And that’s all folks!

Love, Rachel

Doll Class:  These girls did EVERYTHING. Design, pattern, cut, hand-stitch, stuff, and machine sew. They are amazing.

Elizabeth, 5th grade

Rosmary, 5th grade

Hannah, 4th grade

Sarah, 4th grade

Esther, 3rd grade

Advanced Skirt Class: These girls used sketched their design, went shopping, used patterns, cut, ironed, and stitched on the sewing machine themselves. All I did was fit them.

Kayleigh, 5th grade

Christmas Stocking Class: These girls designed their own stockings, used patterns, cut, hand-stitched their designs, and machine-sewed their completely lined stockings. I did the name embroidery.

Kayleigh, 5th grade

Rosemary, 5th grade

Hannah, 4th grade

Sarah, 4th grade

Esther, 3rd grade

Eleanor, 4 years old (of course she didn’t sew her stocking, but insisted on being photographed!)

The girls all together:

Girls who did the work and were not pictured but deserved the credit!

Doll Class: Aubrey C., Cherish C., and Jordan C.
Skirt Class: Rosemary G., and Esther G.
Stocking Class: Aubrey C., Cherish C., and Jordan C.

 I am so proud of you girls!
Love, Mrs. Galloway

Mary sent me the fabric of her lyre-bird and I was so excited to receive it that I went out that very day to get all the supplies that I needed to make my wall hanging. Here is the fabric I received and yes, it is not ironed.

I decided to make a double border in greens pulling out the green in the lyre-bird because I love green and have a lot of it around my home. First I cut out strips of the stripes making sure that the stripes would be consistent around the piece.

The first strip sewn. I’m loving this already.

After sewing on the second strip, I decided to miter the corner instead of sewing all the way down.

Here is the piece with the first fabric border sewn.

I want the first border to be 2” so I measure off.

I pink the piece on a full piece of dark green fabric. I don’t worry about the extra layer because I actually want to bulk this up for my wall hanging.

Measuring 4” around for the 2nd border. Some of this will go away in seam allowance. And yes, my ruler is broken.

I want to quilt this wall hanging so I bought “Quilter’s Fusible Batting.” Now I have to say first and foremost…I AM NOT A QUILTER AND I HAVE NEVER USED THIS PRODUCT BEFORE. I can hear all real quilters out there groaning and at this point in my project it seemed like a good idea. In hind site, I will never use this product again. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Laying out my bottom fabric and Fusible Batting. Notice I had to piece the top because I bought the baby quilt size and didn’t have enough for a full piece.

Top layer.

All trimmed up and ready to iron together.

***NOTE***

Ironing was a huge pain and it was very difficult to keep things flat and tight on a piece this size. It looked hard and bubbly in many spots so after working at the board for quite some time, I put the project on the floor and tried to iron things flat there. I won’t use the iron-on batting again. Pain.

Okay…skipping on to machine quilting. I put some nice shiny threads in my machine and stitched as much as I could with the machine. The tinier sharper corners I ended up hand-stitching.

Steps I didn’t get photos:

1. machine stitching

2. hand-stitching around bird and lyre

3. trimming and handstitching dark green fabric to the back of the project.

Time to cut out the loops.

You can see some quilting imperfections and some pulling in various spots.

But at the end of the day, all who walk into my house only say, “WOW!”

Thank you Mary!

Love,

Rachel

1.  Hand-stitching the lining to the boned bodice.
2.  Hand-stitching the flowers.
3.  Hand-stitching the sheer bodice fabric layer to the zipper.
4.  Hand-stitching the skirt lining to the main skirt.
5.  Hand-stitching the outer skirt hem.

Did you notice a trend of the word “hand-stitching?” Now YOU can also become wedding dress snobs. The next time you go to a bridal store and examine the hem of the wedding dresses, I will bet you anything they are machine sewn. If that doesn’t bother you, well, that’s fine. You have not yet graduated to the level of “wedding dress snob.” We all have to embrace where we are in life and go with it. I can never go back.

