it a second time to be sure. It does have some areas that are a bit chunkier than others but you can't really tell in this photo and I don't think anyone will be able to tell when it's strung in the corset backing either.









Step seven: lace and sew up
This is simple; lace up your dress, make sure the length is correct, snip off the excess and then you can just turn the ends inward and either hand stitch or run them over with the sewing machine to close the ends.

Ta Da!

=check!

Dress for the Night

After a bit of consideration and research on Vegas temperatures, I decided that it would probably be best to purchase a much lighter, more breathable dress. This way I can go out on the town in a dress that I won't end up a soggy, sweaty mess in by the end of the night. It took a lot of searching and redefining my search words but I was able to find this by looking for a Marlyn Monroe type dress with a tie-back halter style. I found this little number online at eBay and after showing my man I decided to purchase it. Right now it's on the way but I can't wait to try it on.

Teasing Myself

Along time ago (March) I bought my wedding dress with my Maid of Honor, Chey, who came along with me for the ride. I had scoured the internet and came across the David's Bridal website, perused their catalog, and went there prepared to try on a whole categorized list of dresses that had piqued my interest. Hours later we walked out with a dress. While I was mostly satisfied with my selection because I got it on super deep discount since they discontinued the pattern, I felt like it was a little lacking looking more like a high school prom dress and less like something that would make me look more mature, elegant, and worried that it made me look more like a child.

While I hope that this can be fixed by a few alterations, I also went roaming around on the internet and found the Casablanca line rather appealing, particularly their 1945 dress. I looked up the local stores that carried this style and held off rushing to find and try on this dress. Last weekend I was able to go to a store that had this dress and decided to tease myself by trying it on and sneaking a peak at the sales tag.




















































Honestly, I really, really like this dress and all the little embellishments but can't justify purchasing it for $830 since I already have a dress. It's not like I don't think it's a good price, I just can't afford to make such a purchase on my income. So, after much arguing with myself I decided it would be best if I promptly left before I bought it on impulse.

When I got back home I showed my fiancee the pictures I took and what my dilemma was. He said that if it makes me happy then I should purchase it; damn I love this man. After talking it over with him I finally decided and explained to him that IF I get the job that I applied for that significantly increases my income, then I'll think more seriously about going and trying it on again to purchase and I'd need him to be there with me for critiquing. For now, I can dream.

Actually Dying the Slip

I know I'm about a month late from posting this from the time I actually completed this process, but whatever it's up here now.

To start with, I used three packs of Dylon Bahama Blue dye but then thought that since I bought four packs that I might as well use all four. I used a big black tub for dying, since I didn't want to stain my tub, added the hottest water that would come out of the faucet, 1c of salt per packet, and poured in the packets one by one that I mixed with boiling water in a bowl before combining it with the big tub of water to make sure it was dissolved.










The next step was to wet down the crinny with warm water and to add it to the mixture. This was the toughest part for me because there was no going back once I put it in the dye and if I didn't like the outcome then I'd have to spend another $50 to get another slip, so yeah I was a little worried.

















I used long BBQ tongs to stir the slip/dye mixture after my last experience and unwillingness to dye/scald my hands blue and just kept mixing until I wanted to stop. I think I stirred for at least half an hour and walked away for a minute or two somewhere in there just to stretch.























So after some time I decided that the slip wasn't going to dye anymore and I was content with the color I achieved and dumped the dye down the drain and proceeded to rinse the crinny when the water had cleared. This took a while as well because I thoroughly rinsed all layers because for some strange reason there were little dots of dye either from leftover dye that hadn't dissolved or from some fabric that somehow fell off and clumped on the tulle. No big problem though, all looked fine from what I could tell.














With all that said and done I hung it up to dry and used clips that are normally used to close chip bags as clothespins. I did notice that the tulle was really light, but when it's layered together with a lot of the tulle it looks just fine. I think this could be because the thread count (or whatever it is for tulle) is very low compared to normal fabric
















The last problem is that some of my tub was tinted blue, but I could easily scrub that out with a pumice stone. Oh, and I took off my rings before messing with any of this since I didn't want them coming anywhere near this mess.
Other than that, slip = done.

Flower Girl Dress

Bought this little number on X-mas while the fiancee and I were over at his parents' place for the holidays. After showing his sister (her daughter will be the flower girl) the dresses that I thought were nice looking that I found on-line we came across this on e-Bay:
























This was just under $25 WITH S&H, so we quickly decided between the two of us that this was the flower girl dress. Hopefully the low price doesn't reflect the quality.
Other than that, flower girl dress = check.

