Tonight was the social--the girls we SO excited to go and they all had a great time!!! Now musician daughter is working hard on her poetry presentation for tomorrow--no rest to be had here. So--here they are--the PICS!

Here it is--the day before the formal dance. The question is---Did the dress get done??? YES! It did along with the top hat, the ballet shoes and the wristlet. Along the way I did have a ton of help! It is along and hard job creating a dress-especially when the "model" won't work. That leaves lots of waiting time in there...but not to worry. My helpers are on duty and working hard! 
First there is Apollo--our little brown down. He was supposed to be an Akita something cross according to the rescue society I got him from--he was the huge red fluffy puppy that licked everyone to death and that no one wanted. I took one look at those huge red, fluffy paws and home he came with me. Apollo insists on being in the same room with me when I"m working--which often means I am stepping over him constantly. It took a bit but we finally found the solution to this--get him a bed! Apollo LOVES his bed--it is in the livingroom and he can see everything in the house. Of course, I'm not sure how he "sees" everything when he is usually in this position:

As you can see--he is hard at work protecting us:) 

On the other end of house we have our giant fluffy white (well, sometimes white) puppy. When Nemo says he wants to come in--good luck at keeping him out! He has knocked oldest son off of his feet coming in the back door--fortunately for him, there was a bed close by and he landed on it.

Now Nemo is a working dog--he usually spends all of his time outside in the pastures. For your reference:) Those tiles are 12 inch squares---go ahead---add them up:) Yes, he is a big dog!!! But all 150+ lbs is pure solid wonderful happy loving heart:) 

Yes, yes, yes--I know get to the dress!!! 

First we had to make a few items to go with the dress:

A pair of ballet shoes--which I got from Pinterest--love that site. But I didn't take a pic of the shoes--they are for her to put on when the shoes come off during the dance. The dance is in the school cafeteria so my thought is "Yuck! Bare feet on the floor--NOT!"

Then I had to make a top hat--now I only did the basic part of the hat--the form and putting the fabric covering over it. The decorations on the hat--Fiona did. I think it is pretty cool! She plans to have her hair done with vintage curls and then put her hat slightly off centered and off to the side on the one side of her head. I'll take pics tomorrow when the finishing touches are put on--but here's the hat!

This is the side view --

Pretty cool looking, eh?

Then we needed something to put all of our "stuff" into--a quilted, zippered wristlet was just the thing. 

The front of the dress--it is supposed to be asymmetrical--she wanted it like that. 

Yep--that asymmetrical thing again--drives me nuts still but--it is how she wanted it. This dress was originally done in gauze and netting--none to be found here so we did it with poly . It turned into a bit more of a princess type of dress but still the way she wanted it and she's happy. You only graduate from 8th grade once and you only have one 8th grade social. 

More pics tomorrow night after Cheryl Zdon does her hair, puts the top hat in place and we are actually "dressed." 

Best intentions--best laid plans and life throws you a curve.
I had intended to update daily as I worked but as it turns out-I can either work on the dress or update the blog. Considering that time is ticking down--working on the dress won out.
As it turns out--Matilda only worked out for a bit. I decided I really didn't want that zipper to be 21 inches long and musician daughter's waist is smaller than Matilda's shoulders so--our happy bonding time came to an end. Which makes draping fabric difficult--fortunately musician daughter doesn't mind. Good thing because neither Pumpkin nor Ziggy would be any good as a Fit Model for  "The Dress."
So the last look was of the bodice completed in the fabric with the sleeves done in a polyester overlay-really would have preferred netting but you won't find that stuff anywhere here in this town. When I asked at JA if the fabric would take a dye (silly me--I had this idea that I could dye the fabric and get the gradients that I wanted--HAHHAHAHHA--they never heard of such a thing!!! Why would anyone do THAT???) they asked "WHY?"--ok just walk away now......walk quickly and hold your tongue. I've never been good at holding my tongue but for once I succeeded!  Yea--I know--put it on the calendar with a huge gold star on it.
Next up is adding those tiers of overlay to the skirt. The base skirt is in the same fabric as the bodice. The top two layers are a lighter blue overlay. Lightly gathered and then stitched into the seams. Yep--easy no problem.  It looks pretty frumpy when hanging on the 
hanger doesn't it--and funny with just the one gore on the front. 


That's ok--it does get better. 


Or at least--musician daughter thinks so and since it is her creation she's all that counts right now:) 




So this is how it stayed for about a week--with just the top two overlays in play and one gore for the skirt. 


Then today I had some time--

I had to wait for the model to come home though-got the rest of the skirt on and the first of the three dark blue overlays on.  I still would prefer netting and a gauze type of fabric but we're working with what we could find. Tis certainly not the fashion district around here! But I think we're doing ok...






Here's the front

Here's the back--and yes, it is supposed to be asymmetrical. Being the artsy person that musician daughter is--she couldn't go with the balanced look--she had to have things "layered and with character"--ok. 

And the side view--two more layers to add and a hem. The asymmetrical aspect of it would drive me nuts but it is not my dress to wear. The next two layers are both very asymmetrical too--
Just wait until you see the tiny little top hat she has created to wear with her dress. She plans to have her hair done and then have the hat pinned just to the one side of her head. Just a tiny bit off to the side. The hat is about 7 inches tall.  I have been told to make sure the hem is high enough that she doesn't trip and fall while walking up and down the stairs. 
I am fighting the urge to make her a wand and bring in a pumpkin from the garden.....question is...will I win the fight?