I finished the Dress!

I did it, I finished the dress. It is the same one I told you about in what was I thinking.. (you can click on that, I would recommend it, this is the 2nd part of that story) I really did amaze myself with this one. It seems that adding straps to a strapless dress is not all that easy, not to mention getting it to look normal when my upper torso is not. So how did I do it?

I started with 4 strips of boning on the front and sides to keep it from folding under problem areas after a few minutes of wear. Then I started in on how to hold "the girls" up. After building patterns of bras, prototypes, and the bras themselves, I found myself asking what was I thinking. (Obviously I did not finish it while Tim was out of state either.) I made a bra out of regular cotton, bedspread material, and headliner (the stuff that is glued to the inside roof of cars), to name a few. it seemed the headliner worked the best even though the lady at the store gave me an "are you crazy" stare as she questioningly repeated "You are going to make a bra out of headliner?" Well she asked what I was doing with it. But it seems that you cannot get under-wires in my size either without special ordering and still it seemed to befuddle me how to attach it to the dress so that all is packaged securely. So, back to the drawing board. I didn't think ordering under-wires, when there was no guaranty they would fit, would be a good route to go. So I went to Wal-Mart.

I figured I could buy a cheap bra that was too big around and harvest the wires or the cups altogether. I ended up with a bra that didn't come close to fitting, anywhere. However, the wires were good and long and if I pulled the space from in between them it shoved them closer together and made a normal cut from a demi. After altering the bra in the middle, in the back, and cutting off the straps, I attached the ribbon to the bra instead of the dress (I had to get Tim's help.) Pulling and pinning what felt like 100 times, 'the girls' were done. I am very happy with the result, ok so I'm sucking in. It was all worth it.

I will get to wear it dancing Saturday night. I must say however, I am glad Tim hates to sit out dances because I may not be even if I want too.