Handle with care - Preservation from start to finish

Fabric Care

Preservation started the moment I brought home my fabrics.

In order to avoid leaving skin oils on my fabrics and gown, I washed my hands and forearms before working with this project, and in the middle of sessions if I noticed my hands getting sweaty or if I touched my face.  I made sure everyone else washed their hands, too.  It was a little obsessive, yes.  Some sources I read say you need liquid gloves, or white gloves to avoid this, and maybe with non-polyester fabrics you do need to be this careful.  But I was on a budget, and had other ways of minimizing oils.  I didn't have any problems with touching and handling leading to yellowed spots that I could see.  I also washed my dress after wearing it before preserving it to be safe for the long-term, since the dress and I did have fun on our wedding day!

Handling fabrics and exposure to elements (such as dirt, sunlight, and cats) can age and cause discoloration on fabrics.  I made sure to handle my fabrics very carefully from start to finish, always ensuring they touched only clean surfaces and hands once they had been pre-treated with a Woolite hand-washing in my very clean bathtub.  No food or drink besides water was allowed in the sewing room for a full year.  I think I only broke my rule once by accident, and quickly realized and scooted right out of there.

I also made sure to keep sunlight off of the fabrics and gown to avoid yellowing, since I knew I'd be working on them for a long time (I didn't expect a full year at the outset, but hey, it worked).  I used a muslin practice dress cut down the back to wrap over the bodice in progress.  Then when the skirt was added and it was too big to use what extra fabrics I had to keep covering it on Glinda, I resorted to hanging dark curtains over the blinds.  That gave extra protection from sunlight as well as the heat it adds to the upstairs room in our Florida house.  When there was a long period when I wasn't working on the gown, I put everything in the preservation box and brought it downstairs to a dark room.



I vacuumed in there pretty regularly and generally tried to keep the cat out, especially when the skirt was exposed if I left it uncovered overnight while in the middle of something.  She's pretty innocent, but I didn't want to have her calico hairs showing up on my gown after all that work.  And definitely not any claw marks if she did decide to experiment!  Rather than closing the room door, I used the huge gown preservation box to block the doorway but allow air to continue circulating into the room.

I also didn't leave pins in the fabrics, at least not those that would be used in the actual gown since they caused tiny rust spots after a few months.

Oh, and another thing.  White fabrics + needles + hands = blood spots.  I was so careful to pull my hands away when I pricked myself!  I did end up with a tiny spot somewhere on the dress (I'm not telling where), but overall I was able to stop the bleeding from minor pricks and continue working pretty quickly, and avoided making any mess.


Gown Cleaning and Preservation

Although I didn't use it as much before the wedding as I thought I would, I did use a preservation kit to protect my gown and materials over time during sewing and for transport when I took it to my mom's house for a couple of work days when I needed extra hands.

I had decided not to use a dry-cleaner unless my dress got very dirty, and it looked like I was going to be able to stick with that plan.  So about two weeks after the wedding, I finally pulled the gown of of its box, which it had traveled in to the wedding, and washed it.  I dunked the hem into the bathtub with Woolite, just like I'd done when pre-treating it.  But this time, I had dirt around the hem, which I scrubbed off using a toothbrush, Shout stain-treating spray, and a couple hours on my knees.  I scrubbed the fashion outer fabric, the two mirror organza layers under that, and the lining layer on the innermost part of the skirt.  I also scrubbed one little grease spot on the skirt from our wedding day mishap with the car.  After that, I dunked the whole gown in and out a few times and let it soak for a bit to wash it, and let the dirty water out to run fresh water for a few rinsing dunks.  Then I turned on the shower and rinsed some more!  I thought that much rinsing was important because detergents generally continue collecting dirt, including detergent that remains in fabrics, so I wanted to get all of that out before storage.  I also washed the petticoat in the same way, but less scrubbing since the tulle was delicate, being pretty old.  I hung both up to air dry, using a drying rack to support the heavy skirt.