Test Dying the Slip

After looking around on the knot DIY board and viewing other knottie profiles I came across a knottie that decided to dye her slip (or crinoline). I loved the idea of having a little bit of color under the dress so I did some investigating on line and decided to try out some dyes on test fabric before perminatly altering the color of a $50 slip. I wanted to make sure that I got the same type of fabric as my slip so I toted the sucker into JoAnne Fabrics to find a fabric that was 100% nylon and had the same weave, texture and whatever as the slip. Luckily, I was able to find just that and for $3.49/yard for the crinoline fabric and $1.49/yard for the netting and bought two yards of each for testing.










Through investigating I found two products that were offered at my local stores: Rit Dye and Dylon.

Rit Dye was one that I had heard of but the stores here only offered it in Royal Blue. Through their website, www.ritdye.com, I fould that this acid based dye reacts well to 100% nylon products so I felt confident that it would work with my slip but at the same time I still wanted to do a test run. For this product it called for HOT water and a whole cup of salt.














I had never heard of Dylon before but I decided to give this one a go because it was in a lighter color that I liked. Their website www.dylon.co.uk under the help section says that "Polyester, Nylon and other synthetics cannot be dyed" but as I found out Dylon works just fine with nylon. I think they intended to say acrylic fabrics won't work. For this product it only called for warm water, which I thought was pecular, and 4T of salt.

So with that, I test dyed my fabric in the sink with an already blue bucket because I was worried about staining my sink.
Rit Dye.......................................Dylon










Result:










After doing this I found that not only did the Dylon work but I liked the color better than the Rit Dye. My only problem with the Dylon was that it appeared a little light and somewhat green to me even though the picture doesn't do it justice. I did show my fiancee the dyed fabrics and he agreed and suggested adding a little bit of the Rit Dye color to the Dylon to darken it up but I'm not sure if the two will play nice chemically. Maybe if I use HOT water and more salt it will absorb more of the dye.

Unfortunately for me I started the Dylon first but the rubber gloves that I was wearing sprung a leak while I was mixing with my hands. After that I switched to metal bbq tongs and used the gloves only to rinse and squeeze the fabric. Even though I caught the leak early my hand was still slightly dyed blue after much scrubbing but it did fade out eventually after a few days.

THE Shoes

Again, like the dress I was perusing the web for any and every shoe I could find and wandered the malls in a zombie-like state hoping to find some sort of inspiration or moment with at least something. In this state I eventually wandered into a Payless where they had a selection (called Unforgettable Moments) that could be dyed and found a style that I enjoyed but was hesitant about. Eventually, after looking through a few shops with my fiancee's sister, we found a pair at a shoe store that were in brown but the same style as a pair that I found on www.unforgettablemoments.com that the both of us believed would do well with my dress. I decided to go with the pair at Unforgettable Moments but in white and in a wide size to fit my big feet. I need to get in some some practice walking around time before the big day but they're fairly comfortable considering that they're 3" heels.















I finally got to wear them with the dress when I went up to Spokane to try on other items but I really like these shoes. The sales associate brought to my attention that I needed to be careful or mindful or the white part my toes stand on because it gets dirty very easily. Other than that shoes = check.

My Dress, THE Dress

This was just one of the projects that I started that I knew could be completed without knowing the venue. I started out just by paying attention and researching the heck out of dresses I could wear, what different types there were, fabrics, the whole works and now that I've settled with the dress I bought everything I learned has probably all been forgotten. The best advice I could give to anyone is to just look and be open to trying on whatever.

After doing this massive research I decided to start looking at David's Bridal's entire catalog and saved the ones I thought were interesting to the my favorites section. The list got really long after a while but after sorting them by price (which helped me eliminate a few), style, shape, material, etc I had a better idea on how to narrow down the list. Luckily for me, I was able to get a really nice sales associate and friend to help me out while I tried on at least 30 dresses.

NO PEEKING CHUCK!!!
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TURN BACK NOW!!!
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This is what I got:


















































I was extremely lucky to buy this for under $300 and I was happy to find that even though it was a discontinued style, I was able to fit into the size 8 they had. There are a few bits that need alteration and I do plan on changing the top from a straight neckline to a sweetheart neckline but overall I like it. Ignore the embarrassing skin spillage on the top of the dress, I haven't been able to get rid of it or find any sites for exercises to reduce this but hopefully all I'll need is a simple alteration for this to be fixed. I have yet to set up an alteration date but it probably won't be until May 2010 so there's plenty of time to try and get rid of that flubber. I'm content with the dress for now, but for a moment I was worried that it looked too much like something a high school kid would wear.

Since then I've been able to buy a slip, plain veil, plain blusher and torsolette from David's Bridal and shoes from Payless Unforgettable Moments but none of that is pictured here. As far as other projects I have in mind, I plan on dying the slip a light blue (testing results in next post) and possibly beading the veil but I have no set ideas on a pattern. I do have a bit of a problem while I'm in the dress with sweating but this could be fixed by finding some underwear or shorts with wicking properties to keep me from getting too nasty with sweat.