Progress

I continued on with the binding for my smocked jacket. I had one of the lecturers helping me as it was very tricky trying to get the biding onto the 1cm seam allowance. After the binding was sewn onto the armhole i pressed all the seams. One jacket down and one more to go!

I then started on my other frilled jacket which i thought was going to take me longer as it had a collar and a completely different lining method to the smocked jacket. I was hesitant to begin this jacket but once i got started it was a hard as i thought! I had already sewn the jacket and the jacket lining together, so the next step was to attach the collar and the sleeves. When i sewed the sleeves to the jacket i realised that i forgot to insert the frills into each armhole! I started unpicking and then gathered up the tulle and silk organza which was then pinned and sewn onto the top of the armhole. Once the sleeves were sewn in i had to sew and bluff the hem, then pull the jacket out and sew the sleeve hems together, and presto, Another jacket finished!

I cut out pink, cream and oyster coloured binding and pressed four pink strips so they were ready to be sewn onto my pink bodices. Manually binding is a pain in the bum but the binding went on so much better than sewing it through the binding machine! I ended up binding the top and bottom of two pink bodices with patience, a lot of patience!

I had to buy another role of silk Georgette because i didn't have enough of the original colour that i had already cut out to make the overlay skirt. Once i had cut out the new colour of the silk Georgette i sewed french seams and gathered the waist ready for the waist band to be sewn on. I pinned the overlay skirt onto the mannequin so that the fabric could sit overnight so i could get the hem even.

I had to sew the hook and eye tape which i finally arrived onto my bodice but i didn't know what method i had to use. Luckily Tafe is open during our "holidays" and one of our lovely lecturers was coming in so i decided to leave it until then. Once i knew the method i sewed the hook and eye tape in straight away and couldn't believe how easy it was!

I am very excited looking at the garments that i have completed which makes me feel like i am working at a good speed. I have completed three skirts, two jackets and one bodice which is in crusted with Swarovski crystal beads!

Break Down!!!

It was by far the most worst day yet i was to encounter. It was a shocker!!! I had run out of beads over the week end and couldn't find any over the week end as all the places were closed who stocked them. Come Monday morning i was running around all morning buying more beads. I then had to find this wholesale flower shop which was very difficult to find nether the less i found it! I had my first photo shoot so i was desperately wanting to get everything finished on time and deep down i knew that i was pushed for time. I had completed majority of my beading so i began on my binding which i thought was going to be easy. Turned out that every binding machine that i tried didn't want to cooperate with me today as it kept messing up over and over again! I was so ultimately frustrated i left in tears to my photo shoot with my binding half completed. On the way there i realised that i had forgotten to take my skirt with me so i we could only photograph my bodice which wasn't so bad as we got some beautiful profile shots. I felt terrible rocking up at the photo shoot so unprepared so i was hoping my next photo shoot i was prepared for anything!

After having a good nights sleep i was hoping today was going to be a better day than the last! I finished the hem on my second skirt and continued on with my third skirt. I cut, fused and sewed the waistband, and even sewed the zip in perfectly! I then tried the skirt on and noticed that the bottom half of the skirt wasn't as stiff as the top layer so i decided to sew some boning into the side seam which made it stand out perfectly the way i wanted it to.

I decided to give the binding machine another go as my lecturer offered to help however, we had no luck it was still not cooperating at all! I now have to complete all my binding manually, absolute nightmare!

I then finished off the hem of the third skirt and continued on with the smocking jacket. I had to wedge the centre back side and neck seams into the centre front side and neck seams then pull them out and press. I then attached the sleeves to the jacket and decided to try it on, and was very impressed with my work! I still had to bind the armhole of the jacket but decided to leave it until i could advise my lecturers.

