I have no idea if anyone really looks at this space anymore, but hopefully I will be back with a little more regularity!
When I left off way back in March of 2019, life was entering a hectic stage. My younger sister had just gotten engaged and my family had plenty of ups and downs during the months that passed between engagement and wedding. And I did a lot of sewing...I made two bridesmaid dresses (not to mention the mock up to test the pattern), six vests, six bowties, helped a tiny bit with the wedding dress, and did an addition to my mother's dress. I literally did not finish all the sewing until about 4 days before the wedding, about the time the first people began arriving.
Before the wedding sewing though, I did get my new blue plaid 1860's dress made (mentioned in the last post) and got to wear it a couple of times. The first day I wore it, it was rainy so it got very wet...my poor dress was hanging dreadfully as my hoops got all bent out of shape due too all the weight of wet petticoats and dress skirt! (It was a little embarrassing...)
Two weeks after my sister's wedding...I got engaged! To my new brother-in-law's older brother. (We like to joke about double in-laws.) I didn't get much sewing done after that for various reasons, until I plowed into my own wedding sewing in earnest.
I had a couple of wedding dress mock-up fails before I got good and settled. I managed to get my dress fully completed the week before our wedding...pushing it, I know. I also made the wedding party vests and bowties (bowties are fun, I think). Thankfully, my three bridesmaids (my two sisters and childhood best friend) all are seamstresses as well, so I left the design more or less in my older sisters hands (giving yeas and nays as I was asked to) and she dealt with all the questions and issues that arose.
Three months later, my new sister-in-law got married. I was requested to make one of the bridesmaid dresses and the wedding party and a few other family member's vests and bowties. That came up to three men's vests, and one little boy's vest (little guy stole the show with his grin!), and a total of seven bowties.
Let's just say, three weddings in a 12-month period puts a lot of miles on a sewing machine!
Since the last wedding, I have done a little mending for myself, and several stacks of alteration (mostly just hem shortening) for an old friend of my mother-in-law. I have made myself one dress (with hopefully a few more in the near future).
Now I know you want photographs...so I will give you a few all the above mentioned undertakings (unless I forgot to take photos or lost them when my hard-drive crashed before the first of the three weddings mentioned here!)
First is a picture of my blue plaid 1860's dress that someone sent me:
K+E's Wedding
On the really positive side though--we cut them (A, our sister-in-law and I) very carefully so that the pattern matched! It was so nice to see that part come together beautifully. (The guy's vests didn't match quite so well, but as those seems were under the arms, it far less noticeable.)
My+Luke's Wedding
I had to make a second bodice after fully completing one out of my dress fabric. I guess I did one of those aggravating body-shifts I do after completing the mock-up bodice! (I have been nicknamed a shape-shifter when it comes to clothing fitting.) Anyway, the final bodice was a wee bit too big, but not so much as to make it look like I was wearing a sack. I was able to take the seams in a little, which helped.
I found the ones I did wear on Ebay (brand new)...they are made in Mexico, absolutely gorgeous (though they smelled a little from the dye), full grain leather, and total princess boots. They are a tad tight (I can't get my feet in them if they are at all swollen; I barely got them off on our wedding night!), but they most definitely did the job. The humorous part of the tale is the bottoms were slick (new, unscuffed leather soles), so while walking down the slight incline of the church's aisle with Daddy, I was concentrating on not sliding! (I think you can see that slight stiffness in my face in the photos...I was grinning and happy, but also mentally going, "Don't slide and fall down. Put your feet down carefully and firmly...don't fall down...")
Until next time!