Foundation Fits! and Buttonhole Progress

Well, this evening I left work at a very reasonable hour and came home to sew.  First, I sometimes alternate between being pretty proud of being able to sew my wedding dress and terror that I won't be able to finish!  Anyway, the only way to deal with that is to keep right on sewing!  So, during the day I was worried that my adjustments to the bust and circumference of the foundation were somehow wrong.  So I tried it on again when I got home, and it fits great!  I'm really happy with it, and I went ahead and cut out the lining using the same adjustments as for the foundation.

The pictures below are me in the foundation with final seams stitched.  I fitted it inside out because I have not yet trimmed the extra-long seam allowances and did not want those making the foundation seem snugger than it actually is.  The fact that it will be a little snugger with the seam allowances and lining on the inside was taken into account. A few of the boning pieces were not inserted in the pictures below, which accounts for the slight wrinkling on the abdomen.

So,with confidence regained, I adjusted the muslin and cut out the lining from some remaining crepe de chine.  The next step with those is to make the buttonholes for the waist stay and to add the embroidery.  It turns out that my buttonholer maxes out at about 1".  I tested it, but the feed dogs and ridges on the bottom of the buttonhole attachment really chew up the crepe de chine.  Next, I tried sandwiching the crepe de chine in tear away stabilizer used for machine embroidery, but that was a bit stiff.  After that I tried using 3 layers of crepe de chine and then using my applique scissors to remove the extra layers.  That wasn't quite as neat as I wanted.  So, I decided to see if I could find a free buttonhole embroidery design.  Alas, I did not find what I wanted, so I cracked open Stitch Era Universal and made my own.  It was super easy, and so now I have a 1.25" gap buttonhole with rounded corners.  And, only one layer of tear-away stabilizer, on the back.Here it is after I've removed the tear-away and opened it up with the seam ripper.  I have also inserted my temporary waist-stay. Great!  Next step for that is to put the buttonholes on the actual lining pieces.

I also played a bit with another bit of embroidery I might put in my dress.  I made this design myself and digitized it.  The colors are not quite right yet, I will use a darker pink in the center of the flower,and I am undecided about using blue for the initials. The blue buttonholes may be sufficient...  The photos are before and after I removed the tear-away stabilizer.I didn't remove the tear-away in the middle of the petals, etc. I assume I can do this, though.  Perhaps I will need tweezers.