Still Alive And Even Sewing

It's been a looong time since I published my last post. And it's been a looong time since I was last sitting in front of my sewing machine. 

The coat is not finished yet. Why? I consulted the nearly-done trench with my teacher during the so-far-last sewing lesson before the summer break and we came to the conclusion that a couple of changes had to be made. The problem is, that I never came around to actually bring them to reality. Why? Already at that point, I had so very little time for everything else, that I just had to put the sewing aside for a while once the course was over. 

The reason is that in less than 6 weeks I'm having a wedding and we organize the wedding ourselves, no wedding planner at hand :-), so this takes me a lot of free time. For the case that this wasn't enough, my two friends are marrying on the next two Saturdays and so I am helping them with some stuff. In fact, one of them is my best friend who lives abroad and that's why I don't have a real opportunity to help her with the organization, so I am happy at least for the little things I can do, like making her a garter or a ring bearer pillow.

So, the last things I've been sewing are some decorative tablecloths, garters, wedding band pillows and stuff like that. It's fun, I enjoy it a lot, but I have no time to sew anything else. And that explains the lack of my posts lately. 

In the middle of all these organizational things around our own wedding, like finding the right place, manage the bureaucracy, design and possibly create some decorations etc (you've got the idea), I was having this "delightful" idea, that I'd love to make a dress for at least one of the friends' weddings. Since the time-pressure's on, I was thinking I might manage to make one for at least the second wedding in a row. I had the suitable fabric in my fabric stash, I had the perfect pattern in the pattern stash as well and I had this feeling, that I might be able to sew up a dress in a weekend time, although this dress is more complicated than anything else I've ever sewn before. 

It's Vogue 1154:

I love the design, I bought all the notions I hadn't had at home, like steel boning (Erica B. inspired me to this) and I began to sew. I followed the instructions and at first, everything went well - the process was very time consuming, but I had no problem understanding the instructions or actually following them. I made the foundation, lined it, I made the outer shell (the upper part of the dress), made some pictures in the middle of the process (below) and after nearly two whole days of sewing, I'm stuck. 

First, the time I had reserved for this dress is gone, so if I don't manage to steal enough time during the workdays after work to complete it I won't be able to finish it in time And second, I don't know where the instructions are going. I am trying to understand, how this dress will finally come to what it looks like in the pictures, I have no idea why the dress lining is probably between the dress and the foundation and not between the foundation and me... I know, I am not an advanced sewer and I picked an advanced pattern, so no right to complain, I've been warned :-).

I'll see what will happen next. I will try very hard to complete this (time-wise and instructions-wise), but I can't guarantee a success. If I won't make it in time, I'll have to force another friend to marry to have an opportunity to wear this what-the-hell-was-I-thinking dress once it's (hopefully) done :-).

Have a great week and happy sewing! :-)