Toothbrush did the trick nicely!  It took time and a lot of Shout, but worked well.

Before hanging, I pressed some water out onto towels.

The other bit of cleaning I had to do was to clean the sash that had gotten dirty before the wedding.  Fun story: the forecast for our wedding went from rain to scattered storms to thunderstorms to severe thunderstorms.  As I put on my gown on our wedding day, those were entering our area and announced themselves with thunder.  Getting from the cabin where we got dressed to the first look location was an adventure.  My aunt helped me get my whole big white fluffy self into the van to take me there, and as we went, it looked like a small bridge we needed to cross was flooded over!  Fortunately, it was just covered with water that wasn't clearing quickly enough and visually blended in with the lake it went over, and we were able to drive across it.  We got to the first look spot, got one good shot while also getting poured on, and decided to go somewhere with more cover.  As we got out at our new location, we found that the tail end of my sash had been caught in the rolling van door, and had black, chunky grease on it.  We tried to wash it out, but nothing helped.  Not the Tide To Go stick I bought for this kind of thing, not dish soap with degreaser, not scrubbing...  I kept cool.  I was determined to roll with it.  We were able to tuck the dirty end of the sash up into the waistband so that I ended up with a three-looped, one-tailed bow.  It worked, actually.  Nobody knew if I didn't tell them!  Still, I thought this might be something I'd need a dry-cleaner for--at least it'd be cheaper than the whole gown.

Poor thing, this is how it looked after scrubbing it at the wedding.  The spots were more black than they look in the photo.

Anyway, this poor sash got some special treatment when I was finally able to face it after the wedding.  I doubted if even a dry-cleaner could save it and was considering remaking the darn thing just to have a complete and clean dress in my gown box.  But fortunately--I wish we'd had this on the wedding day!--Shout and a few scrub and soak sessions with a toothbrush got all the junk out of it.  I let that air dry as well, and was able to package it up nice and clean.

Preserving the veil was a little tricky, because it got scrunched even before the wedding since I finished it well in advance.  (That was part of why I ended up making a second layer, actually.)  This time I used tissue up under the top part of it to try to prevent the gathers at the comb from settling into folds, but I have a feeling it's going to lose some body no matter what, unless I had somewhere to hang it up.  (I don't.  I don't even have enough space to keep the big gown box in our house.  Even if we had a basement or accessible attic, I couldn't put it there because of humidity or heat.  Fortunately my mom has my old bedroom where it can go.)  I'm supposing that if it ever has another opportunity for use that we could lay it out or hang it up in a way that could help fluff it back out.

To preserve a gown you have to tuck materials into
the folds of the fabric and avoid creases.  Also avoid cat hair on the bed
with a clean bedsheet.

I got this "archival quality" preservation kit on Ebay for $40 and followed the instructions in this video.
The box included acid-free tissue paper, a bust shape to put in the dress, a viewing window, and a shipping box to put the preservation box in.  I also bought unbleached muslin to line the box with based on my research, and also saved silica gel packets to put into the box outside of the wrappings to keep it drier.

DIY all the way - Other ways we saved on our wedding

Note: photos are by Heather Danielle Photography, 2015

Our wedding had a lot more DIY than just the dress.  We had a budget of $5,000 that we were shooting for, and in the end, we figured out that with everything but the rings, we spend only $3,500!  Here are some of the things we saved on by doing them ourselves!

Makeup and hair: For my makeup, I learned techniques through videos online and visits to Sephora.  I mostly bought from Walmart, but did cave and get a small tube of Porefessional to smooth my pores, Aqua Eyes waterproof eyeliner because I expected to cry happy tears, Urban Decay's finishing spray in a tester size to keep things set in the summer heat (and again, tears), and NARS Palomino for contouring--all from Sephora.  I got my brushes at Walmart on the cheap, and I like Almay's long-wear TLC foundation from there since I find that it's the only thing that doesn't melt off my face in the summer.  Considering that I already owned a lot of the things I needed, I figure I spent less than $100 on makeup supplies that I've used much more than just at the wedding.  My bridesmaids (my sisters) also did their own makeup, since they are both into that.

