Fitting

Well, the dress was ready for the moment of truth . . fitting! Some friends helped me with fitting, hemline and other final details (such as placement of connection points for the sleeve into the arms-eye). Unfortunately I didn't have a camera or a mirror to see what it looked like on me myself but they claim it looks really good.

Unfortunately I find I have to have something to look at to know how it's turning out . . so I put it on the body-double. Although the body-double doesn't have the corseted figure and so it doesn't fit quite right, it will be close enough to get me an idea of what needs to happen.



There are some alterations that need to happen.

(1) there needs to be a hook and eye placed at the top and bottom of the bodice back to aid the lacings.

(2) the dress sleeves need to be shortened a little so they split open more and show the chemise more.

(3) there needs to be more volume to the chemise sleeves.

While item 1 is easily fixed and will be before I wear this dress, the other two will have to wait until after the first wearing, unless I'm able to breeze through the other aspects of this outfit (coat and headdress) as well as the rest of my husband's outfit with time to spare to tackle these aspects.

I'm pleased that we dropped the bodice neckline enough to show the chemise as I do plan on putting some blackwork or other needlework on that panel for display. However I'm not sure that I don't also need to drop the chemise neckline by a little bit (not as much as the bodice), but that's another aspect I'll tackle later I think.

What remains for this dress at this point is embelishments. I need to obtain large pearls to place at each connection point of the sleeves and I've got some string pearls to place in a pattern at the neckline and, if time allows, the cuffs.

Next project, is the coat . .needlework can always be done later while traveling to the event (if necessary) since I won't be driving.