Welcome to To Boldly Sew!
Since I started sewing about a year ago, one of the things I have found hardest is starting a project. Now, part of this is the fact that there are just so many things I want and need to sew for myself, that committing to just one thing at a time can be an issue, especially as I generally start sewing about a day or so before I plan to wear the new dress, top, whatever. As you can imagine, this has led to more than a few late night sewing sessions, which generally end with me falling into bed, defeated, at some ungodly hour, vowing never again to fall into this trap!
As handicapping as that is, it is not the main problem. No, the main issue I struggle with in my sewing is FEAR. Paralysing fear, that the various pattern adjustments I invariably have to make will not work out. Of course, many people would do the sensible thing and make a muslin / toile first, but I refer you back to the paragraph above as an explanation why this does not generally happen.
Fast forward to a few months after I made my first dress, to when my gorgeous best friend asked me if I would make her wedding dress. Crazy girl, crazy plan, and I of course declined. But when she asked me again a couple of months later, and we went dress shopping, I found myself agreeing most boldly to attempt to recreate a gorgeous £4000 custom made designer dress for her to wear to her May wedding. Yikes.
Since then, the fear has been rearing its ugly head most vigorously and persistently. So I have decided to conquer it once and for all, at the same time tackling my poor forward planning / lack of muslining, and be BOLD.
And how is progress today, you may ask, with the wedding a mere 14.5 weeks away? Hmmm. I present you with my beautiful toile (which sounds much more elegant than muslin I think, and is entirely befitting this beautiful dirty yellow polycotton ex-bedsheet):
Cinderella, still firmly in pre-ball mode
Please excuse the background and poor lighting, although under the circumstances, it’s perhaps quite fitting!
Believe it or not, this is going to be a gorgeous (hopefully!), 2 layered dress, a flowing silk strapless underlayer as you see here, with a sleeveless slightly boat necked organza overlayer.
So encouraged by Karen and Jane whom I was lucky enough to meet in real life a few weeks ago, and all the lovely bloggers I’ve learned so much from and been so inspired by in the past year, I decided a blog would be the perfect way to document and track my progress in this rather daunting project. I hope you might join me on my journey – I could definitely do with some external support!
Next up: project planning!