The next batch of pictures I am going to share with you are actually from a couple of fittings. You will not see the FINAL completed garment on Rachel until I take pictures of her at her wedding party. Her wedding is this Saturday, so you are just going to have to wait. SORRY.

In this first picture, you can see the 3 flowers that have been constructed and sewn on her thin shoulder strap. Rachel found a pattern she liked and wanted the centers to be pink to add a pop of color and match her pink sandals. I made the flowers by sewing both layers of fabric into a tube and gathering one side. The flower had to be turned and hand-stitched into place. The center is a covered button of 4 layers of sheer pink fabric. All I have to say is that working with all those layers of sheer….well let’s not go there, shall we?

At this fitting I am working on the outer layer of her skirt. You can see the pins going up the sides. We’ll get back to that later.

Let’s look at the back of the dress. You can see that I joined the three separate tubes in the back with one tube finishing that up. The strap that extends to the right side of her back I sewed a snap on the end as well as on the inside of the bodice to keep it strong. If I had sewn that strap to the dress, she would’ve had a very difficult time getting the dress on.

Here’s a better shot where you can see all the detail in the bodice.

Let’s look at some hand-stitching.

This is a picture of the inside of the dress. The main fabric has been pressed into it’s final hem and the inside lining has been turned under and hand-stitched into place. The darker non-shiny fabric is the lining.

This is what the outside of the main fabric looks like. You can see tiny indentations from the “prick-stitching.”

In this next fitting I am working on her outer layer of fabric and pinning up that final layer. I had to let the fabric hang for 24 hours to get the bias to stretch out as much as it would before the final hem. You can see on her left side that the sheer fabric was doing something funky and I had to pin it in some more to take out the bubble. The outer layer has been pinned up for the final hem.

The back of the dress with the outer sheer layer pinned for it’s final hem.

The sheer layer also must be hand-stitched using the “prick-stitch” technique.

Here is the dress finished but not steamed. I used a string to help hold the dress up on the hanger. Those hanger things inside dresses annoy me. They always somehow end up sticking up out of the dress while you are wearing it. Personal pet peeve.

Oh, and I just noticed right now the time on the clock. Yes, it was 2:30 am.

I went and purchased a decent garment steamer and steamed the dress up nicely. Rachel picked up the dress today and I will see her on Saturday to see the final product on her all gussied up.

A Few Words

1.  Well, it was a hard project. But, I wasn’t going into this thinking that it would be easy. If you are going to make a wedding dress and NOT cut corners (like you shouldn’t!), expect the project to be time consuming.

2.  My sister Megan was right. (I should just stop there, she would like it.) She told me that once I got started I would really get into it and enjoy the process. She was right. I did. I have always been up for a challenge.

3.  I am glad that it’s done. That is also true. It’s nice after a couple months of sewing mess (and those of you who sew know exactly what I’m talking about!) to get cleaned up and organized and VACUUM!

4.  Rachel has a beautiful dress and looks absolutely gorgeous in it! I really can’t believe that she started babysitting for us when Rosemary was 1 year old. She is the reason that Jon and I started to date again. And THANK GOD for that. And thank you Rachel.

I’m Going To Stroll Down Memory Lane And You Can Come With Me

We love you, Rachel! May you have a blessed life and marriage for always.

Love, your second family,

The Galloways

**UPDATE**

Please check out Rachel’s wedding pictures HERE!!!

Starting the Straps

I started making tubes for her thin straps here. The fabric is cut on the bias so when it stretches with the tube elastic, it will look smooth.

Boning the Bodice

I am also separately working on the lining of the bodice and am boning it. I chose small plastic boning because both Rachel and the garment don’t need anything hard-core. Once your lining is sewn together, you sew the boning in on the wrong side directly over the seam lines. You want to make sure that the curve is facing the correct way once everything is put together.

I like to trim the ends of my boning after it’s already been set into the lining.

This is a picture of the “right side” of the lining with the boning in place. This is what you will see on the inside of the bodice.

The Outer Bodice Shell

I finished prick-stitching the initial draping on the right side and trimmed away all the excess fabric.

Rachel W. wanted the back to be smooth so I made a french seam on the side of the bodice and am laying out the overlay to cut out.

