Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Under Wraps!

Things have been quiet around the blog for a long time - and not for lack of crafting but for a surplus of it!!!

80% of my most recent crafting has been wedding related and of that 80% about half of my crafting time has been taken up by the making of my wedding dress. Believe me I am sitting on my hands to not blog about crafting this dress! But there is some little shred of a traditional bride still left in me that thinks that the dress will have a better impact if it's seen for the first time on the actual wedding day, so for right now it's still under wraps.

And since yesterday I've made a garment bag for it - it actually is: under wraps! My wonderful friend Ashley (featured in my post about making the wedding invites) kindly gave me a Posh Roberto Cavalli Gown Bag which I was intending to use, but as my dress took shape I began to realize that it wasn't going to work, due to the fact that I am a bit of a freak of nature. I am six foot two inches tall. One meter eighty seven of crafting craftiness. My dress has a very slight train on it making it over 7 feet long. I needed to make a custom garment bag to take this little monster on the airplane without totally crushing it. Give me a reason to make an heirloom quality ANYTHING and I welcome it with open arms - including garment bags!

This took only 3 hours to make, from start to finish. I bought the fabric for very cheap at the Marche St Pierre in my neighborhood. All of the sales are going on right now at the clothing and home furnishing shops all around Paris and so it's that time of year again when the fabric stores bring out their "coupons" or remnants in English. I folded the fabric in half, traced an Ikea garment bag onto it and then cut that puppy out. The zipper is attached with a piece of bias binding so there wasn't even any fancy zipper mounting to do and I used a little bit of bias binding to sew it together around the edges so there wasn't even any seam trimming to do. It's that easy.

...and then I embroidered my first initial on the front of the bag because
I
J U S T
C O U L D N ' T
R E S I S T
!!!
(This is only the SECOND time in my entire LIFE that I've ever cross stitched anything for MYSELF! You know that this is a big day!!!) The colors that I used on this embroidery as well as the silver thread allude to the dress inside but that's all I'm saying for now! Check back on the blog in about a couple of months for the crafty details of the actual gown. Until then, feast your eyes on this garment bag!