We also spent some time figuring out hairdos we liked and how to do them for each other.  My mom helped me do some of the fancier parts of my basic sock bun to make it a little dressier.  I got three sizes of "sock" on Ebay from China for less than a dollar to test out different sizes, and ended up going with the smallest.  Oh, and I also cut my husband's hair at home, so we didn't even pay for his beauty prep!

My lovely bridesmaids with our DIY hair, nails, makeup, and bouquets.
I did get salon nails as a gift from my sister--my first mani and pedi!

Our cake insert:  Our inspiration cake had this awesome foil insert and was really simple overall, with some flowers as accents.  I don't know where you get a foil insert, but after a lot of thinking I figured I could make one reasonably affordably.  I got a foam disc at the craft store and papier-mache'd it, allowing lots of time to dry between layers to avoid molding from the inside out later.  Then I shellacked it with Elmer's Glue-All.

Once the form was made, I got copper foil for metal leafing projects, and followed the instructions in the kit and from online videos to foil the whole top and sides and some of the bottom (the foil is limited supply so I didn't want to be wasteful since the bottom would never be seen by guests).  Instead of the fancy glue they tell you to use, I used a spray adhesive from Walmart, and it worked well.  I did buy the special metal leaf coating to seal it from tarnishing and wear.  For some reason, I still had tarnish show up after coating it, so I re-foiled some areas quite a few times before I minimized that.  I had to cover the insert so only the area where spray glue was needed showed, and leafed that.  In the end, some tarnish still showed, but hey, it adds character.  It was supposed to be an imperfect texture, so the shadows hid any small tarnished areas.  Like everything else, it took much longer than expected, but it looked great in the cake!  I think it's currently in my mom's freezer under the top layer of our cake, waiting for our first anniversary.

I sent the insert to the baker a week before it was needed.  To finish the look off off once it arrived, I made sure to save some flowers from the arrangements to put on the cake, and the topper was a gift.  Since all the decorations were done ourselves, the cake was basically the base price.  And it was delicious!  We splurged a little for strawberry filling and it was really yummy!  (I'd say as good as Publix cake, which was what I was aiming for!)

Can you tell whether this is the inspiration cake or our cake?
It's ours!

The entertainment:  Rather than doing a cocktail hour when we aren't that into drinking, we decided to take advantage of the pretty location and nice midwestern summer weather by doing a lawn game hour.  (In case of rain we supplied indoor games, too.)  We asked family to bring things like bocce ball, croquet, and others, and we supplied cornhole and a coin toss game.  We also took advantage of our venue's fire pit and brought s'more supplies for the end of the evening!

Flowers for me,
fish for him.

My husband and I had received a table saw for Christmas and had hardboard laying around the garage, so we were able to make the cornhole and coin toss games ourselves.  It took some teamwork to get the huge piece of hardboard cut down to the right size.  We found that when we weren't very careful, the board could warp or twist and cause a nick in the edge of an otherwise good cut right at the end.  We had enough to get around that problem, though.  We used furring strips to create the base and feet, and made the feet detachable for traveling to the wedding, using long screws and wing nuts.  I used a box cutter to cut the circle out, then painted it with primer and then outdoor house paint we had lying around.

I also designed our own monogram and made a stencil from that by printing it out at an enlarged size and using an Exacto knife to cut it out of posterboard, then spray painting through it.  That left some fuzzy lines, so I went over the edges with a paintbrush to clean that up.  I also made the cornhole bags out of duck cloth and birdseed, following directions like these.  We made the coin toss game from scrap wood in the garage and a can we were going to recycle... easy peasy.

