We Are On the Home Stretch, I Swear!

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At least when you look at it from my point of view, which is - I've been trying to get my ballgown finished since February. Yup, it's taken me that long!

We did manage to squeak in a little work outside that needed to be done. I am ashamed to say that I regret buying this pool. I probably should not, but it did not turn out the way we thought it would at all. We hardly used it, due to the access and cleaning trouble with it.

And then we had to clean it and put it away for the winter.

If you have lots of time or lots of help, a string of nice sunny and dry days, and a clean and flat surface to work on, that would be one thing. But we had none of those.

We got it drained and drug up onto the front porch,





where we did our best to get the dirt and vegetation debris off of it, using a giant blow dryer, then we gave up, rolled it up and put it under a tarp on the pool deck.









And that was one thing done!

Here is the only photographic evidence of Tuesday's sewing day; a floured footprint left by a lovely, bread-baking girl. The rest of the time I was too busy sewing to take pics.





And at a dance practice, Josiah gave Ashlee a knitting lesson.





He's so sweet, and very good at knitting. As well as many other things.





While there, I nabbed the 'community' serger and finished the armholes on my chemise, as well as a dress shirt I had to take in for Michael.

Today we had another sewing day, here at home. Here is my finished chemise, complete with corset.





I have not got on my hoop skirt, but the pantaloons are there. The fabric is not bulky underneath the corset at all, I was surprised to find. However, it is bulky above the top of the corset. I don't know if I will be able to wear it under my ballgown or not. I'll have to try it out after all the hooks and eyes are in place.

I did find later that pulling the chemise down very low in the front helped a lot, and that may be the answer.

Here is the back.





I'm using three different cords to lace it up. It helps a lot to have the separate, as tightening the laces is sort of an art. The middle one is done first, and is the snuggest, then you can work up and down with the other two.

Here is a nice shot of a hoop skirt. This one is shortened due to her height being only 5-2, so you see two hoops rather closely set.





A moment of rest between measuring for hem length.









Even this guy was put to work. He does a nice job ironing and pinning the bottom up for hemming. He's only free because his umpteenth time of trying on his vest that I was altering was finally over. I think that's why he was smiling.





So what's left?

Not nearly so much as last week!

~Faith

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