The Dressmaker: The Grace Kelly
In Which I Mostly Accuse Myself and My Machine
Finally! What do you mean, this is months late? A wizard(ess) is never late! She finishes her projects precisely when she means to.
(Actually, no.)
Between colds, finicky machines and fabrics, and plain intimidation and procrastination, this has been a frustrating project, although it’s also a dress I’ve wanted for years! It’s not 100% completed, but it’s enough to close out 2024, I think.
Originally, I was using a rayon knit as the base fabric; this is the base fabric for the skirt, but it wasn’t working for the bodice, as I found I wanted a bit more structure. I swapped it out for a pink broadcloth that was on clearance at Hobby Lobby, which is an improvement, as regards the structure.
Even with this change though, my sewing machine, which kept balking at the previous fabric combination no matter what I did, decided to do the same thing here. I found that shortening the stitch length and actually remembering to put the cap over the spool of thread to keep it in place (because I am chaos and I easily forget things) helped most of the time.
Me, going into this project: ha, everyone says these sheer fabrics and knits are so difficult. I’ve had trouble with knit, but not with sheer fabrics! They never give me any trouble, so this will be easy!
Well, that explains a lot. Yes, I did ask Our Lady and St. Margaret of Scotland, and Grace Kelly herself if she’s able, to help me get this done enough to post tonight. I think they helped!
Mostly what I have left to do is the pattern and embroidery on the back bodice, and adjusting the left side seam on both the bodice and skirt.
All that said, I’m actually pretty happy with how it fits, which I was definitely having my doubts about throughout the project!
Before I show you the dress, allow me to mention my “genius” temporary hack for the bodice embroidery. There is a deceptively massive amount of embroidery, and different motifs, on the original dress. Since I knew I wasn’t going to be able to actually embroider them before I posted, I decided to meticulously cut out lace pattern pieces for each design and (because there were way more than I thought) I used a strong fabric adhesive rather than stitching them.
This serves two purposes: a) it’s wearable without feeling incomplete, and b) I can embroider a few motifs at a time whenever I feel like embroidering something, using the lace as a guide.
On the other hand, I like that it looks a bit quirky and cute, so I might keep the lace, as my own twist on the outfit.