Going Baroque: Progress Bit-by-Bit

I could say that this is going slowly and tediously, but each piece is exciting to me!  Last night I stitched on another piece of the satin bodice covering, and now have only 3 pieces left to do!  Some fiddling with the front piece, which overlaps the lacing, letting the point free of the lining, and adding a couple bones to keep those edges straight.  Looks good.

Just for fun I squeezed the whole thing onto my Not-So-Unique-Me dress form, with the skirt pinned on just willy-nilly.  I’ve decided I simply *must* keep the train, and will devise some way to keep it up off the ground when dancing – buttons or ties or loops or something.

I also popped out to get new trim and silver spray paint yesterday.  The trim is maroon lace with silver bits in it, absolutely GORGEOUS.  I should have gotten the hot pink version of it, because now I’m having trouble covering all that pretty in silver paint.  You can see it’s temptingly lovely pinned on, but I’m going to stick to my plan of painting it – maroon isn’t quite right, and silver seems like the better way to go.  I’m planning to do some beading too (which is just unheard of for me, but shows how much I love this dress!).

I cut the fabrics for the sleeves, and put together one last night.  I did end up using muslin to back the satin, because the organza was too poofy, and I like the heavy drapey look from 17th c. portraits.  The cotton is working fabulously!  I’ve decided to knife pleat instead of cartridge pleat, which is tedious and stupid and the devil!(opinion only!)

I noticed in some of the gowns where you can see the sleeve heads, there are teeny little wings/sleevecaps.  Demode did this for her sleeve heads on her Nell Gwyn gown, and I thought it charming, so I made up a couple and they really add something to the overall look of the dress!  I didn’t think they would be so integral…pics to follow!  I’m waiting to stitch on the sleeves until I have the whole bodice casing done, so you just have to wait until next time!