liadethornegge

Doing the eyes takes very little time, even when you are an anal retentive person and do them in buttonhole stitch even though nobody will ever see it underneath the lining. The hooks take a little longer. But I managed to avoid utter frustration by first stitching them all in with three or four stitches of the ordinary silk sewing thread. Then when I came around again with buttonhole floss, they were all waiting in the right spot with no pins to bite me and I could just stitch stitch stitch away.

So, now the skirt has been attached, hooks and eyes are in place down the front of the bodice, and I tried it on. Of course I did. Pictures in the gallery. Go have a look, I'll wait. It's the last three pictures on that page, and the first two on the following page.

Back now? OK, well, as you could see I did not put on my corset, because I am not that agile, and my cord is not that long and not that slippery. But the skirt looks brilliant, worn over my new wool petticote skirt.

The shoulder seams are not done yet on the bodice, obviously, but I'll get to that. I'm sure. And the sleeves have no way of staying up there, except for a pin, at this stage. I'm thinking of stitching in a couple of rings inside the bodice and a couple of rings inside the sleeves to start off with. Maybe I'll be bold enough to actually do eyelets, but not until I've worn it and seen that the shoulder seams work right. I'm thinking of doing a temporary stitching of the shoulder seams, because I am not going to have any help fitting them to the right spot again until after Civil War. I've got them pinned together a bit too loose for my tastes.

Anyway, that's all she wrote. Oh yes, the last of the new pictures is crap. Utter crap. But it was the only one that shows the velvet strip. I'll be deleting that and replacing it with a better photo after Civil War. There's this brilliant photographer I know who's promised to take pictures, you see.