Sunday, May 16, 2010

the pros and cons of perfectionism

So in my last post, I was angsting about the darker green trim.  Even though all of you good readers, my husband, and my mom all told me that the green was great and I was crazy for worrying about it, I knew it wasn't going to make me happy.  I just had to go with my gut on this one.  But unfortunately, the bright-white stripes in my fabric didn't match the off-white of my silk.  Oh noes!  So silly me, I threw it in the wash with a few cups of coffee and didn't bother to finish the edges of my pieces first.  How bad could it be?

Uhhh... bad.

This has to be the frayingest fabric that I've ever had the joy of working with.  It frayed through my 5/8" selvage and beyond.  I was so upset on Friday that I was seriously considering ditching the whole project, but by Saturday my stubborn nature had taken over, so I gave it one more try.  

I was able to fix the skirt by trimming off the tangled mess and turning the seams into French seams, so that wasn't too big of a deal (but my skirt inset is on the wrong side now - oops!)  But the bodice was more problematic.  I tried trimming the selvage down and assembling it with smaller seams, but it didn't fit anymore.  So I took the little bit of fabric that was remaining and cut all new bodice pieces, even though this meant that I had to carefully piece a few sections because my remaining scraps were so small.  

All this silliness cost me a day's worth of work, but now that the dress is assembled, I am SO glad I did it.  I looooove the white trim.  It looks so much more delicate and soft than the green did.  Seeing this dress come together is making me absolutely giddy.  I still need to make the undersleeves and dicky and mount it all to the underbodice, but I still have 2 weeks to do that, so I should be fine.  


7 comments:

Maggie said...

It looks beautiful, but I'm really sorry you had to deal with such awful fraying!

Anonymous said...

Oh, that is so pretty! I thought the green was fine, albeit I'm usually pretty sensitive to the white/offwhite thing myself; but the white trim on this really is fabulous.

Cathy Raymond said...

It's always fun to solicit advice about a project, but in the end, if you're the one who'll be wearing it, your judgment is all that matters. I'm glad you managed to get it together in a form you like!

FashionK said...

I didn't comment on the last post because I would have never tried to talk you out of an already fabulous job you were doing with the green......but.....I LOVE THE WHITE!!!!! And I'm so glad it worked out (especially with the fraying issues). Talk about some progress!!!! Its going to be fabulous!

Unknown said...

You know, my linen that looks very similar to that frayed a lot too.

The whole thing looks lovely!

Time Traveling in Costume said...

Good for you for sticking with it and carrying it through to the end. It looks fabulous.
Val

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