Camp Couture and updates

You may have wondered what I am doing now, readers... I hope.

I am in Baltimore! Taking part in Camp Couture with Susan Khalje, of course. Again... You can't have enough of it, seriously!

I am working on a guipure lace dress with inner foundation and overlay organza dress inspired by this Louis Vuitton SS2012 number.

My lace is grey, however. And, there will be slight modifications to the overlay organza dress. Otherwise, pretty much close tot he look you see.

I spent two days working on my inner foundation and lace dress muslin, went through several fitting and construction steps, which I will be happy to report about once I am back to New York. My old laptop just doesn't want to upload images I took here.

Let me tell you a few words about the dress is going to be constructed.

Inner foundation

The inner foundation is essentially a corselet that extends below the waist, so it not only supports the strapless lace dress but also helps shape the area below the waist. After three kids, you know...

You basically make two corselets out of this cotton and then join the two layers together and treat them as one. Then you stitch two parallel lines 3/8" (1cm) apart for the boning, add hooks and eyes, insert boning and finish the neckline and the hem. Sounds complicated? Chack in for pictures early next week!

The problem is I initially bought matching cotton for inner foundation without realizing it was stretch cotton. And the sales person at the fabric store didn't mention it. I went on and, after three muslin fittings, made the foundation. I laid out one layer on lengthwise grain, and the other on crossgrain, hoping this will prevent the foundation from stretching. Nope... it didn't work. So, I went on today and bought a different non-stretch cotton at Jo-Ann's today. So, now I am going to start the foundation from the scratch - I hope I will finish it by the end of the day tomorrow....

Guipure  dress

Now, the lace will be laid and shaped over silk charmeuse layer, which I decided to back with muslin to give the dress some support and structure. My guipure lace is relatively soft and I wanted to have a crisp look.

Right now, I got peachy charmeuse and muslin cut and basted together, so we can have final fit tomorrow before we lay the guipure lace over the underlining and tuck it to these two layers.

That's my plan for tomorrow.

I promise I will post detailed pictures of what I am doing! If you have any questions about construction of this dress or about inner foundation, post a comment - I would be happy to answer them or to ask Susan if I am not sure.