dress | Joys and sorrows in praise of God

I did finally finish a blue mantle for Our Lady. The combination is really lovely, I think.

The fabric was a rather heavy knit with a touch of stretch but lovely drape. Too difficult to fold and hem, so I used the trim to cover the loose edge. It doesn’t seem particularly prone to fraying, but I can add a ribbon to the inside to cover the edge when I have time.

Here I am trying it on. I marked both the mantilla and the mantle with an embroidered circle where the crown pin will go through the fabric so that I use the same spot each time and don’t damage the fabric randomly.

And then I remembered I had a pin from the original cape to hold it shut, and found that, and ta-da, all done. A future iteration could have embroidered floral/vine sort of patterns around the border. But this fabric is not necessarily the one to take embroidery. I’ll experiment later.

One thing I wanted to try is making a different dress for underneath. I have a lovely cherry/rose sort of colored satin that is light and drapey. I want to see how that would work for a different style of dress. The original image has a carved drapey gown. Not sure I can duplicate the look, but it would be interesting to experiment.

The gold underdress proved to be a struggle. I did a range of mock-ups with a light cotton, trying to get the fit I wanted: ‘A frame’ as it were, with the hands visible and the right amount of extension around the ankles. Multiple tries with modified rectangles and semi-circles didn’t work at all.

This single-sheet wrap sewn up the front ended up having a weird pointy skirt instead of the A shape I was looking for.

Finally I tried math: marking a measurement every half inch along the height of the statue, using the measuring tape to make a circle in the air around the statue where I imagined I’d like the dress to be (thus touching the body at the top, but extending out a few inches at the bottom hem).

The math. However, after cutting this from a single piece I realized I really needed a ‘sandwich’ – a front triangle and back triangle sewn up the sides, not unlike some of the dresses I myself wear.

Doing the sewing in the gold satin was a bit hampered by the lack of an iron in the airbnb where I am staying. I discover (duh) that fabric that doesn’t wrinkle easily also doesn’t iron easily. Some fabrics will ‘cold press’ if left under a heavy book overnight. Not this one. So, this will have to be a “please don’t look at the back!” dress for now. Another time I’ll make a tidier one. Nonetheless I think it’s going to work well with the red overdress.

Joys and sorrows in praise of God

Tag Archives: dress

Our Lady of Aparecida’s blue mantle

The struggle dress