Wedding Madmess Has Set In...

Hello all.

As the big day draws nearer (under two weeks!), I continue to go through a roller-coaster of emotions. Most of them resemble panic, and come from the sheer weight of tasks to be completed. The forms I'll have to fill out! The items that must still be ordered! The pies (did I mention that we're having pies instead of cake?)! THE DRESS!

The dress is coming along really well, and within schedule. I promise I will have many photos very soon! This will likely occur in early November, when I have free time again, and am not considering curling up in the corner with a bottle of Mad Housewife wine and just wearing my robe and pajamas from here on out.

Project deadlines! Can I get a Cathy-style "Ack!" in here?

Update: Wedding Gown Progress

Hello, all. Things are progressing mightily on the dress; I've got the skirt pattern mocked up in a practice fabric, and am working on all the pinning and tucking. I promise I will put up more pictures as soon as I get the darn thing right. Meanwhile, I have some more shots of the crocheted bodice and skirt pieces.

First, a closer look at the front of the bodice. I have to say, figuring out the pattern for the sweetheart neckline took some time. My poor pattern-writing book has so many crossed-out lines and "Ignore This" notes.



Second, a view of the back of the bodice. Kindly forgive the slightly off-kilter hang; my poor mannequin just doesn't quite have the bust or badonkadonk to fill it out, but at least she gives me a fairly good idea of how things are going to hang.








And, last, my current photo of the skirt and train assembly. This is the basic body of the skirt. I will likely put it on a bit lower, and it will feature a decorative ruffle around the edge.

The sleeves will get crocheted after I've assembled the fabric sleeves, so I can gauge whether they're going to affect the puffing too much. The collar will be crocheted directly onto the top edge of the bodice pieces once the fabric bodice is fitted.

Also, now that I've got a bit of off-time, I will probably start taking some place-holder photos of my finished projects to share with you.

Happy stitching!

Update: Concepts for Wedding Gown

Okay, folks, I know it's been a long time since the initial post, but life has been hectic! Here is my update post, focusing on my current project, a gown for my upcoming wedding.

I rarely start projects with sketches, but for something this ambitious, I wanted to have a good idea of where I was headed before I wandered off into pattern-creation-land. This sketch is the overall look I'm going for in both fabric and crochet; the fabric that I have for this project is a peach satin, and the crocheted gown will become an overlay.

The overlay is being worked in a combination of slanted shells and an open chain/single crochet mesh. And I am diligently transcribing the pattern as I go along, so hopefully I should have that available upon completion.


Below left, you can see some of the progress I've made on it so far; this is the front bodice and the two front skirt panels loosely blocked on my mannequin, Gigi. The other two skirt panels and train are completed (excepting the trim, which will be added after I do a fitting with my shoes), but I wanted to wait until I at least get my lining fabric cut before I blocked them, so I can test the drape and all the tucking accurately. More posts as I progress further, of course, and perhaps now that I have a somewhat reliable camera, you will be seeing pictures (and perhaps patterns) for some of my completed projects. Thanks for reading!

Welcome!

Good evening all; welcome to the inaugural blog post, and to The Fox's Den! Here, you will learn a little about me, and a great deal about my crafting adventures.

I am an avid crocheter and knitter; my mom taught me to crochet when I was in high school, and I stuck with it through college and beyond, finding other hip crafters on campus and in the community, and picking up tips and tricks, magazines and books, and lots of ideas and inspirations along the way. I create my own patterns for both knit and crochet, and I make mostly garments--lots of sweaters and dresses.

One of the things that I like to ask fellow knitters and crocheters is, "What are your favorite materials and tools," so I will go ahead and answer that here. My favorite tools for crochet are bamboo in-line hooks (and in-line hooks in general--I find that I drop fewer stitches, split my yarn less, and can work faster with them). I started out with aluminum hooks, and then accumulated a collection of plastic hooks (because they make less noise when you drop them in class!), but bamboo is both solid and comfortable.

We have a great craft community here in Asheville, so there are lots of locally-made hooks, needles and yarns. I picked up a pair of birch-wood knitting needles at my favorite local yarn store recently, and I've fallen rather in love with them; yarns of all kinds slide over them easily, but they're not too slick.

As for yarns, well...like many crafters, I have a serious yarn habit; I buy constantly, thinking of future projects, or pick up bags and cones of mill ends, because they're such a fantastic buy, or purchase a few skeins of a yarn, because it will go fantastically with another yarn I already have...and so on into infinity. My absolute favorite yarn to work with is Caron Simply Soft in Autumn Red; it's a beautiful color, and it knits and crochets beautifully. One of the local shops here also has a fantastic, ever-changing selection of mill ends in varying fiber contents--cottons, linens, rayons--for quite reasonable prices, so I pick up a few cones at least once a month.

My plan for this blog is to talk about my current projects, post pictures of the finished products and make patterns available, and to discuss the process, including obstacles and other difficulties. I also plan to discuss techniqes and methods, review products I find interesting, talk about crafting culture in general, and occasionally rant and rave a little.


What I'm working on today: Gauging/creating a pattern in crochet for a wedding gown.
I'm getting married next Halloween, and I'm planning to make my own gown--a fairly ambitious project for me. My vision for the project is a sort of neo-Victorian pattern with a pale coral fabric base and a champagne-gold lace overlay, so I picked up a skein of Universal Yarn, Inc.'s "Jewel" yarn in Gold Dust to start writing the pattern for the overlay.

For a project like this, I like to start with the crochet pattern and then build the fabric piece based on that; it's easier for me to visualize how the crochet pattern will come together than the fabric, and it's easier to alter a crochet pattern as I go. Jewel is a good-looking yarn, primarily acrylic with mohair, and a smidge of cotton and polyester worked in. I think the mohair may be problematic for this project--it bulks up the yarn more than I'd like for a lace look, and makes it impossibly difficult to unravel my work. This is a two-strand yarn, so I may be able to just pull them apart as I go along and forego the mohair, but it does give it a lot of its soft gold color, so I may leave it in and try to go with a smaller gauge or a different pattern. We'll see.

What's coming up on the horizon: Getting my camera repaired so I can post pictures of my work!