We also didn't hire a DJ since our family members aren't big dancers.  Instead I put a lot of work (more than was probably needed) into creating the perfect playlist of songs that represented me and my husband and would entertain our family for hours.  I created a pre-ceremony seating playlist of classical guitar music, one with the processional and recessional songs (beautiful classical guitar Grow Old with Me by Lennon for our entrance, then Will You Go with Me by Josh Turner for our exit).  Then there was a playlist for the game hour/after dinner fun, one for the father-daughter dance (My Wish by Rascall Flatts) and first dance (Rainbow Connection by Sarah McLaughlin), and a playlist for dinner.  My sister managed the iPod and little portable sound system, which we had bought for about $75 on Amazon, and it included a cordless mic that my cousin used when we needed announcements made.

We had firefly jars because our engagement night
was the first time we each saw them in Florida since coming from the midwest!

Table decorations:  We made all the firefly jars by learning to solder and replacing the bulky battery packs with attachments for 9-volt batteries that would fit under the lids.  I got moss from Hobby Lobby, and we ordered the little lights online.  We looked for so long for cheap lights that would twinkle, but those were out of the price range when we were expecting possibly 10 tables each needing a firefly jar.

My mom and I made the favors by wrapping tea lights from Ikea in tulle and tying on tags with ribbon.  I made the flower vases by spray painting jars that were sitting around with copper paint to fit our rose gold theme (matching our rings).  My grandpa made the peg games with his woodworking talents.

The flowers and bouquets:  I used Blooms by the Box to order less than $200 worth of flowers, and got some supplies cheaper with another place.  We spent a few hours putting together our bouquets, corsages, boutonnieres, and table settings the night before, with some last-minute parts on the wedding day.   Blooms by the Box was great to work with, and things arrived in lovely shape.

We used two sizes of roses and two sizes of carnations, plus coffee greens and baby's breath.
We ended up needing more greens and got extra leather leaf at a nearby florist.

Other cost-savers:  I made the program-fans at home with wood sticks for handles and bubbles tied on with ribbon.  I also made the escort cards and table numbers, and used a Groupon to buy a photo book of our engagement pictures to serve as a guest book.  The groom's suit was bought on sale with an added discount, the groomsman's tie was from Beall's Outlet, and the bridesmaids' dresses were on clearance at $50 each, plus they each have worn them for other things.  (Honest!  Before the wedding even happened, they each wanted to wear them.)  We also used a package deal to travel (car, flights, and hotel), since our wedding was out-of-state for us in order to be closer to where our families live.  Our photographer Heather Danielle wasn't one of those pricey $2,000-minimum types.  We were able to have her for just the part of the day we needed, and just get our photos with printing rights but not all the trappings we didn't need, so she was less than half of most photographers while offering quality images.  (She clearly gave us some great stuff as you can see!)  Oh, and did I mention our sweet little venue only cost $150 for the run of the place, plus reasonably-priced meals for everyone?  That's Pine Lake Trout Club in Chagrin Falls, Ohio.  Initially we thought the meals would add up much more, so that's part of why we were so careful with costs, but in the end half our guest list declined, so that did make a big difference in our projected and actual costs.

Basically everything in this wedding had our hands on it.  I not only knew my dress inside-out, but was involved in thinking through the other details as well.  And you haven't even seen the "Day Of" book I made to keep things going smoothly as we did final prep and went through the wedding day!

After the wedding, my sister asked if I'd plan her wedding.  I said probably not, I was pretty planned out!  But I am proud that I was able to organize all that and help it go relatively smoothly.  There were bumps here and there, but overall, it was a memorable and beautiful day.  I'm so happy that our guests thought it was very special and enjoyable, too!


While we did save a lot of money on our wedding, far from being "cheap," I think that here you can see how much real work and care went into creating that day over a long period of time.  Our wedding was filled with the languages of love my husband and I share--spending time together, thoughtful gestures of work and small meaningful gifts, and playing together.  Money is something we save as a couple, thinking of our future family, but love is something we give in these ways.

