Here’s an update on the wedding gown, featuring the embroidered flowery neckline.

I can be so fussy sometimes. That includes not wanting a typical neckline, or a typical sleeve design.

Okay, so here’s the story:

One evening, I came home from the city carrying these plastic bags….

It wasn’t that heavy, and it wasn’t that expensive either. Guess what’s inside?

A beautiful charmeuse satin fabric! Priced at less than $10 per meter, I decided to buy 6 meters. Hopefully that should be enough for my dream ball gown. Not really a Scarlett-O’Hara-12-yards-of-billowing-material ball gown… just a ball gown that will suit me.

Since it’s a flimsy material, I also bought some fabric for its lining. Originally, I wanted to have some lacy fabric for the bodice of the gown. When I looked around in the fabric store, however, the cheapest white lace fabric they have was more than $100 a meter! Gee, that’s the budget for my entire bridal attire!

So I decided to cheat a bit. Instead of lace, I’ll have satin for the bodice, BUT I’m gonna do some embroidery on it to achieve the textured, somewhat-lacy, kind of look and feel. Then I can also add small pearls or crystal beads on it.  After all, I still have a year to go. Here’s the update on what I had been doing on the bodice so far:

I’m going to finish the embroidery first before I attach the skirt part. This way, it can fit in a small plastic bag and I can even carry this project around and do some embroidery while I sit in the van and travel long distances, watch over a sick child, and anything else that can allow me to squeeze this project in. I also don’t have to worry about crumpling the skirt fabric too much.

PS. I looked up in wikipedia and learned that charmeuse is one of the most challenging fabrics to sew because it’s very slippery, and that it’s not recommended for full skirts because it’s very clingy. Well, what can I do? I’m on a tight budget for this and didn’t really know this fact before I bought it. Hmmm… I guess I’ll have to make do with it. Probably I’ll come up with ideas on how to conquer these challenges. Think positive.