It is going well thus far. I think the main reason is that I have been able to sit back and say "what do YOU want?" I will not say anything is impossible- although I will say "wow, great idea, I am going to have to figure out how to do that!"
For inspiration we are using this Maggie Sottero dress that she tried on 2 different times. She likes the shirred bodice mostly. She has fallen in love with an allover lace idea so the draped lace will continue to the floor.
We are using this Vogue pattern as a very rough pattern.
We made a very lovely(!) black version as a mock up. The size 10 fit her almost perfectly.
We headed off to Toronto to look for fabric - specifically lace. I wasn't worried that we would not find any thing suitable as Ann (Gorgeous Things) was sweet enough to do some looking in New York City on one of her buying trips, so we knew that Kashi at Metro had some beautiful laces. The first store we visited was Leo's. The salesgirl was soo great and recommended to us that Kate be draped in the fabric to get a better feel of what she liked. What a difference that made. We ended up loving a Chantilly lace with no beading (75/metre) and a more netting like lace with lots of bling (150/metre). I was hesitant to buy at the very first store, so off we went to the other stores. There was lots of fabric to choose from yes, but nothing spectacular - as well as the fact that we were totally ignored by many sales people. Don't get me wrong, I abhor hovering sales people, but an acknowledgment of our presence would have been nice!
The last store we ventured into was LA Fabrics - bad name great store. Very high end, european fabrics. Kate fell in love with an Alencon lace - it was 54 inches wide which makes me suspect it perhaps is not TRUE Alencon, but at 75/mtre I was not going to argue. What cinched the deal for Kate was the fact that her inspiration dress was pinned to the same lace (in white instead of her ivory) and an inspiration picture that I had clipped was pinned by another bolt. Good Karma! No bling though - so I am off to Toronto this week to the Needlecraft show to explore Swarovski glue on crystals versus sew on beads.
6 -gulp - 6 metres later, we needed to decide on the underdress. We wanted Peau de Soie - and could choose from silk - 65/yd or polyester 6/yd. Kate thought I was nuts for humming and hawing - "gees mom - it's only the underlining- no one will know the difference" So we went with poly - yick. We did get silk chiffon for the bodice. Oh yes and some stretch silk charmeuse in brown for my MOB Dress. Our last stop was a hole in the wall where Katelyn scooped a bag full of perfect sequins for 5 dollars. Kate meet needle, needle meet sequins! (actually my fantabulous mother loves handwork and has offered to help out with the beading)
Next up - the underpinnings and hopefully some fabric photos.