Wearing the gown!

Our Wedding Day - June 27th, 2015

All photos are by Heather Danielle Photography, 2015

Break it down - Costs of sewing my own gown

The cost advantage of making my own gown was one of several reasons I did this, so out of curiosity and to be responsible with spending on the wedding overall, I kept my receipts and tracked the cost. These prices include sales and coupons I used (typically 40-50% off at Jo-Ann).

Gown materials = $134.32

$39.96 taffeta for outer layer (4 yds)
$19.96 dotted silk for waistband (4 yds)
$1.99 ribbon (for straps, which I decided not to use
$3.29 thread
$19.96 organza for skirt under-layers (4 yds)
$24.95 lining material (5 yds)
$8.98 boning
$11.94 muslin
$3.29 zipper
------
$134.32

Veil materials = $8.65

$2.08 seed beads (2 boxes)
$2.57 monofilament transparent thread
$4 tulle (4 yds)
------
$8.65

Sewing supplies I'll be able to use again = $53.36

$3.49 corner turner
$2.49 tracing wheel
$2.57 tracing paper
$3.29 glass head silk pins
$5.99 pressing cloth for ironing
$4.29 fine needles
$5.99 clear wide ruler
$19.99 replacement bobbin case (damaged in previous project and was causing birds nests)
$2.27 more needles
$2.99 muslin to cover sewing table (for cleanliness and to avoid rough edges)
-------
$53.36

Total cost = $196.33 (give or take 100 hours of work)

The verdict: sewing my own gown was way cheaper than buying, even a used gown at a discount couldn't have competed.  The best prices I saw on gowns I was interested in were at least $300-400 at the very lowest, and they weren't really what I was looking for.  Besides that, I would have had to have it tailored (deconstructing a gown myself to tailor it would have been as much work as making one and less fun) and I probably would have added pockets myself, adding more cost and work. Under $200 for just the gown I wanted was definitely the way to go.

A special touch - Making the veil

I was pretty sure I'd want a veil from the beginning.  I wanted something that wasn't over-the-top, but enough to accentuate my dress and offer just a little bit of cover and modesty with a strapless dress and updo.

I decided that an elbow-length veil would do the job, something with simple trim.  You can buy a veil like that for probably under $100.  Or you can get one for about $2 and a little elbow grease.  You can guess my choice, haha.  Besides, it was another opportunity to personalize my bridal wear and practice some new techniques!

Although my husband saw the gown in pieces and in process, he never saw it on me.  He also was absolutely not allowed to see the veil other than as a pile of tulle on my lap while I beaded.  He wasn't to see that part until our wedding day, since some of the surprise of the gown was lost since he walked past the sewing room every day.

I found some pretty leightweight tulle at Jo-Ann's and bought about a yard and a half, just guessing what it would take to reach to my hips, being generous.  I checked out lots of websites on how to make your own veil and decided to use my fabric ruler to figure out how long I wanted the veil to be at the bottom of its curved shape, and at the edges before it turned back up towards the comb.  I drew this out onto paper, and carefully smoothed my tulle out over it.

Since the tulle was cheap, I went ahead and started cutting.  It was shifty and hard to see whether it was lined up right if it got un-aligned, but I was patient and got it to work.  I used my rotary cutter to get the smoothest line I could.

The first iteration was a little to "corner-y" where the curve at the back turned up, so I smoothed that out some by cutting the corners flatter, making it less sharp of a turn.  Actually, it's a lot like what I do when I'm cutting my hair at home; if the edges around my face look too sharp, I taper them with the same sort of change.

