Ring cushion

It's been a little quiet on the wedding DIY front recently as the holidays have meant less work for me and I have therefore used every possible opportunity to earn some money over the last few weeks, and any other free time got used up applying for more permanent roles.

I have not been idle, however. I have now got the DJ's contact details, have emailed him and am yet to hear back from him. I've booked the bridal suite the night before our wedding, so that the groom won't rest an eye on me before the big day. And I've made our ring cushion.

For this, I used some thin satin, which would have been of little use for the dress (a fail-buy, which I didn't want to see going to waste), white cotton thread, invisible nylon thread and a selection of beads - long, metallic, pearls, drop-shaped and diamond-shaped - as well as some toy stuffing and Fraystopper.

After applying Fraystopper around the edges, I cut out two 9 1/2 inch by 9 1/2 inch satin squares and sewed 3 of the edges together on the inside. I then turned the cushion to the right side and attached two beads - the round, metallic one and a see-through plastic one - on either end through the middle of the fabric with the help of the invisible thread. This was to ensure that the cushion would bend towards the middle and hold the rings securely.  I then sewed the rest of the beads in a floral pattern onto only one of the two fabric squares. It would probably have been easier to do this first and then the middle beads, but you live and learn.
The next task was connecting the edges of the last side with cotton thread, being careful to leave a gap for the stuffing, which went into each corner - enough, to make it all cushion-shaped and soft, but not too much to risk the threads bursting. Then I sewed the last bits of the edge together.
All in all, it took me, maybe, three hours to get the cushion done by hand. Hadn't I had a few G+Ts in the process, it may have taken 2, but the beads proved a little more difficult when tipsy.

Anyway, I must slowly get to the point of actually making serious savings. A similar ring cushion in the shop went for about £12 - this one here cost me about £2. I will have to start making a list. The next blog post appears sorted :-)
Though, I am also working on some table decorations, which would start at a minimum of £20 in shops, so we will see.

Sewing Machine Disaster!

So, I've finally done it! I braved my way upstairs and took the sewing machine out of it's wrapping, which had gathered dust since my future mother-in-law had given it to me last year.

Having given up on finding the instruction booklet, I found an online copy and went about threading. I had to take the covers off, but I understand the principle behind that now.

The actual problem was the sewing. The pedal either didn't react at all or the needle sped faster than Speedy Gonzales on drugs. I also got lots of knots and ripped thread, ending in what you see below:

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.

Paper Roses - Table Decorations

So I am taking a break from dressmaking (forced - we are both on holiday and the mister won't leave until the end of the week) and have thought about table decorations. I want to keep them simple and cheap, so thought of making paper roses to cover the tables with. If they disintegrate by the end of the night I doubt it'll matter as we're guaranteed to be too jolly to notice and at least no one will care if the umpteenth glass of red gets spilled over them.

I've been looking around a bit and got stuck with these instructions from Buzzfeed. The roses looked gorgeous and easy to make.
So I did what it said on the page.

I cut out 4 pieces of paper. Well, card, I only had card and folded them as instructed.

Then I cut them into petal bits and glued them together with craft glue. Bit tricky as the glue not only did not fasten the paper, but also tried to get my fingers involved. A job for the glue gun if I consider mass production.

Plastic pegs turned out to be a bit of a saviour.

Unlike in the instructions I also cut the bottom into little strips, which helped enormously in trying to get each layer to stick. Here's the result, following instructions:

It looks better in the photo than in reality, trust me.

I was a little frustrated with the fragility of the whole thing. I didn't expect it to last a lifetime, like I said earlier, but layers still seemed keen to separate. So glue gun again? Craft glue does seem the wrong choice.


My second try was inspired by this website, but I didn't use the template as my card was A2 and not printer-friendly. Instead, I drew and cut my own petals, just roughly making the shapes smaller towards the middle. As suggested, I used a bamboo skewer to wrap the first few petals, then slowly added the rest. Again, craft glue was a bad choice, but I am happier with the shape of the thing, which, incidentally, looks worse than in reality.

I guess I'll go with the first, but will have to alter the type of glue, paper and bottom bits to make it work the way it should. I am now collecting little Brie boxes to paint, bejewel and stick the roses onto. I might add a little glitter to the tips and/ or glue gun dew.

Update

Men. I am sitting here waiting for my cheesy eggs to set, having completely forgotten to eat over the excitement of having the morning to myself. It is cold. Freezing cold, in fact, after our boiler broke to mark the start of what could have been a nice, cosy half-term.
He took my child out for a bit to get his car fixed and give me a bit of space, but it's pouring down with rain and it's cold - did I mention that? - so he is bored now, waiting for his car, and keeps phoning up to talk. It's lovely, really, but a little annoying as I am still struggling with the nylon string to stop knotting. It's a sewing machine thread, but honestly, I can't see that working without constant annoyances.

I have not been idle, even though it seems to take ages to get the veil into shape and sew the ribbon all around it.I have finalised the shape by using pins to mark the approximate shape, once again battling with Threadstopper to stop going all over the place and cutting off the out-of-shape fabric bits. It's now in a rectangular shape with a semi-circle at the bottom.

I have enlisted the help of my future mother-in-law for the corset. She seemed surprised, but (hopefully) pleased that I asked her to help me. She used to make corsets all the time and I hope her expertise will come in useful when choosing the shape and measurements. Bach to food.

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.

Frustrated!

Why oh why is it so hard to find a simple, plain corset? I am not buying online. I have tried every single lingerie shop, clothes shop and brides shop in the area. It's not that small. Really. But nothing.

So I got fed up enough to decide I'll have to make that myself, too, despite the fact the very thought scares the hell out of me. I have, however, one advantage over the skirt issue: I have found a decent sewing pattern online.

So off I went to Halfords in weather that told me that today, even the sky couldn't be bothered to decide whether to snow, rain, or just be done with it all together and decided on a measly compromise which got me wet and miserable.

In Halfords, there was nothing even approximating steel ribbon to be found, but then, I had a brainwave! Steel rulers! They're durable, stiff enough to last the evening, but just bendy enough to be shaped into corset bones. And, looking at pictures on the internet now, they appear to be just the right size.

I also got a Sainsbury's TU Shapewear dress in hideous nude (does the inside matter? I needed stretchy material and Hobbycraft is shamefully short on those!), in L rather than S for the extra inches of fabric.
There is enough satin to cover the corset, inside and out, if necessary.