All pinned and ready to cut!

As I flip the bodice to the inside  you can see that I’ve hand-stitched down the seams. I don’t want anything looking bulky or getting out of place once everything is put together.

Here is the right side of the bodice.

Here is the end of Rachel’s fitting after I draped the second side of the bodice. I purposefully didn’t get her face because she was feeling dizzy from standing for so long.

Time to start hand-stitching the second side!

And

Time

Goes

By

And

By……

and then it’s done.

Putting the dress together.

Now it’s time to start putting all of these pieces together. I stitched the boned lining to the main bodice piece and here I am carefully under-stitching the lining so that when I turn it it will be very crisp and clean.

And don’t forget about the skirt!

I know. The skirt gets some attention now too. I have already attached the lining to the main skirt fabric, but now it is time to attach the sheer overskirt to the other pieces. As you can see, I am doing a small cluster of tiny pleats in the center front to give her a tiny bit of fullness. Tiny.

And here is a preliminary picture of the bodice attached to the skirt. “What about all those other pictures I saw before?” you may ask.

“Well,” I will respond, “they were fake. The dress was either basted or pinned together. Now it’s SEWN!”

Now, the original sketch involves some flowers  on the shoulder of the dress. Let me remind you.

Ahhhh…yes. The dreaded flowers. Well, today Rachel W. found a flower she liked and in the pictures below we are testing it out with fake “paper flowers” just to get a feel of size and position.

I want you to notice her bodice and how crisp and clean the top line is. The boning added that extra bit of hold (remember how the left side drooped a bit before the boning was added?)

The small flowers were agreed on. I kind of like the paper. Could be a bit avant garde, don’t you think?

Now this fitting is the last one before I do her hem. It’s a critical one because I need to get her straps and zipper perfect. Once you zip her into this dress, it needs to stay SNUG!

The zipper will be a challenge as well because the fabric panels down the center back seam are not cut on the straight, but on a slight bias. Sewing a zipper on a curve and while the fabric is curved is tricky. Hope I don’t screw it up! Hee hee.

The strap the goes all the way to the right side of her back will have a separate closure. If I sew it directly into her dress she will have a difficult time getting it on and off. I am going to put a hook on it so that it will be secure. At the top of her shoulder where the three straps meet, I will cover them with a thin finished tube of the same fabric so they all blend together and look like they are coming from the same place.

Next time I will be hemming this dress. Believe it or not, Rachel W. would like the tiniest of trains so the majority of this back fabric is going to end up in the trash.

I’ve had so many people ask me why the heck am I doing this? “You’re so busy. Blah, blah, blah.” All I have to say is….

“Look at this beautiful face. Well, her heart is even more beautiful and I would do anything for this girl.”

Love,

Rachel

Now don’t get all bent out of shape!

Love,

Rachel

The Sheer Outer Layer

Here I am working on sewing together the pieces for the sheer outer-most layer of the dress. When you have sheer fabric, you really need to do a french seam. To sew a french seam you basically sew the garment inside out, trim it, and then flip it over and encase the seam you just sewed into another seam. Serging is just too bulky for such a delicate layer.

Here is the massive skirt fabric I need to work with.

Sewing the side seams to the outer layer of the skirt wrong sides together.

Trim the seam REALLY tiny. We are going to flip the material and encase this seam in a new seam.

Flipping the fabric and pressing the seam flat.

Sewing the final seam (encasing the old one).

Moving Right Along To Something Else

Rachel is going to try on the shell pieces to the dress. As you can see the skirt is simply pinned to the bodice right now.

The back is pinned all the way up too. I really need to measure the straps.

The bodice is just the outer shell from my last post. Once I get the lining with the boning in it, it will sit just perfectly. Rachel saw this dress that she loved with the design element of the thin straps. There is one in the front that turns into three straps across the back. I had the idea to find (I didn’t even know if it existed and it did!) round elastic so that she would feel secure and comfortable at the same time. This is just the initial elastic to get a rough measurement. It will later be covered with her main shiny fabric.

That’s going to look really cool in the back.

