Finished the Oireachtas season

Well, the last custom dress was shipped yesterday and arrived in Pennsylvania today. I did not hear from the clients, so either it fits and they were off to the "O"or it doesn't and they were rushing for alterations. I am sure you can imagine which I would prefer.
Today, while th eadrenaline was still flowing, I made a dozen Christmas stockings and completed a tree skirt for a local gift shop. I always have lots of velvets and sparkly laces left over from the dresses. This year I was determined to finally put them to good use. They turned out really cute. No photos though.
Next up are more items for the next show on December 5th. Tomorrow-hats and cleaning up the studio.

Another dress completed

This dress turned out very pretty. I cannot take much design credit as the mom and dancer drew it up and picked out many of the fabrics. I had to make a few changes so it would be workable, but they did most of it. The first pic is in incadescent lighting and shows the colours better.

The flowers on the skirt are digitised. I had a few left over so I made brooches from them. You can see one on the cape in back. For the peplum I embroidered the flowers out on a metallic silk. The base is white velvet over a layer of cotton fused satin. The flowers were cut out, then satin stitched down on the velvet. The peplum was then backed with satin and edged in a silver satin stitch. The silver is very subtle in the dress. I don't love it but the dance mom does and that is what counts.

I think the curly ruffle is cute. This is the first time I used straight grain fabric instead of bias for that type of ruffle. I did a three thread rolled hem edge over 30 fishing line using embroidery thread in the looper for a bit of sheen. There are three ruffles in a very sheer white organza, so I treated them as one to make them more opaque. I gathered them together, first using the pleating/gathering foot, then by using a thread to pull them in more. It worked just as well as, if not better than the bias type. I will use this technique again.