Theresa LaQuey - Guest Blogger - Beaded dress part 2

Theresa LaQuey back to start beading. 

Read Part 1 for the design process. 

My muslin is now fit and I have marked all the corrections on my paper pattern. I also have turned back all of the seam allowances on the pattern, carefully placed the chiffon on my work table, which has a grid. Chiffon moves around a lot, as you all know, and the grid makes it easier to make sure the warp and weft of the fabric are straight. I made lots of white dots with a white dressmaker's pencil to mark out the pattern shapes onto the yardage WITHOUT THE SEAM ALLOWANCE. The beading should stop at the stitching line, not the cutting line.  You don't need or want beads in the seam allowance. Then I stretch the yardage onto my beading loom. 

I made my loom out of four 2 x 4's that have strips of muslin stapled to them.  They are held together with C-clamps and ideally the loom would sit on two saw horses, but due to my husband having rite fully taken over the garage, which meant moving all of my gowns stored in there to come and live in my studio, it is more like precariously perched on a couple of bar stools and a stack of boxes.  I do strap a magnifying lamp to one of the bar stools, though.  This makes the frame completely adjustable for any size of fabric. I first assemble the boards into a rectangle approximately the size of my fabric. The marked fabric is left completely uncut.  Sometimes only one pattern piece can fit on a length of fabric and sometimes I can bead a few smaller pieces on one length. When I pin the fabric to the muslin boards, I pull it very tight as I pin. After it is completely pinned to all four boards it gets pulled out as tight as possible and the C-clamps are reset.  If it isn't stretched enough when being pinned, it's not possible to pull it out to the required tightness. There is a particular order of pinning it to the loom, from the center of the board and then out.  I hope it shows in the pictures.   Pulling the fabric very tight opens up the spaces between the threads of the fabric so the tiny hook can go in and out without breaking any of the fibers of the fabric, which is important. This is called Tambour Beading. The fabric is as tight as a tambourine head, which comes from the same word. I will have more photos of my loom in a future post.

Now the beading can commence. 

 I wanted a solidly beaded gown, but it looks like time is not on my side so I must adjust the design to make my deadline. (hopefully). 

 Here you can see the tiny crochet hook that I apply the beads with.  They are applied with a chain stitch, feeding the beads from the under side.  It has been a week and I have only managed to complete 2 of the 7 panels that I needed.  I have no idea if I can pull this off before my trip, but I shall certainly try.

From Andrea ... Each panel takes several days, so the next posting might not be until the end of the week.