Trial version

We now have the trial version of our dress almost done :-)

There are these "cheapo fabric stores" that sells factory leftovers and those pieces that are less than good quality, usually dirty, missprinted or whatever problem but sometimes there are real treasures to be found there. And I found this otherwise lovely dark red and black pinstriped fabric there, for a lot less than the taffeta we choose for the real dress. Since I haven't actually made a real dressing item in about 15 years I thought it is absolutely necessary to do a trial run, partly to refresh my skills, partly to check the pattern, and partly to work out some methods.

I could have taken a pattern from some book, or pinterest and enlrge it, but This thing is risky enough as it, and I didn't wanted to add another risk-factor, thus, after looking at about a thousand dresses from the era, and decided on the basic shape and style, I headed over to etsy and choose a relatively simple (and not too pricey) pattern we could work with.

Zsófi's presence and help was yet again invaluable. Even if the technical knowledge and skills are mine, I could not have done it without her. This dress is a result of a mutual effort.

It was so exciting to see it come together, to do each step, to figure out just how to things like putting in the boning (something I never done before)...

Or figue out how to do the edges at the neck and the waist (yes, by handsewing), to the sleeve, which messed me over a few times, so I was even thinking of leaving the whole thing sleeveless, but I just could not let it get the beter of me, now, could I?

The skirt was a pretty simple dtraighforward deal, compared to the bodice, I still messed it up a bit, but I am not taking it apart, but think of how to hide it.
When the whole thing was more or less put together and it really looked like a ballgown, we were screaming and jumping up and down like kids... Even though Zsófi was already late, we just had to go downstairs and make pictures of it...

It was like a time travel, and joy mixed together..

It was darned cold (especially for an off-shoulder ballgown)...

We could not miss out taking a pic in the elevator... I alone hardly fit into the elevator, Zsófi could only come in, when I took my crinolin in my neck)

And showing what is underneath.... I did said that even if I had a corset underneath, we haven't yet done other underwear so I wore the dress over whatever else I was wearing... strech leggings, handknitted socks (From DROPS Fabel of course) and a bio slipper. 

We could not wait to put up the pictures up in Facebook, where the post had a tremendous succes (I never ever had this much like on any of my posts, but who is counting LOL).

One of our dancing friend even took me to walking in a nice park :-) 

To be continued... we now need to go and do a bit of shopping and then we can start on the "real" dresses.