Anyway, a few shots at that and I had a nice shape.  I made it longer than I needed it to be so that I could gather it into the comb and then cut it, since it's always easier to cut off more later rather than too soon.  To tell where to put the comb on the veil, I had to figure out where I was probably going to want to put the comb on my head, so the length would fall correctly.  That was a bit of a guess, since I hadn't yet decided on my hairdo.  But I figured I'd do an updo to avoid curls inevitably falling out, and that it would look best sitting at a certain height on my head, so I went of of that, allowing a little extra length for the veil to curve over the bulk of that imaginary hairdo.

I figured out where the gathering and comb would need to be to get the right height, and stitched through the tulle horizontally with a bright thread, then pulled it tight and held it against the comb to spread it out to the right width.  With some clear monofilament thread I'd gotten for this purpose, I sewed the tulle to the comb, following the directions in this tutorial.

Once I had that all set, it was time to bead it.  This blog had the best instructions I found on beading, and are what I followed--but with "rainbow-clear" seed beads of all the same size.  I bought two little boxes of them, and went through all of one and part of the other.

I beaded watching Orange is the New Black, I beaded while waiting for walk-in appointments and chatting with staff at work, I beaded while watching more TV, I beaded in my sleep... until I had beaded all the way around!

Then the veil was done!

Just kidding.  I stored the veil away for a few months while I worked on the dress, and a couple weeks before the wedding pulled it back out to test with the hairdo I'd decided on.  It just felt... lacking.  I wanted more body and a little more sparkle.

So I added another layer.  It was a very similar process to add it onto what was already there, but instead of beading around the outer edge, I added a little sparkle over all of it with beads here and there across the whole thing.  I laid the tulle out on the dark carpet, set the tiny beads on the tulle, and tied each one on with a double-knot of clear thread.  That was it!  It only took an extra two and a half hours to add that part.  It was worth it... check it out!  (These photos are by Heather Danielle Photography, 2015.)

Jo-Anns, Jo-Anns, and more Jo-Anns - Buying fabrics

For a while I thought I wanted shantung, a silk fabric with rough lines that run through it giving it a pretty and interesting texture.  I went all over looking for it, to specialty stores and multiple Jo-Anns.  I finally found something very close in one an hour away--a silk dupioni.  They didn't have a color that was quite right (I wanted an ivory white that wasn't too yellowy), but I bought ten yards of their whiter shade anyway.  With a coupon, it was still quite expensive!  It was silk after all!

Silk dupioni, similar to what I bought.

Later, I had many moments of questioning how I was going to sew such a finicky, expensive fabric.  I realized that there was a very real possibility of there being rain on our wedding day, and I didn't want to have to hide my silk dress and myself from getting any drops on us.  (Good thing I anticipated this, because it poured!  ...Then stopped and was damp but lovely!)

photo of rain

I decided to go with something that was not silk.  I returned the expensive shantung silk, and instead got a related fabric that is less textured but a better color, better price, and much more forgiving of the elements.  I picked a polyester taffeta in ivory, and it was lovely.  Just a little shine, just the right amount of weight to it.  I also found a neat mirror organza that reminded me of water, which my husband, a fisherman, loves.  And I found an adorable dotted sheer fabric that I wanted to find some way to use.  I had taken my husband with me to pick fabrics since he is more decisive than I am, and he encouraged me to go for that pretty dotted sheer.  I'm glad he did!  I love how it worked in the waistband and sash I later designed into the gown.

Here you can see the dotted sheer at the bottom right, and the ivory taffeta above it,
as I made the waistband for the gown.  More of the sheer would become a long sash to tie in a bow.

I'd revisit Jo-Anns many times for things like a zipper, threads, tulle and beads and comb for the veil, boning, more boning, more boning, interfacing, horsehair braid, elastic, and a hook for the waist-stay band.  I used many coupons.  I also bought things that were going to last me beyond this project:  a pressing ham, transfer paper and wheel, a proper seam ripper, and a ruffler foot I'd been coveting for a while.

Ruffler foot!  The thing sounds like a demon eating its way through the fabric, but
it does a great job of making very regular pleats that are essentially ruffles.  It took a little
practice to get the hang of it and get used to the noise, but this fun toy helped me make a strong pleated skirt.

