The Finished Veil

So it took every free minute I could spare for the best part of 2 days to get the veil finished.

Let's walk back through the process.
Bought organza, mistakenly thinking I could use it to crunch nicely for a petticoat-like underskirt. Thought I'd use the material somehow and it was thin, light, white - it seemed perfect for a veil.

So I roughly cut out the shape:

It was messy. Very much so, and very scrunched up. The steel rulers I bought seemed a decent weight to attempt straightening the material out a little, whilst I used pins to mark the places where the Fraystopper would go:

The Fraystopper made more mess than anticipated. Ribbon - folded over the edges and sewn on with invisible thread - was needed to both smooth out the edges and hide the glue-like substance:

The hand-sewing took the most time. I sat for about 8 hours to get all the way around the veil.

The next step was to affix the shape to the comb. Again, I used invisible string to - I forgot the technical term - crunch the fabric and used a bead on either side to keep it in shape.

More thread to sew the fabric onto the comb, and it was done!

I'd like to take a picture showing the whole veil, the way it falls to my waist, but I have found out that organza, whilst nice in natural light, is not particularly flash-friendly and looks more like a plastic bag over my head :-( That means that I may still decide to go veil-free after all. We'll see what it looks like when the dress is ready.

What have I learned?

Material matters. I did not really have a clue about different types of netting, now I know which material to use for what. I had no clue how they would fall, or even be worked. And, obviously, whether they worked in different types of light. This has helped me think a lot more about the materials I need for the corset and I have bought some lining, which is very strong.

I have also learned that everything takes more time than anticipated, especially when hand-sewing. Things go wrong, need working out and re-working more than I thought they would.

I have learned that I love my big saviour, the glue gun, when things go wrong. And that I hate nylon string.

Veil-making

The rest of my day on Thursday was spent attempting to make the veil for the big day. After all, how hard can it be? It's only a rectangular shape with rounded ends.

Well, turns out, the material plays a massive role in how well these things go.

I used some of the organza mistakenly purchased to make a layered underskirt to make a light, flowing veil.

First of all, organza creases big time. Most of my materials spend a lot of their time sitting in a drawer or a plastic bag in my wardrobe to hide from the eyes of my partner. Taking the organza out and flattening it was a maddening experience, but the steel rulers I will attempt to use in my corset have helped keep the majority flat(ish).

After prepping the material with Fraystopper (did my homework there) I cut the rough shape of the veil. Then cut it again as it was still out of shape. And then some more to make sure it looks as straight as possible.

So then I had a rectangle and decided this was a good time to start sewing the translucent-white ribbon on to smooth out the edges. Folding said ribbon was the next big issue. Boy, that stuff is stubborn and will attempt to straighten out rather than being folded in half lengthwise every chance it gets. I got a load of pins and, after much colourful language-exploration mastered the seemingly impossible.

Then I started sewing. The easy part, right? Only I used the string pictured above in an attempt to be clever - if you can't see the thread it doesn't matter if the technique isn't perfect and I didn't think white string would have worked well anyway. Big mistake. Not on the look - I did get that right - but the string curls like pigtails and WILL knot. Thankfully, the nylon makes it easy to de-knot, unless pulled too hard.

After an hour of sewing it was time to pack away. I didn't get as much done as I hoped I would - it takes more time and patience to sew with these materials - but I get a day off on Friday to carry on.