Listening to Your Fabric

I am deep in the throes of Bollywood. I have completed the bodice, complete with one recut of the front. I am not sure what exactly went wrong there, but something did so I redid the fronts and things matched up this time around. I suspect that I forgot to add a s.a. on the contrast band I added. I am so glad that I reduced the gathering on the skirts, because I now have lots of Uh oh! fabric to play with! Of course, with each Uh oh! my wrap gets considerably smaller ...

Anyway, today's conundrum is the pleats. What looked very Grecian in the muslin, looks almost sloppy in the silk. I suspect it is the pussy willows that are causing the problem. The actual buds are almost chenille like, so when one lies on the crease of a pleat, they round it out like a gather. So, the seamline is trim and neat, but the pouf factor seems to be exagerated as the pleats are forced open by the fabric. As a result, I am going to remove all the pleating and gather the seamline. If I think it is still too full, then I will go back to the yardage and cut a new bodice, styled after the princess seamed bodice mount, only adding slight fullness at the bustline to echo the original design.

So, I am listening to the fabric on this one. The lesson for me? What looks good in muslin may not translate into the actual fabric. I trialed the gathers with a strip of the silk, I should have done the same with the pleats. I could have been done by now, but the song of the muslin was so much louder than the silk. It tends to be subtle and understated in it's teaching style. That muslin is so bold and bossy ... so pretentious, thinking it can behave like silk. This muslin didn't come through Ressy's dungeon, so I am not sure where it got such attitude!

Off to get the hair cut. I need a trim and Martin the Marvelous will be playing with the finish today as he tries to teach me how to "do" my hair to match this dress! If I can't do it on my own, then I have to try to get an appointment next week at a salon nearby the Pilot's residence. He comes home tonight for one last weekend trip.