What's new pussycat?

CATastrophe, that's what!

Pussycat, pussycat I love you~ yes I do.... but oy what a few weeks we've had!

I had been planning to do a cute little post bragging on my feline friends but that will have to wait... Though they are cute, right? Such posers! Katie on the left, Melly on the right.

A few months ago, I had promised to share better photos of my wedding dress. So I set it up on one of my double mint twins to photograph. The pictures were so flashed out that I never shared them... intended on taking more later.

Here they are in their ultra bright glaring glory~

If you're wondering what that rusty/chippy cabinet is... it's an old barber's cabinet!

Ignore my manniquin's bare derriere, I only tossed the pink apron on her so she wouldn't be completely nude!

A few weeks ago I went into my craft room and it hit me~ the strong offensive stench of cat pee. UGH! And it's oh-so-fun to have to sniff around to find just WHERE it is coming from. Well, it didn't take me long. The entire bottom of my wedding dress was soaked.

Now if you have had cats you probably know that they usually only pee outside of the litter box for a few reasons:

One, the box isn't clean enough to suit them.
Two, they don't like the litter you're using.
Three, they don't like to share with other cats.
Four, a urinary tract infection.

My cats get UTI's frequently. They eat the special urinary tract food, and I bought them a drinking fountain, (which helped immensely with my other cat!!)... but they still get them.
I could see a tinge of blood in the mess, so I knew right away what it was. Miss Melly is the sick one this time. She just had a UTI in Oct. so I'm thinking that the antibiotics didn't fully kill the infection at that time.

So it's been a ball shoving pills down a cat's throat for two weeks; I actually request pills over the liquid because they sling that all over the place! She is the sweetest cat, and I think she really understands when we are trying to help her. She is the one who would've died had I not brought her home from the pet store with her sister as kittens. She could not stand up on her own she was so sick~ she had a 106 temp! The vet said it was just a virus~ I think she knows I saved her.

Anyhoo.... back to the dress. First of all, I don't trust dry cleaners with anything vintage or sentimental. That was not an option. Besides, I'd be too embarassed to take in a pee soaked item!
The dress had never been cleaned since our wedding day. The bottom of course was black. I had intended on wearing it for Halloween once, so I didn't want to have to clean it till after that. And boy, was I dreading it!!

It's made of panne velvet and corduroy, easy to clean actually.

Just incredibly cumbersome!

This dress weighs a TON as it is, but soaking wet I could barely manage it in the tub. It took days of soaking and squishing and rinsing and repeating.... I drapped it across the jacuzzi tub to dry a bit, then finally hung it (on two hangers!) to dry the rest of the way.

Here it is going in... EEEK!

Sorry, that's Katies cat butt you see there...

Hey! At least now you get to see all the fine details! No flash, woohoo!

I was SO excited when I found this chenille and satin rope trim, it brought everything together!

I admit, I was freaking out a bit at this point. Eww.
Just look at the BLACK bottom edge! Yikes.

All clean! I'll have to put it back on the dummy for you later. I threw the hoop away!

It came out beautifully. WHEW. The hook and eyes rusted a bit but that's an easy fix.

Show me your form!

Welcome to "Show Me Your Form", hosted by Tiffany at Shabby Scraps~

If you don't have a dress form, make your self one with duct tape! I've always wanted to do this. Instructions here!

These are my "double mint twins".

They are both vintage dress forms, one was my Grandma's, and I acquired the second one later.

I've used them for various projects and eventually want to display my costumes and vintage clothing on them in my parlor, bedroom, and craft room.

Currently one is wearing a vintage pearl collar, a lamp shade carcass, and on top of that my 15" Franklin Mint Vinyl Scarlett doll's wire hoops for her costumes. I have to store them on something round, and for now this fits. However, Miss Scarlett actually has doll dress forms of her own! Here's one featuring the Blue Mill Dress,

The other twin is wearing my unfinished red staircase robe from Gone With the Wind. All she needs is the friggin' sleeves sewn on (which are sitting on top), but as you may have seen in my last post I have to learn to use my new sewing machine first.

