You know, if it had been one of my friends having the "what the hell am I going to do with this thing" issues with a costume they were making, I'd be very zen in my advice: Follow your gut. Do what you know you want. Even if it means a whole lot more work, or buying extra fabric/trimming.

If I'd listened to myself, I would have finished this costume weeks ago. Instead, I messed around with short cuts and ideas that would save time, fabric and money, and I hated everything that came out of it. It wasn't until last night, when I forced myself to sit down and actually piece together the scraps of striped silk to make the trimmings for the gown that I realized: Dude, this was what I wanted to do all along. Why the hell didn't I listen to myself? As soon as I got over whatever it was that was keeping me from doing the thing I knew I wanted (laziness, probably), everything suddenly came together.

As a result, I made serious headway with the polonaise today. I've been working at it for about 8 or 9 hours now, and I'm down to the finishing touches: sew the waistband to the petticoat, add additional trimming to the gown, sew in the skirt tapes that will pull the skirt up into the polonaise, make the cockades. All that! In under a day! And just because I *finally* did what I knew I wanted all along!

I'm sore, but happy. The polonaise is OMGFROOFALICIOUS and that makes me very, very pleased. :)

I updated the Polonaise page with a status report and progress on the trimming front! I just finished stitching the self-trimming on to the skirt and it looks fabulous. I'm very happy with it, even if it means piecing together every single scrap of striped silk I can find in order to make enough yardage for the trimming... :)

I am drinking a beer and sewing trim on my polonaise. This is the life. :)

Also, a perk to being tipsy while sewing? I'm a lot more adventurous with my trimming. Hooray for uninhibited costuming!

It's been a long week and I've been pretty lazy during much of it. To recap, last weekend's target strike on the L.A. garment district with Kendra was successful. Sort of. We came home loaded to the gills with fabric, but had no real luck with trim and feathers. We did score lace, though, which was good, since its hard to find good lace in the standard fabric stores around here. Once we came back up north, Kendra and I hit up Piedmont Fabrics and I was able to find some silk embroidered taffeta for my wrap-front bodice, more lace, and other odds 'n ends.

Once I got back home late Sunday afternoon, I was wiped out and feeling twitchy about sewing in general, so I set aside any hope of working on Costume Con projects. I decided I didn't like the trim I was doing on my striped polonaise. Annoyingly, this was also unfortunate because I was hoping to find some nice rococo ribbon in the garment district, but the awesome huge trim place we found last year was closed. So, that meant my fall back plan was to place an expensive trim order at Minidolls, which has beautiful silk rococo ribbon, which also costs a freaking arm and a leg when ordered in the mass quantities I need. But I did it anyway. Better than trying to live with a cheaper alternative that isn't up to my standards.

Last night I pulled off the pleated silk ribbon I had sewn to the neckline of the polonaise and rooted around in my fabric stash and came up with a couple of yards of slightly off-white silk chiffon. Chiffon rips really nicely, so I ripped it into 2 1/4" strips and then machine gathered both sides, about 1/2" from the edge. Made a pleasant discovery that the longest stitch on my machine actually does a bang up job of gathering chiffon, so I didn't have to fuss with adjusting the gathers myself, which was awesome. I finished hand sewing the gathered chiffon to the neckline and decided to call it a night. I definitely like the look much more than anything else I've tried so far, and I'm thinking I'll combine some pleated silk dupioni with it on the skirt front edges and around the sleeves. I want FROOF, dammit! Anything less is unacceptable!

Still have to wait for the ribbon from Minidolls to arrive, though...

Sigh... I was doing so well with not buying stuff. Oh well! :)

I hadn't really anticipated making a polonaise, but then I heard all my friends were making polonaises for the Williamsburg trip and there was NO WAY I was going to be left out of Polonaiseville! Hell no!

Polonaise time!

So, its basically finished but for the trimming. Its what I've been plugging away at for the last 2 weeks in my spare time. I really need to cut out the ruching strips, but that would involve a lot of cutting with pinking shears, and I hate cutting with pinking shears. :P