In this conversational video update, Tom Guarriello, Ph.D. and Karen discuss the progress on the custom Peggy dress. They review the missing fabric sections, the completion of "go days" (fabric slashes), and the construction of a basic princess‑line dress with a zipper, interlining, lining, and a made‑to‑measure corset. Karen explains adjustments to the godets—replacing overly white fabric with embroidered appliqués and cut‑out motifs to create a continuous, swirly pattern suitable for dancing. They set a target to finish the dress by the next day in preparation for a final fitting with Peggy on Monday. The segment concludes with Tom highlighting Karen’s award‑winning botanical watercolor of an orchid from the International Orchid Show.
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Honey, we're going to do another Peggy dress video, huh? An update on the Peggy dress project.
It's about time.
It is, it's about time. You know, you, you're not very good at this video updating stuff. So let's, uh, so last time we were— you, you had, you had yards, you had yards of fabric before, Taryn. Oh yes, in our last video— in our last video—
in your last video See, there's chunks of fabric missing.
There are chunks of fabric from the bolt missing because—
and the last time I showed you, I said that I was going to make slashes between these designs.
Somewhere you said you were going to put in go days. Go days. I remember the go days.
Go days are done.
Go days are done.
Go days are done. And then What we did was put a seam between these and continue that seam into a princess line dress.
Aha.
Basic princess line dress. And here's the back. We got the zipper in.
Wow.
Needs to be pressed. And then on top of that— now this, this has also been interlined. See that there's just some fabric attached to that. And of course these seams need to be trimmed and finished off. And then we have the lining. And then what else? Oh, we have the corset that goes inside.
Can you show the corset that you made, please?
Well, the corset is downstairs.
Okay, well, let's pause for a moment while you go get the corset.
Well, let me show you that I've been working very hard.
We know this to be true.
So here we have lining.
Mm-hmm.
And the corset is pinned in, but it's just— there's lots of stays in there, and then this gets all tucked in. It's hard to see that.
Pretty hard to see, isn't it? But there it is. You can see it. It's pretty hard to see, but here's the way— You get a picture of the insert and the corset. All of which, of course, made to measure, huh?
Oh yeah, this time I used a Princess Line pattern just to get the general form. And mostly to try and keep the straight of grain on this so it would hang right. Now we also decided that these godets are just a little too, too white.
A little too white, just a little too plain vanilla for you and Peggy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they look a little maybe, I don't know, kludgy. So we're going to— all right, so I've cut out the embroidery that you would have seen on the end of the fabric, and that will get appliquéd to the— to the godets, basically.
But even still, still not enough, huh?
Not enough.
So what else did you do?
So what we did was cut out some of these motifs. They're the main motif, and we put a little fray check.
Can you put that down so we can actually see what that looks like? There we go. You actually cut out— painstakingly, I might add, watching you do this—
oh yeah, painstakingly— and cut out the motifs on, on that will be inserted on the appliqué to the godets, as well as these border prints that come like By the way, with all these shadows and all this black and white, nobody can see anything, but you know, you get the idea. Oh, sorry.
It's okay.
Well, we'll do— we'll hang one right here on a dry hanger.
Give them an idea of what it's going to look like on the dress.
You can see how that might look. So it will be a continuous pattern. You probably won't see godets at all. It'll just be a very swirly circular skirt and Great for a dancer.
That's what we need for Peggy, something great for dancing. Well, there's the update. And you think maybe you're going to be done when?
Oh, hopefully tomorrow.
Hopefully tomorrow to be ready for a final fitting on Monday.
Yes, Monday.
We hope a final fitting for Miss Peggy on Monday. And you know what, Karen, as I'm looking over your shoulder, I see one of your works that I'm most proud of myself that I think I'll just show our video viewers, which is Karen's botanical watercolor piece that she painted of an orchid, which, uh, won a ribbon, didn't it?
Yeah, at the International Orchid Show.
The International Orchid Show. A third, a third place, I think. Yeah, third place, which in that show was Quite amazing. Looking for— and there it is right there. It was in 1999. That was 9— how could it have been 9 years ago already? Oh, scary. Okay, well, there's the update. Pretty soon we're done.