I made this from an exsisting vintage robe. It zips up the front. I didn't want real velvet as I actually want to wear this garment as an every day housecoat. It had regular sleeves and I cut them at the elbow, and tried to get that draped sleeve effect as much as I could with the fabric I cut off. I think this will work out perfectly, because having the really large draped sleeves like the real robe wouldn't be practical. I long to wear this Christmas morning, so I must conquer my machine by then, lol!

Here is Scarlett in the staircase robe~

Closeup of fine lace and netting behind it~

A rare sketch of Walter Plunkett's original design for the robe...

My robe as I found it on eBay.

I sewed the lace and tulle on by hand. I wish I could afford fine lace and net!

A shot before I cut the sleeves off.
What is a staircase robe without a staircase?

That is my doll's dress form and red robe on the post.

Wow, my staircase is looking much better these days!

I also have a torso dress form.

I like to use it for vignettes like this one I did for Valentine's Day, see all of my heart necklaces?

Displayed on the form is an antique velvet waist from the 1870's. It is the MOST LUCIOUS velvet ever. They certainly don't make things like they used to. I believe it to be silk. Here is a slideshow featuring it on yet another form made of wire. You will also see a bustle gown from the period which the waist would've been worn with. The peice used to be heavily beaded. I wish I could've seen her in all of her glory.

Here is one of my prized possessions, an antique period gown from 1910. It is made of aqua moire taffeta. Beautiful tissue silk draping, pearls, lace, and faux flowers. It has some repairs to make at the shoulders, but other than that she is in excellent condition~sans a few pearls here and there. It has steel boning and an attached silk petticoat. These are old scans, but you can see more details of the gown in this slideshow.

I musn't forget to show you Scarlett's "Shame" gown. I think it's my favorite. Here it is in the works.

I love embellishing pre-made dresses.

Here's what the dress looked like before. I got it for $25 on eBay. Ripped off the sleeves and added the stones. The train is just pinned in the pic, need to sew that and add feathers and she's good to go. It's more red than the film version but that's ok for the price!

"And put on plenty of rouge, I want you to look your part tonight!" She's so beautiful here,

Wow, this post is getting much to long! I shall try to simplify it somewhat, lol!

The twins have helped me with my Drapery Dress and Jump dress too.

NOTE: let me tell you that many of these photos are taken in rooms before they were redone. (We're redoing our 100 year old home). So you'll see boxes and junque everywhere. It's slowly getting better! My craft room is full of all of the stuff we had to move out of Nova's room when I found out we were expecting! His room was to be used for storage for a while... not any more!

Here's a shot of the "Jump" dress from Titanic. I embellished a prom dress to look like Rose's gown. I added a tulle underlay, beading, rhinestone buttons, and cut the overskirt at an angle. You can see more in yet another slideshow here!

The "Drapery" dress I bought on ebay. I had to take it in 6 inches, and redo the collar and sleeves. Thank goodness I had those twins!!

YES! That's Kevin as Rhett! I cut and colored a wig for him, made him shave, and dyed his brows and mustache. LOL! I even bought him a pinky ring, *snort*

If you're still here and you're not saying "ENOUGH already!" then you can see more pics in this album.

Kevin before morphing into Rhett. HEY! If you squint hard enough you can see my mannequin in the background, along with one of the twin's torsos on the floor with Dorothy's dress on!

I'm sure I could bore you with more, (such as Rose's Tea dress from Titanic), but before I go I'll show you a pic of my mannequin. She's kinda spooky, and about 7ft. tall. She was nekkid, but I threw this vintage plastic apron on her for now. Like her "Rose" wig?

Then I walked around the house with camera in hand and was surpised to see how many other little dress forms I had.

My newest addition to my GWTW collection. Kevin's cousin surprised me with this.

Thank you Vickie!

Tiffany, I hope this helps your husband to see how much these gals mean to us. Thank you for hosting "Show Me Your Form". Nadia is a true gem of a find, enjoy her! I look forward to meeting Miss Kitty.