Sewing

I received the rest of my fabric that i had been waiting for which was a relief as i was starting to worry! I bought some navy silk dye and was excited to experiment when i got home. I sewed the last two bodices in the fabric that i had received over the week end. I then cut out the casings for the two bodices and pressed them in half so they were ready to be sewn to the bodices. I pattern made some bias strips for the binding about 3.8cm wide. I cut out the rosa pink satin fabric for the binding first as i wanted to insert the cups and get started on the beading. After binding the centre fronts of the three rosa pink bodices i sewed the cups in.

I came across a dilemma...again! After sewing the cups in i noticed they sat funny on the mannequin. The cups fall forward and I'm worried that the models breasts might fall out as they are walking down the catwalk. I had to make some decisions so i decided that i would bind all the way across the front which would form a shape across the centre front. I thought this would be the best outcome as each bodice would have a different shape across the centre front.

I then started sewing the casings onto the champagne eggnog bodices so they were ready to have the cups sewn into the two bodices.

I had completed some silk dyes with the navy blue dye and i wasn't sure about the colour or even how it was going to look on the skirt itself. I needed to decided quickly so i matched the piece of silk i had dyed, pinned it to the skirt and fit it to the mannequin, then pinned the bodices over top to how it would look if someone were to wear it. It looked black behind the bodice and a couple of my friends said that it would look better all in the one fabric. I was happy about the decision that i made and acted quickly to finish the skirt. I cut out the waist bands and started sewing them together. Everything was going smoothly, i had sewn in my zip and was about to attach my lining to the skirt when i went to ask my lecturer on a method i was about to perform. My lecturer looked at the skirt and then told me that i had forgotten to fuse my waistband! I had to unpick the whole waistband, and part of the zip, and cut out another whole waistband and not forget to fuse it! I went on to sew the waistband again, sew one side to the skirt and the other to the lining. I sewed my zip back together and then bagged out the corners of the waistband and both the zip and the top of the waistband lined up perfectly! I had planned arrange my photo shoot on Monday so I'm beading the bodice which i want to be shot in the photo over the week end.

Sewing

I continued sewing the casings onto the bodices and pressed all of the casings after. I had to make sure that all the casings measured .7cm so that the metal boning would slide in perfectly. I then started sewing my smocking jacket together by sewing up the centre back and then pressed the seam open. I then sewed french seams on the sleeves of my jacket and pressed them to one side. I worked out that there were an even amount of squares on the smocking piece that i had done so i pinned the centre back through the middle square. The centre back block just fit onto the smocking piece! I then pinned all around the side seams, hem, shoulder and neck very carefully and made sure it didn't pull unevenly. I stay stitched around the areas i had pinned and then overlocked the edges off. I had to bind the hem and neck of the jacket so i cut out a piece of the Faille of about 3.8cm. I then started sewing the front of the jacket by sewing the hem and buffing it then the centre front and the shoulder. After i had sewn all pieces perfectly together i realised that i didn't put a dart in the facing of the jackets so it didn't fit which meant i had to cut out another set of facings and unpick the other facing off the jacket and re sew the new facing in! How annoying! I decided to leave the jacket for now because i was a bit frustrated. I also realised that the cups of my bodices weren't stiff enough so i unpicked each set of the cups and fused Pelham to each of them. Then i realised that i had fused some of the Pelham to the same cups which meant i didn't have a right and a left! I was not having a good day! I then unpicked all the other cups and fused the Pelham onto the cups. Went on sewing the cups together and topstitching across the seams. I completed two pink cup sets which i was pretty happy with.

I continued sewing the cups of the bodices and i managed to steam my finger whilst pressing the cups seams open which hurt! After i had completed sewing all the cups together i moved on with my jacket. I sewed and bluffed the hem then sewed the centre front and the shoulder together. I left my jacket and decided to go and find some glue to dip the ends of my metal boning to prevent the ends from rusting and ripping the fabric when its all sewn in. I also had to find some navy blue food dye the dye my waistbands so i went and bought some food dye to experiment with. The blues turned out alright but i realised that if i were to wash the skirt the blue would run which i didn't want so i would have to go on the hunt for some silk dye. I thought if i got some time this week end i would attempt to do some beading over the week end.