Back on track

Whew!  Turns out the damage was less than I thought; I had it repaired in about 3 hours, yesterday morning and lunchtime.  So I lost half a day.  Could have been better, could have been a LOT worse – I’m just happy that it’s fixed!

And my dobby box is back from AVL, and is working beautifully.  They found a magnet in the dobby box (oops – my bad) that could have caused some of the problems, and replaced one solenoid.  And they turned it around in just one day!  Now that’s customer service.  Kudos to them for fixing it so fast.

So I have now woven the first 10″ of my double-happiness ribbon, using four strands of the fine metallic gold weft that I used for the eternity knots, wound onto my brand-new Bluster Bay double bobbin boat shuttle.  It’s coming along nicely – the selvages look awful, because I haven’t figured out how to manage a double-bobbin boat shuttle with even tension yet, but since they’ll be cut off anyway, it doesn’t really matter.  I think I can weave it up in a day or so – it goes really fast and I only need two yards.

Here’s a photo of the double-happiness ribbon sample I wove before starting the yardage:

I’m actually weaving two lengths of ribbon at once – that way the spacing between characters will match precisely between the two sides, important since they will be viewed side by side in close proximity.  The wide separation is to give plenty of room to turn the edges under.

And I FINISHED appliqueing the lace to the front of the dress!  I figure it was something like fifteen or twenty hours of work, but it’s done.  Now all I have to do (for the photo shoot, anyway) is applique the lace to the sleeves, and add the pearls all ’round.  After that I can turn my attention to the coat lining (needs piping applied), some more hem samples, and, uh, I think I’m supposed to be doing something with the coat facings, too.

Sharon and I are meeting on Saturday, so that gives me about 3 days of working time.  So I think I should be able to finish all the stuff on my plate, and might even be able to work on the back lace!