Is that a light?

So here is the red dress as it stood on Monday, sleeveless and after I fitted my model...too big!  But I had kind of guessed that, I knew it looked too big for her!  I ended up taking both and the sides of the coat in.

Which made it look more like this.  Muuuuch better.  Those are the lower tie on sleeves and the gators hanging off the side of my judy there, if you were wondering.

  A close up of the lower sleeves, just to say, I have no grommets left.  And I have no grommet machine  just a hand grommet tool that is probably ment for scrap-bookers, but you know what?  Aside from the hand cramps it eventually causes, it works amazingly well!

This is where it stands tonight, It has sleeves (finally) and the ascot is made.  Those sleeves were... interesting.  I made them by steam-a-seaming two pieces of faux suede together.  Now Faux suede is a wonderful forgiving fabric when not layered with glue...but once glued it became as tough and strong/thick as real suede. I broke...3 leather needles?  Sounds about right.

  My kind and wonderful mother sewed all the buttons on the gators for me, and when I was horrified by how RED it all was, went out and found some black trim to sew over my seams and then proceeded to sew the trim on for me.

I made an ascot (you can just see it poking out around the neck, and some detachable fancy cuffs to pin onto the white blouse my model will be wearing under everything.

All that is left is attaching the lining, hemming the coat and finishing the edges/putting in the elastic into the cuffs.  I can almost see a light at the end of this very red tunnel!