Hemming & Hawing

Remember how I told you all that I'd temporarily abandoned the in-progress Milly silk wedding guest dress I'd been working on? Well, it had been living in the "ehh" pile for a little while, until this past weekend, when I was suddenly and inexplicably inspired to finish the dang thing. I went with black for the bodice, as you can see - had I already shared that?

Check it out!

I was rather smug and quite pleased with myself (look at me, I'm finishing this dress now, even though my deadline isn't for another month!) until I finished pressing the hem, that is. This silk is so freakin' bouncy and buoyant and light and perky that it will not make a nice crease to save its life (yes, its life - I'm about to go at it with shrub trimmers just so I can force it to submit - Ah-HAH! I win!). I'm not used to working with silk but that perkiness was not an issue until I decided to hand-stitch a 3-inch hem - WTH? Also, though you can't see the actual thread on the right side of the hem from my stitching, you can see little dents from it. Damned shiny, sensitive silk. :( It doesn't look horrible IRL, but it makes me feel like foolish riff-raff who neither understands how nor deserves to work with nice material. Meh. (maybe that's a little dramatic, but let's just say I feel slightly discouraged.)

blahhhhh

sad, blobby hem

I can't figure out what to do to get the hem under control. I keep debating whether I should just rip it out and make a smaller, tiny hem (which could still have a weird bubbly effect, too), try to rip it all or partially apart and add some kind of weight or horsehair braid in the hem to help keep it flat/crisp, or just keep pressing it over and over until it finally submits. Any recommendations would be appreciated, though I am quite reluctant (meaning 97% unlikely) to do anything requiring me to take out the hem I've sewn.

One kind-of-positive thing about this hem situation is that the bouncy bulk down there kind of helps to keep the skirt a little fuller and swishier almost like a weak horsehair braid, which is nice.

Also, a full post on this dress will be done after I wear it to the wedding in early August so I can include pictures of me actually wearing it and looking halfway decent. Despite my complaining, I do like this dress (though it has more flaws than just the hem and Tom says it makes me look a little sock-hop-ish, haha) and I am looking forward to wearing it, even if I can't get the dumb hem fixed. I opted to use a thrifted black belt at the waist, instead of  making a pink belt/band, so it'll look something like this. Yay!

belted