After fitting the bodice, time to turn to a part I was dreading – the skirts. Me and knife pleating are not friends.

I let my perfectionist tendencies go, and pleated this without measuring! Without counting!

It did take several tries to get the two sides the same length.

Looks fairly even from the outside:

But lol this is what happens when you flip it over and check the inside.

You can tell that I did the left side (from the inside) second, but I was not about to undo the right side to redo it.

I laid the bodice on top of the skirt on the ground to figure out how to pin it, since the bodice has a deep V point. Popped it up on the dress form to check, and holy cow it looks like a dress!

At this point I went into whiz-bang-sew-all-the-things mode because I needed to have the dress done for the Hamilton Ball, so I have no more photos. My attempt to alter the sleeves from my francaise gown ended up awful, but I was able to call in my friend Bunny again who heroically saved the day and draped new sleeves on me.

For the front buttons, I bought wooden button molds from William Booth Draper. I cut out circles of fabric and went over the edges with fray check. I did a running stitch around the edge of the circle and pulled it in, creating a nice little pouch for the button. Then I did a bunch of random messy stitching to try and hold the button together. Last, I cut circles of white felt and whipped it onto the back of the button, to cover up the messy stitching, and also give me something to sew onto when attaching these to the bodice.

With that, I promptly ran out of time before I could add any trim to the dress or make a hedgehog wig before the Hamilton Ball, so I dubbed it wearable.

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal”

Work!

Despite the fact that the right shoulder kept wanting to fall down, and my stays and shift wanted to poke out the whole evening, and it desperately needed some trim, I still felt pretty awesome in this! Next up, photos from Costume College where I actually managed to fix (some of) those things.