Progress, but no pics!

All right, here is where I'm at:

Coat - completed, lined, lining hand stitched at hem and cuffs.  Silk satin doesn't quite protect from the scratchy velvet everywhere, but it's still awfully pretty!  Might hand-sew a pretty magnetic closure to the front at breast-level, haven't decided for sure on that yet.

Outfit number one - I've knotted large-hole tiger eye beads (hard to find!) onto 1mm silk cord, and hand stitched that around the armholes and down the side hem.  It'll have to be removed for washing/re-pleating, but it only takes about half an hour to whip stitch the cord to the seam.  I struggled a lot with what sort of cord to put through the shoulder/neckline channels to gather everything up.  Some of the selvedge pieces I'd saved over the years had the right "oomph" and thickness, but they looked too casual.  So - I've sewn some 1/2" tubes of a rayon lining that is the right color (no silk left!) and put those AROUND the selvedge strips.

Second problem with this outfit is that my original plan to have it be "boatneck"-like with a straight upper edge turned out to mean it was almost a funnel neck.  Looked really weird. So - I finally bit the bullet this morning, ironed out the top edge, cut it with about 2" max in the center front, re-folded and sewed the channel, and then did my best to scrunch up that top edge and iron it to align with the 100+ pleats from below.  With that all done, I think I'm liking the fit.  There are some poochy bits that align in unflattering ways with actual curves of mine, so I think I'll experiment with trying to use the iron on some of those.

Outfit number two (dress)!!! -  This one is new!  I decided I wanted to try this with silk charmeuse, which is closer to the original Fortuny designs than the silk habotai I'm using.  But I'm still a bit cheap and these things all take 4 yards!  So - I went with a "stretch silk" charmeuse from Mood that I'd worked with before.  I am not sure of how much synthetic content there is in it, but I love the color- it's a great taupe.  This time I decided to just go for a full on dress - and I tried construction a bit differently as well.  I carefully cut out a 10 foot length out of my 4 yards, and didn't cut the shoulders at all.  I cut out an opening for the neckline (this time with a 3" deep vee in front and back), and then sewed the shoulders to leave a channel, and then stitched the channel down on both sides of the shoulder.  So there are 3 layers on the shoulder (2 channels, really).  I finished the neckline with 4 straight 1.5" strips cut on the straight grain, sewn to the neckline and then turned to the inside and stitched down.

Then I pleated - and it was a mess!  The thicker charmeuse doesn't look like it is going to hold crisp pleats with this process - the thread I used kept slipping around and merging, so instead of two pleats in a spot I'd get just one.  But we'll see - it's still drying after two days sitting near the out-take of our basement humidifier.  I'm hoping that tonight I can unwind it and see what I've got.  I have some hope that it'll be okay, since the swatch I did looked great.  There just may be a difference between a small swatch and 6-8 layers of fabric rolled around my PVC pipe.

Also  - since this is going to be a dress, it definitely needs one of the Fortuny-style velvet belts.  I sprung for 1/2 a yard of the silk/rayon velvet from mood in a color called "mink" (perfect for my outfit), and also grabbed some wooden stamps - the type used for making batik fabrics.  I'm going to try using an iron on those to emboss the velvet rather than stamping (the Fortuny approach).  The fact that I had to buy at least a 1/2 yard means I've got some wiggle room to make a plain belt if I need to.


Shoes - realized that I had no idea what sort of shoes to wear with a drapey grecian silk maxi dress in winter!  Closed-toe heels look really odd with the skirt/dress, particularly if they are pointy (too modern) and my favored round toes look too casual.  So - I bought a bunch of gold/bronze strappy sandals and peep toe pumps from zappos and I'll try them all on.  I did some browsing of fashion sites and it does seem like it's acceptable to wear weather-inappropriate shoes to formal events.