The next thing I need to work on before I can sew the lining/boning in is the draping on the bodice. I draped half of the bodice which I am going to hand sew into place before I drape the second side. You can be reminded of the bodice draping from my amazing sketch. Rosemary commented that she loved the ruffles to which Rachel snorted. I don’t think she’s a ruffle type of gal. Just a guess.

Close-up of the draping on the bodice.

And here she is all pinned together. Boy I have a lot of work to do!!!! More later.

Love, Rachel

I swore I wouldn’t make another wedding dress. EVER. If it wasn’t hard enough to just MAKE the dress without dealing with the emotions of the bride and family stresses, you also have to deal with the bride and last minute unexpected weight gain OR weight loss due to the same fore-mentioned stress. At one point my sister Megan was making a corseted wedding dress for a gal who “forgot” to tell her she was also pregnant. That was an interesting time for good old Megs.

Well, all those rules went down the toilet for me in an instant. Our babysitter (no longer but will always be in our hearts) Rachel is getting married!!!! (Don’t be confused, we have the same name.) Rachel is family to us. We have had her come and watch the girls since she was 15. She is such a beautiful person. I MADE her go to her senior prom (she was not into the idea) just so she would have the experience if ever so short of a time and we designed her dress. If I do say so myself, she is gorgeous.

And yes, that is a striped silk-dupioni circular skirt. Thanks for asking.

So, now the time has come for our Rachel to get married. Actually, the date is a month from now so I really need to get crackin’. I start late for a reason. It’s called EXPERIENCE. I had one mock-up fitting for her bodice before I went to NJ and once I got back for a second fitting she had gotten way thinner. So I scolded her, “This is why I wait until the last minute to start!”

We started by going to David’s Bridal where she tried on many dresses. She liked 2 of them and so we decided to combine them into the perfect dress for her. Here is my terrible sketch of her future wedding dress. Hey, I never claimed to be a great sketcher. It’s all up in the head!

This is a fitted boned empire waist bodice with a draped overlay. There is a side strap as a design interest in the back. The skirt is three layers: main fabric which is a crepe-back satin, lining (of course), and a sheer chiffon overlay that will have some tiny pleating in the center front. All three layers are cut slightly on the bias to take advantage of her lithe figure. The front strap will have a single fabric flower made out of sheer fabric layers. Not sure how I’m going to do that yet. We joke that the flower will probably give me the most trouble.

Here is the pile of fabrics. Yay. Time to cut out.

Here is one of the front bodice pieces.

I am attaching a layer of underlining to each of the bodice pieces for some stability.

Sewing all the underlining pieces on to the main pieces of the bodice.

Carefully sewing the curved pieces together.

I have the shell of the main bodice together. It’s time for a fitting to make any adjustments needed. After getting the bodice perfect, I can work on the lining and the boning.

More later. I have a fitting tomorrow.

Love, Rachel

Love, Rachel

I just returned from a month long summer vacation with my family on the East Coast. I went with all of my brothers and sisters to Lake George for a week and we had a fantastic time swimming, reading, playing games, boating, jumping off waterfalls (some of us!), eating, playing music, ice-cream desserts, digging in the sand, fishing, etc. It was awesome.

In NJ I spent some wonderful time with my parents as well. My Dad took me kayaking and it was absolutely fabulous.

I have 2 weeks left of summer vacation and our pool has officially been filled after our extensive work pre-NJ vacation time. It was fun to come home and be able to finally swim in it.

This coming year I have a lot of ideas and fun things that I would like to do. The first thing on my list, however, is that I am making a wedding dress for my “babysitter” although she is all grown up now. After my last wedding dress, I swore I would never make another, but after all, it is Rachel and I would do anything for her. So, I will try to post some pictures and show the process of the dress.

I will be offering 2 kids sewing classes this year, but I’m going to wait a month to get school going (and the wedding dress sewn!) before I start them.

It’s an exciting year and I am just excited. Thanks to Joshua Stamper too who is going to be orchestrating some of my songs and he is just so very brilliant. The famous Andrew Smith is also going to be drumming.

That’s all and hopefully now that the silence has been broken, more will flow forth.

Love, Rachel