How to give a girl a heart attack in one very considerate step.

I purchased iteration one of my wedding dress in September, when I got the box I remembered noting how light the box was. Dress two arrived today and I felt like the box was much heavier so I checked the UPS notifications.

Dress version one - 2.8 lbs shipping weight.

Same dress in one size *smaller*, slight fabric change, purchased in February... 6 lbs?

I had the dress shipped to work and was going to wait until after to open the box but as the day went on I was starting to have visions of crossed shipments or the entire dress being in the wrong fabric.

Finally I caved (and by finally I mean it took less than an hour) and when I cracked it open I found... black heavy duty ripstop nylon with a 1 cm wide gold pinstripe???

The wedding is NOT Marching Band themed

Hello coronary!

Once my heart migrated back down into my chest cavity I looked UNDER the nylon and found my dress. *laughs* Apparently they had also sent me a VERY heavy duty garment bag! I hadn't gotten one with the first dress so this was a completely unexpected bonus.

I have since pulled the dress out, though I haven't yet tried it on and it appears to be up to spec, and by that I mean IT'S TOTALLY AMAZING.

Due to various reasons I had not yet started in on the garment bag I was making and I'm pretty glad of that, though I will probably still make something anyway as I would prefer there be a storage appropriate buffer between the nylon and the silk of the dress.

So exciting!!

Nail Art Challenge #4 All is Full of Love

A stark Enamel White/Piano Black manicure inspired by the video for Bjork's All is Full of Love.

I thought of doing something more classically Valentine themed but just couldn't get the video out of my head. I decided instead to go really really stark and mechanical to match the gorgeous robots in the video and try a new technique while I was at it.

If you are not familiar with either the song or video they are both quite stunning.

All is Full of Love - Bjork (Director:Chris Cunningham)

Between dings, smearing, hairs getting stuck in my topcoat (twice!), and new tool learning curve I'm amazed this came out half so well as it did. This one fought me pretty much from beginning to end.

The colour and very slightly translucent finish of the Essie Marshmallow is just what I was looking for, but I would really like a white that is non-streaky in less than four(!) layers. I am too fidgety to dry, much less maintain nail polish this thick. Every second that I go without a fast dry top coat is another opportunity to get dings, and boy howdy did I ding this up. Luckily the colour was forgiving, but fixing mistakes never comes out quite right.

As far as the black, this was my first time using a striper brush, that was certainly an experience! I can't say as I'll be reaching for that tool again any time soon. I set the initial positioning by laying down tape to get the line straight which worked out pretty well, but it was not down flush (only as a guideline) so I had to pull it up to avoid  the black bleeding under. Even with a target line figuring out and maintaining the right position of my hands to get the brush at the best angle was incredibly awkward. And that was with my GOOD hand!

The black polish got sticky on the brush very fast so it was hard to work slow enough to keep things neat. I used topcoat over the white so I was able to use a file to clean up the black a bit once it dried, but even then the final layer of topcoat somehow smeared the black. *sigh* I did do the full design on both hands and the right came out shockingly good, but I had a lot more problems with smearing on the black on that hand.

You wouldn't think such a simple design would be so fiddly but there was very little room for mistakes here. In the end I'm pretty happy with how it came out, though I do think it would look much better if the white was not as built up. A vertical line probably would have been more flattering to the length of my nails but that would be too close to my last challenge mani.

I expect I will be removing this pretty soon as the white is not holding up well. The Poshe polish is easier in some ways but doesn't seem to hold up like Seche Vite. I think I may have to take down the length of my nails a bit as well as my typing accuracy is questionable even in the best of circumstances.

My weekend wedding project

I got an email today informing me that my wedding dress is en-route and should be arriving Wednesday!

Adventure Time!

I have a tiny apartment with two cats that REALLY seem to like getting into my closet and batting at hangy things; so  the dress will be living at my parent's house.

I am not interested in an unplanned dramatic unveiling potentially involving the "design assistance" of my parent's three dogs; so the dress will ALSO be living in a garment bag.

pic via http://myexwifesweddingdress.com/

Enter: my weekend project.

I have a butt-tonne(1) of unbleached muslin(2), mad sewing skills, and and a nearly embarrassing number of sewing machines. There's no way I'm paying someone for a pre-made garment bag, not when I can almost unquestionably do better.

Unfortunately I can't find DIY directions to precisely what I want to make. It would have a tie or button front rather than a zipper(3) and a pocket for random extras. I'm also interested in instructions for adding side gussets but I'm not 100% on that, I'm still contemplating whether I even need those. Foster-Stephens, Inc seems to be the main online source I've found for nicer muslin garment bags and there are some excellent examples here.

This instruction set by TheDreamstress seems like a pretty good starting point though, and I do appreciate seeing details like French seams. Archival items should have fussy details!

This instruction set from Historical costumer Genoveva has a really nifty fold and carry feature.

For anyone interested in sewing I HIGHLY recommend picking up two specific books on couture sewing. The first, Couture Sewing Techniques by Claire B. Shaeffer, is the more accessible book - I have an earlier version. The second is Couture: The Art of Fine Sewing by Roberta C. Carr, it is denser and the images are EIGHTIES-TASTIC but it does go into more detail.

Don't let the word couture scare you, what it boils down to is by having these books you will have a handy step by step reference for the "best practice" way of doing a number of sewing tasks. Once you know the "right" way of doing something you can then make your own decisions of how fussy and involved you want to get. Its a heck of a lot easier to decide what fussy details to leave out than to discover after the fact and try to make up for the essential step you've already missed.

http://craftfail.com/2011/05/the-vivienne-westwood-miscalculation/

I find it kinda funny (I find it kinda sad) that I have all of these random fussy sewing skills that I never use for anything I actually wear. I have been starting to think of what kinds of alterations my current wardrobe could use, so it'll be good to get back in the sewing... saddle?


Notes:

(1) One of my favorite units of measure. My very favorite is similar but involves a very naughty word

(2) A loosely woven cotton fabric. Hooray for Joann' Fabric and Craft's 50% a single item coupons!

(3) I've caught the placket of my jacket in its own zipper FAR too many times to trust a zipper with a silk wedding dress. Also I really don't feel like paying more for a 72" zipper than I paid for enough fabric to make two of these bags.