Tien’s blog

I was pretty stressed out today, and didn’t get much done at work, but I think I’m getting over the shock.  No matter how many times I get laid off, or how obviously it was coming, it’s still a tremendous life change, even if it’s a temporary one.  It’s not as bad as it was the first (or second) time, but it is taking me some time to work through it.

So, after work, I dove straight into muslins to keep me busy:

Left, the first muslin; right, muslin #2 (fitted)

I made quite a few changes from muslin #1 to muslin #2.  It fits a LOT better now, though there is still some bits that need to be taken in near the waist.  I changed the sleeve around completely, “borrowing” a sleeve from a different dress and then altering it ruthlessly until I got what I wanted.  I changed the neckline to a round scoop neckline, which doesn’t work as well with the angular lines of the dress but which works much better with the coat.  (The “V” neckline, unless you’ve got it smack dead center, looks off-kilter when viewed from under the coat.)

I think I will do one last muslin of the top after doing my final changes to the pattern, and will then move on to the skirt.  I need to alter the waistband, add some more fullness (especially around the waist) so it drapes more gracefully, and try horsehair braid around the edges (as Kathy suggested) to give it a trifle more fullness.  I have no idea if it will be appropriate, but I’ve never used horsehair braid before and want to see what effect it has.

I am now starting to think about the design and trims for the dress.  I had wanted to make a center panel of white and gold Alencon lace, with a similar trim on the edges of the overskirt, and sleeves made entirely of Alencon lace (because it’s so beautiful).  But I am increasingly thinking that this would be a mistake.  Partly because the organic lines of the lace would clash with the angular lines of the bodice, but also because I want this dress to showcase the handwoven fabric, which is beautiful in its own right.  If I use a lot of fancy lace, people will only look at that, and I might as well use a machine-woven fabric.

Instead, I am thinking of using gold lace trim to ornament the seams of the bodice, and using a wide ribbon of gold lace down the front edges of the overskirt and around the hem.  The center panel of the bodice would either have a tiny bit of lace, or else be embellished (by hand, of course) with embroidery and beads.  (Gold beads, freshwater pearls, and crystals.)

Mike’s mom is in town this weekend, and was kind enough to send me a gift certificate to Britex Fabrics for my birthday, so I’ll probably make a pilgrimage there with her over the weekend, and see what  turns up!

Well, the work situation has resolved itself – the company announced layoffs today, and I’m one of them.  This was not a surprise to me – I’d been expecting it for at least a week now – so in a way, I’m actually pretty happy.  I do not deal AT ALL well with sitting around in suspense, so now that the whole thing is over, I can breathe a sigh of relief, roll up my sleeves, and get to work on job-hunting.  It’s not the best of job markets, but I have a lot of experience in project management, and a resume diverse enough that I could flourish in any of a number of fields.  Plus Mike makes enough that, with my unemployment payments, we can get by for a couple of months until I find another job.

That said, if anyone knows of someone looking for a senior project manager/program manager within a half-hour drive from Sunnyvale, please let me know – I’d love to get leads!

Astonishingly, my employer wants me to continue working for the next 30 days (my contract obliges them to give me 30 day notice), so my time isn’t entirely free now, but I expect that as things taper off there will be less and less for me to do.  (We’ve agreed that if I find another job within the next 30 days, I’ll give them some notice before taking off.)  Still, the job market is such that I’m likely to have a month or two “off” before finding a new gig, and I plan to take advantage of that to push my projects along.

Fortunately, I’ve already got enough muslin to make several mockups, and over the weekend found 1.75 yards of 12″ wide  Alencon lace for $20 (this would normally have retailed for about $70, so this was a real steal!)  It’s slightly damaged – looks like someone put a finger through the netting -  but that’s OK since it’s just for the practice run.  I also got a yard of heavy silk crepe at 50% off (the last yard on the bolt and watermarked, not that I care), so for $35 I have all I need to do the bodice “test run”.  So…I have enough material to keep me busy for awhile.

Finally, the muslin: I went to a sewing and alterations shop, and they helped me fit the bodice of the dress.  (The skirt I can handle myself.)  I have altered the pattern and am sewing up a new muslin now.

The woman who helped me with the fitting also recommended that I change the styling of the coat from an armscye princess to a shoulder princess – this would put the seam straight down from mid-shoulder rather than curving into the armpit as is typical for most princess seam clothing.  That would make the seam parallel to the neckline, further emphasizing the fall of the front opening.

I’m thinking about it.  In a plain fabric, this would make perfect sense – but with the eternity knot pattern, the shoulder princess would disrupt the pattern more (I think) than an armscye princess, which tucks the seam out of sight.  I may have to buy a patterned fabric for the trial coat, try it both ways, and see.

Whew!  I’m SO glad the waiting is over.  Now I can do something productive about the situation.

I woke up this morning feeling much less stressed (amazing what a good night’s sleep will do for you), and immediately dove into the dress muslin.  It took a fair amount of sewing, since I had to put in boning, do a lining, make a casing for elastic in the sleeves, etc.  but I managed to get it done, complete with overskirt, today:

Muslin for wedding-dress

I like it!  It needs significant fitting (it’s waaaaay too big at the waist, for one thing), and I think I will put a little more fullness back into the skirt at the waist, but I like the lines.  It is perhaps a trifle low-cut, but that just means I need to wear some pearls or something similar to balance things out – I have a pearl necklace that my mother gave me, which would probably do nicely.