Dressing Glinda - First steps in designing the bodice

With Glinda ready for action, and about ten yards of cheap cotton from Jo-Ann's (soon to be my most-frequented store, surpassing Lowes that had sucked us in as new homeowners a year prior), I was ready to begin draping!

The plain cotton was the cheapest way to experiment with pattern design, and for practice dresses, known as muslins.

I ended up being able to use that amount of cotton for design processes, a full-length practice dress that later became a sewing-table cover when I worked with fancier fabrics, and also some of it got used in the preservation of the dress!

 I pinched and pinned and laid the fabric over Glinda's chest, working to make symmetry out of a formless piece of fabric.  After plenty of re-working, I had it looking like sort of the almost front part of what would hopefully be the bodice I imagined.  I drew on the basic cotton where the neckline would be and tacked (loosely hand-sewed) along that line, and along the waistband area.  Then I snipped off the excess fabric that had been obscuring my view of Glinda and how this thing really looked on her.  I marked where the pleats were, and crossed my fingers that I'd be able to match them back up once I unfolded the fabric!  Then I unfolded it!  It created essentially a pattern for the front piece of the bodice.  It was just a matter of reversing the process using a new piece of fabric.  Simple, right?  We'll see.  Before going into that, I used tracing paper to transfer the shape and pleat marks onto newsprint to serve as a pattern for future work and alterations I might make.

The pattern I used for the bodice liner.
You can see the dress in the photo below
behind Glinda, from when I tried it on her.

There was also behind-the-scenes work at this stage.  The fancy pleated bodice I was designing needed a lining to support it and protect it on the inside while being worn.  I began making that with the lining pattern from a dress that I liked, which had about the right neckline and waist height.  I gave it a couple alterations to make it more generic looking and help the back dip down into the "V" I wanted, and tried it on Glinda.

It turns out I'm built crooked (one hip is distinctly bonier on Glinda, and I realized that's because it's bonier on me, and one shoulder is higher).  I had to do some alterations to get it to fit very smoothly across Glinda's torso and to get the side seams to lay in the right spot.  This kind of detail is part of what makes for good quality "couture" sewing.  Ideally, at some point I'll make what's called a sloper, which is a very basic pattern that is perfectly tailored to the person it's for.  I was making a lazy sewist's sloper in a way, just covering enough of the mannequin to manage this one project.  One of the uses of this liner pattern would prove to be quite the challenge later, as it turned out.

The bodice pattern wasn't quite a right fit for me (the original dress wasn't either unfortunately...), so I used tailoring techniques like pinch-and-pin to get a right fit, essentially making my own pattern based on the original.
You can see the tape on Glinda showing where I was thinking about putting removable straps.
I decided they didn't look good and weren't worth the work.

When I had the first "draft" on Glinda, I pinned it into a better fit and marked where seams should ideally be (since in this process they get moved).  I then sewed along the pinned lines, then recut it apart along the "new" seamlines I'd drawn so I could trace the new altered pieces onto paper (adding 1/4" for seam allowance).  Then use that new pattern to cut new fabric, re-sew, re-try-it-on, and hopefully get a perfect fit at that point!  It took a few tries and happened over the course of at least a day or two.

To add seam allowance when I re-made pattern pieces,
I used my sewing gauge and made notches around the outside,
connecting the dots with my fancy new clear quilting ruler.
To cut them out cleanly, I used my new half-off rotary blade and that ruler.

In this photo, you can also see the marks foreshadowing the difficulties I would later have
with getting the lining to transition from the fashion (outer) fabric along the top edge of the inner bodice,
where it might be partially visible, to the lining fabric that would line the rest of the gown.

You can also see the special silk pins with glass heads I bought to prevent melting under the
iron and snags in fancy fabric.  They were very narrow and bendy, so I lost a few along the way, but most survived.