Boning

The skirt pattern pieces were transferred to paper, to keep a good copy for future use. I made some minor adjustments based on the fit of the muslins and will come back to them later.

To continue work on the bodice, I got the spiral steel and bolt cutters out again and started making pieces up for testing. I measured the form from the waist up, deciding on 4" sections for each side seam and center front, and 3" sections for along the vertical darts/princess lines. Technically, I should have made more pieces for below the waist and around the back, but I didn't want to use up my limited supply of boning materials before I made an actual test.

Bones need casings and per Grace Kelly, they should be made of ribbon, but the only ribbon I have is that wide green stuff from the ruffle testing. WWSKD? I consulted the old episode of Sew Much More that will forever live on my Tivo and went with these muslin casings for now. I folded over one end and pressed it. A line of stitching was run 1/4" in from the folded edge. This leaves an edge section for sewing into the garment. Another line was sewn 1/2" over from the first.

There's stitching there, really.

The piece of muslin I ripped off had a width that allowed me to get two bones in each channel, so I marked the inside ends and sewed them off. Then, I put the steel pieces in and sewed the ends closed.

I probably would have pinked these, even if Susan hadn't told me to.

Tomorrow I should get a chance to sew these in to the bodice. I need to review the video tape to see on what layer they should be sewn. The test bodice has an outer layer and an inner layer, but the inner layer represents a lining layer and the outer layer doesn't have an underlining layer. That's probably where they would go, but for testing purposes, I think the inside of the outer layer will be okay, since it's not like it's going to matter if you can see them through the muslin.