Also if you don't need a lot of suport on those laces, just enough to keep the dress from flopping open (may not be a possibility since it's strapless) you could make lacing holes by running pieces of piping or folded over pieces of bias tape (any narrow non-flimsy strips of something really - you could even use shoelaces in a pinch) up each side of the opening. You can then stitch this down at the top, the bottom, and at as many intervals as you want, and the rest that isn't stiched down is -- tadaaaa --- lacing holes. If you do them consistently loose rather than flat, the lacing "holes" will show in the opening, but this can look cool (like little triangles). They should match your fabric (or be white so they'll pick up the dye, or be something you don't mind contrasting) because they'll probably be visible from some angles, especially if you go the loose way.
The issue with this method, as I said, is on it's own it may not hold up to a lot of pressure. If it's pulling hard on the laces, you might get puckering at the points of lacing. You could try to mitigate this by stitching down longer strips of the lace-hole-material, so rather than . . . . . . the thread looks more like more like _ _ _ _ _ at the touch points. That should lessen the pucker effect a little. But you could also insert boning just along each side of the opening. That will do a better job of pucker-protection but since the dress is already sewn together, it might be an annoying hand-stitching job to make channels for said boning. If you're up for hand-stitching, this is the method I'd probably go with.
By the way I did finally see pictures and it looks GREAT so far. I'm totally impressed.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-04-16 01:50 pm (UTC)The issue with this method, as I said, is on it's own it may not hold up to a lot of pressure. If it's pulling hard on the laces, you might get puckering at the points of lacing. You could try to mitigate this by stitching down longer strips of the lace-hole-material, so rather than . . . . . . the thread looks more like more like _ _ _ _ _ at the touch points. That should lessen the pucker effect a little. But you could also insert boning just along each side of the opening. That will do a better job of pucker-protection but since the dress is already sewn together, it might be an annoying hand-stitching job to make channels for said boning. If you're up for hand-stitching, this is the method I'd probably go with.
By the way I did finally see pictures and it looks GREAT so far. I'm totally impressed.