Slowly Working on the Blue Silk French Gown

I've taken to calling this gown the Ice Queen outfit, as it's very icy blue and very fancy already. I had been working on several projects for friends that I hadn't been working on stuff for me in many weeks. So this weekend I decided to bust this dress out and keep at it.

Where we left off, I had a bodice with eyelets and boning done. First thing, I sewed down the shoulder straps at the neckline. I have to make mine nice and tight as I can't stand that "falling off the shoulder" look, and then also it doesn't support things correctly for me until the straps are super sung.
Here's a picture after I did that. Notice you can see the boning? Even with 5 damn layers of fabric, the boning is still obvious. Not yet sure how much trim I'm going to put on the bodice to cover that up.

 Next up was trimming. I put it around the shoulder straps and across the front. I may add some vertical lines of trim on the center front, but I'm waiting to apply them because I'm not 100% sure what I'll do yet. This silk, once it gets a hole poked in it, shows the holes permanently, so I don't want to make a decision quite yet!


Then I started on the sleeves. I made a whole new pattern for these sleeves, which I'll be able to use for future projects, as I really like the look of the poufs at the front. Sleeve is all one piece, with a 4 inch wide piece of extra fine linen sewn up the seam where it opens. I started to pin where the jewels will go in this picture. 

First sleeve complete! It has 5 poufs with 6 little jewels sewn on to keep the sleeve together. They are the same jewels that I put on my rust silk damask French gown. I love how sparkly they are! The ruffle at the wrist is my smock. I always make my smocks very fitted so I cannot just do the normal thing of pulling my smock though the poufs, which is why it's faked with that strip of linen. However, if I make this style of sleeve again, I may just not do the linen strip and just have the smock gently show between the jewels.


I have the next sleeve to do which should go a lot faster, now that I know what I want to do. Debating sewing on more of the trim to the wrist of the sleeve. Then on to the skirt!

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