Lucile, a dress in a week, 4.

With the bodice finally, if not complete, at least all layers existing, on to the skirt!

First the bottom layer: (not seen, so I used cheaper acetate satin for this)

 Unfortunately I got really rushed/absorbed in what I Was doing  at this point, so didn't take many more photos!
Anyway, once the inner skirt was fitted, the next layer of satin was draped and attached, then the front curve cut and edged, and the fur sewn on.  Once this was in place a chiffon panel could be attached to the underskirt, which adds fullness without bulk.


Once that was attached I was able to drape the top layer of lace into the skirt!

Once bonus of tight schedules and early mornings is pretty sunrises!

The top layer of lace needed draping several times to get it to hang correctly. That artless, loose look is a lot of artifice!

Pretty close to finishing draping:

The big bow on the back contains a lot of artifice too.  Not only is there the silk bow, but inside is an organza lining, onto which is sewn a wire figure 8 (I used 3 lengths of thin wire inside some boning channel).  

I couldn't find any large lace that looked remotely right, so went with attaching a thinner lace to a chiffon strip.  It could probably have done with a little stiffening, but period lace does tend to be softer than modern lace, so I decided it would suffice.

The final construction, adding lace collar and cuffs, fur edging on the bodice,  bow and sash, didn't get photographed unfortunately. The original dress had the skirt attached to the bodice on one side, and the sash and bow attached and hooked into place,  As I had no way of doing a final fitting I elected to leave the pieces separate, so they could be adjusted on me.  The next entry has the final dress complete!