good news, bad news

The good news: There is a possibility that I could conceivably finish The Dress this week. Next week at the latest.

I took this pic on my phone, which may be why it’s not cooperating to orient right, despite having tried to fix it on Flickr. So ignore the gravity-defying act. You can’t really see it too well in his shot, but there’s ribbon hangers on the dress now– I wanted to reduce the strain on the lace when it’s hanging. The bodice is now fully lined, and the back has its hook and eye. The waist stay is also half sewn-in, along the bodice lining edge, which means the tulle is in the skirt as well.

I had an unexpected day off today due to a freak snowstorm (yeah, that’s right, it’s been spring for almost a week and NOW we get snow?), so I spent a good bit of time sewing the skirt lining together. It’s currently the second row of stitching on one French seam + the hem away from being done. And this is where we get into the bad news: I currently don’t have a working sewing machine. It was the weirdest thing. I finished the first half of the French seaming process, minus the back seam to make pressing easier, turned the machine off to go eat lunch…and then I guess it decided to go on strike, because when I came back, it wouldn’t turn on again. It had been working perfectly fine before that, so I really don’t understand what happened! I tried it in a couple of different outlets, checked all the plugs, etc. My mom had a spare machine that I could use to continue sewing, thankfully. But my dad, who is pretty good with mechanical things, took a look at it, and he’s pretty sure it’s an electrical issue. And not just a blown fuse. So I’m going to have to run up to the closest repair shop sometime this weekend and see if it’s a fixable one–which makes me rather nervous, because I’ve gotten rather spoiled on my hand-me-down Bernina, and if it’s not fixable, I’m not sure how I’m going to replace it!