Sewing on the road

This week I've been on a trip with my mom and little sister. My mom asked me to come with her. My dad and youngest brother volunteered to take care of my goats if I went. So I took off work for the week, and went.  Now part of this trip was spending a lot of time in a hotel room.Well me being me, I decided to bring along my sewing machine and a project to work on, my Civil War ball gown! Yes, I have finally started on it!

                             

First I unpacked the box everything for the gown was in. I sorted everything out and read through the pattern direction to figure out what I needed to do next. Now the bodice was mostly completed. I just needed to bind the top and bottom edges, then make and attach the sleeves. But first I needed to fit the bodice.
The bodice actually fit me pretty well, but once I was laced up in my corset it was several inches too big. So with my mom's help I got it taken in. We mostly took it in at the center back, but also took some in at the front side seams. Once that was I sewed the bias tape to the top edge to bind it, then made the piping to bind the bottom edge.

                             

Now before I could sew the piping on to bind the bottom edge I needed to insert the boning in the front and back of the bodice. The woman who gave me all the stuff to for the dress already had plastic boning cut and ready to insert, but I had some spiral steel boning left over from my corset that I wanted to use. The spiral steel boning lays better and offers more support than plastic boning. So I decided I might as well use it since I already had it.

Now I was ready to cut and insert the boning, only cutting the boning didn't go as well as I'd anticipated. I only had one pair of pliers with me, the ones on my multitool. I figured they worked fine for cutting bailing wire in order to fix the fence, so they should work fine to cut the boning. Well, I was wrong. I tried to cut the first piece of boning and my pliers got stuck. Really stuck, like I couldn't open them or get the boning out of them stuck. I tried and tried to pull them open but I just couldn't!

                                      

So we made an emergency trip to walmart to buy pliers. Needle nose, to pry my multitool off of the boning, and then wire cutters to cut the boning. Well, they worked! Pretty soon I had my multitool back in back in my pocket and my boning all cut!

                                     

I inserted the boning and sewed piping to the bottom edge of the bodice. I then had to do some hand sewing to completely finish the top and bottom edges, but that didn't take too long. Next I made the sleeves and sewed them on to the bodice, just in time to pack up and head home!

Now I had plenty of hand sewing to do on the way home! First I sewed the lace trim to the neckline. Once home I will thread some ribbon through the lace.

                                     

Next I sewed the beaded trim to the sleeves. The beads are beautiful, but they are heavy and kept getting tangled up with my thread. Still, the end result was worth the frustration!

                         

And then I ran out of daylight, so no more hand sewing, but I'm really excited about the next trim I'm going to sew on. This lace. 

                          

I got it on the trip, I saw it at Hancock Fabrics and knew it would be just perfect for this gown! I'll sew it on to the sleeves underneath the beads.

So now the bodice is almost done! Once I sew that lace on I just have to sew some eyelets on the back so that the bodice can be laced up. I'll make those with my nice sewing machine, which I left at home. So hopefully by tomorrow I'll be done with the bodice (and have pictures to show you)!