Sewing for the Ball - Velvet

This past weekend, I finally got sewing on my ballgown for the Goblin Ball. I was originally intending to sew it out of silk dupioni, but after looking at various pricing for yardage, it was a bit more than I wanted to spend. After some consideration, I decided to make it out of some velvet I had in my Stash. It wouldn't have the same "sheen" as silk, but it would still be a rich fabric good enough for a fairy ball.

The velvet is a deep dark burgandy, and is absolutely beautiful. The front and back are cut from a single piece of fabric that is about 5 yards long. Because the pattern pieces are so long, it requires a bit of planning.
My dining room table sits about 8 people and wasn't quite long enough for all of the fabric, so it required some finagling. I didn't quite fancy laying out all of the fabric on the floor and crawling around to pin and cut.

(It also required that wait until the kittens were otherwise napping to avoid any "help" - can you imagine velvet and kitten fur???)

After all of the pieces were cut, I used the serger to overlock all of the edges to make them nice and neat, as velvet tends to really fray at the edges. I love my serger, but if you don't have one then you can use pinking shears or an overlock stitch or zig zag stitch on your sewing machine to help keep your velvet fraying to a minimum. (If you've never worked with velvet before, check out this website for some tips and tricks.)

The kittens eventually did wake up and came over to help supervise. I gave them my mockup to use as a temporary bed while I pinned and sewed together the shell for the body.

More to come later....