And, it adds just enough floof to the coat!  Behold:

Coat over the dress

The coat actually has slightly less floof than it appears to in the photo (the grass is fluffing it out a bit), but the dress gives it just a bit of extra fullness, which I really like.  And I like the lines of the dress.

So, I think we have a winner!!  Now it’s just a question of getting it fitted correctly, and then making a practice dress so I can master couture techniques.  Probably from heavy silk crepe, I think I have a few yards of it lying around.  Then, about six months before the wedding (so in a couple of months), I’ll do the final fitting and sew the actual dress.

I’m approaching the six-yard mark on the silk.  Because I reduced the fullness of the skirt by about 50% in the course of my draconian pattern alterations, it seems likely that I’ll only need about fifteen yards.  So if I weave twenty yards, I  should be able to cut around the worst flaws, so only you and I will know about my weaving woes!

I was having some trouble with the warp sticking, so I tried sizing the warp with spray starch.  This stopped the sticking, and helped with some of the tension problems, but has created another set of problems: when the tension is uneven, little loops of thread caught up from the slack of loose threads are surfacing in the woven fabric, and I don’t think they will wash out, i.e. they will show up as defects in the fabric.  And I am having trouble with skipped threads and loose threads…I think I may have to declare the last three or four inches a loss, and cut around it later.  C’est la vie.

It is a good thing that I have approached this warp (as I do everything else) as a learning exercise.  If I were trying to Create The Perfect Fabric I would have torn my hair out by now, as there have been plenty of challenges along the way.  The left edge of the warp keeps going slack on me, producing a tilted fell; there are loose threads, occasional skips where two threads bound together, and don’t forget the Grand Drama of Broken Threads (fortunately over now).  Every once in awhile, the tension changes enough to create a flaw line across the fabric.  I’m not saying the fabric is awful, but it’s far from perfect.  I had harbored visions of submitting it to the folks at Convergence as a candidate for the fashion show, but I don’t think the fabric will be flawless enough to send in.

(Probably just as well: the deadline to submit pieces for Convergence is February (I think), and if I’m getting married in June, mailing off my wedding dress for consideration a few months before just seems like a really Bad Idea in case something horrible happens in shipping.  Yes, I’d get the insurance, but as they say, “Losing your precious, handwoven dress a month before the wedding: priceless.”)

I have started the muslin for the off-the-shoulder dress, but work stress has been keeping me from getting a lot done.  There is nothing I can do about it and I expect the situation will resolve within the next week, but meanwhile I’m stressed out enough that I can’t focus very well for sewing.  I just don’t feel up to it.  So I have been weaving along, and reading through Susan Khalje’s Bridal Couture, and occasionally just playing games on my iPhone.  (I just discovered that I can play Zork on my iPhone!!  I loved the old text adventures, so this is just wonderful.)

Finally, I was shocked and saddened to hear of Michael Jackson’s death today.  I was twelve or thirteen when Thriller came out, and I remember all through middle and high school he was the unquestioned King of Pop (with Madonna the reigning Queen of Pop) – his music and his dancing were electrifying to hear and see.  I mean, he was huge.  There was a time when, no matter what time it was, you could turn the radio dial and hear “Thriller” playing on at least one radio station.  Even if he turned into a sideshow freak later, he  was one of the great cultural icons of my childhood and it’s strange (and sad) to realize that he’s gone.  I guess I understand now how people felt when Elvis died.

I wonder if people will ever be married by Michael Jackson impersonators in Vegas?

I spent most of this evening in a most unglamorous activity: I made myself a crinoline.  9 yards of netting gathered and attached to 3 yards of netting gathered and attached to an organza underskirt.  I loathe gathering, I don’t like working with netting, and I really didn’t want to make a crinoline, but it had to be done…so I did it.

Anyway, to floof or not to floof, that is the question.  With apologies for the terrible photos (it’s hard to look your best when standing around in cobbled-together pillowcases), here is the coat with the crinoline:

Bridal coat with crinoline

And here is the coat without crinoline:

Bridal coat without crinoline

I am not gung-ho excited about either of them, but I think I like the floofy one better.  I think if I toned down the fluffiness (aackpfft! Am I going to have to make ANOTHER crinoline??) a little it would look better, but I like the way the lines flow.  It would also look better with dress pattern #1 from a few posts ago.  I managed to find a copy of that pattern in my dress size, so I’m going to try sewing a muslin and trying it on, with the coat, to see.

Finally, despite the tremendous effort going into weaving the “plain” fabric, I’m starting to dream of lace.  Not very much lace, but there is some in dress pattern #1, so I’ve been considering adding some Alençon lace in white and gold to the bodice and the overskirt edge, should I decide to use that pattern:

Alencon lace

But first things first: before you get to the yummy laces you have to sew your muslins.

Tomorrow, pattern #1!  I can’t wait to see how the off-the-shoulder dress muslin develops.