Mmmmm Silk and Leather...

Sometimes the perfect fabric comes to you in a piece that's juuuuuust a little smaller than you'd like for what you want to do with it. And sometimes you say 'fuck it, I'm gonna make it work no matter what'. Such is the case with the yellow silk my friend found for her gown. It's a gorgeous silk taffeta that's actually a golden-orange shot with lemon-lime yellow-green that comes out as a stunning and vibrant golden-yellow. Ideally we wanted to use this for sleeves, forepart, and piping for details on the gown. The piece my friend was able to obtain is unfortunately only about a yard and a half (54" wide) and her source cannot confirm if they will get more of it. Our next goal was to use this piece for forepart and sleeves and find something similar for the other smaller details. As is, the piece was suitably large enough, but it had always been the design to have the the forepart and sleeves pleated vertically which greatly shrinks the size of that piece. I compromised a bit by creating something between a pin tuck and a pleat that has a very pleasing effect without eating up too much of the piece. It was still a close call fitting it all on the piece. I did take a picture of it but for some reason my camera decided to make the file unreadable :( This is a rough sketch of how the pieces got spaced and just how close it was to fit it all.

Once I knew that would work and had the pieces all cut out I moved on to cutting the leather portions for the sleeve and forepart. I found two grey leathers at Sol's that I loved and decided to use a layered effect. 

First a little cutwork on strips of the lighter grey leather.

 Then the lighter grey will be layered on top of the darker grey

  Then the leather strips will be placed on the sleeve.

So there's a little sneak peek of the sleeves!