Have You Missed Me?

I've been missing in action(MIA for those of you who like to abbreviate!!) the last couple of days. The little slipcover that I made for the rocker took longer than I had anticipated, usually the case, so that put me way behind on my gown for the zoo ball. I actually thought about wearing a dress that I have rather than pushing myself to get my dress finished. But, I really wanted to get the dress finished, so I decided to give it a try, and in the worst case scenario, I had a backup in case I just couldn't get it finished. So the little mouse began working on Wednesday afternoon.

Last week I showed you this fabric. A nice chiffon, perfect for a summer evening.

I started with the idea of a drape around the neck,

and then some draping around the the bodice.

For the actual dress, I needed a foundation under the draping.

I used a piece of fine cotton and a layer of the chiffon that I basted together. The cotton gave stability to the chiffon and it also gave me a layer that I could do my markings on without doing the markings to the fabric. All the pieces were basted, by hand, together. In the above picture you can see that the darts are also basted.

The back bodice darts are sewn in. A little basting before sewing makes life so much easier.

I only had Wednesday afternoon and Thursday to work on the dress as I had to help with set up on Friday and then of course there is the set up of myself, hair and nails!!

The theme of this year's ball was The Great Catsy, I'm sure you get the pun.

I did it! The dress was finished on Thursday night at 11:30! Yea! The only thing that I was not happy about was my hair. My normal hairdresser was sick and unable to do my hair. Oh well, a bad hairdo is not the end of the world. 

You can see that the final dress is different than the original idea. As I draped, I changed my mind.

 I had a blast draping the bodice though.

In order to keep the drapes in place, I had to do small tacks in the folds. The white dot in the center of the picture is a tack.

There is an interior corset.

The skirt has two layers of silk chiffon under the fashion fabric. The  skirt floated like a dream.

One of our tigers decided to make an appearance.

He is so magnificent.

I need to work on standing up straight!!!

The ball was in honor of our lion Adelor who sadly died earlier this year. Nothing was wrong other than just being very old. I guess it's a good thing to die of old age. A few years ago he came out and roared and roared during dinner. I think he was trying to tell us that it was time for him to go to bed. He finally gave up, curled up on a rock and went to sleep.  

Our new lion is just a youngster.

So that's what I've been doing the last few days. I learned a lesson about giving myself a little push. If you want something badly enough, you can do it. And another lesson, whether I got the dress finished or not, like a bad hairdo, it would not have been the end of the world.
I'll return next week with Fabulous Free Pattern Friday and Sleeves On Saturdays. I'm taking just a bit of a break today. And by the way, a very warm welcome to all the new followers. Thanks so much for joining the blog!! It's great to have you.