Dresses galore

Let's get straight to the point: I haz pictures -finally!- of dresses I've recently made. First another trompe l'oeil dress, navy crepe for the top and white suiting tergal for the bottom:



Then my first two-coulour dress WORN (thanks to my Baby):


And two dresses I made for my mama, the R design from the latest SDB in white cotton veil and tropical blue rayon:


And an umpteenth version of her favourite dress, this time in cotton toile de jouy:


Last but not least you should have a look at this, so many beauties to see and so much inspiration! That's it, see you!

A trip down memory lane

Growing up in the nineties my favourite designers were those who mixed florals with polka dots, bold colours and abstract prints, the Lacroix, Scherrer and Ungaro.




I was fascinated by the glamourous, joyful and self confident persona the models projected in their dreamy dresses and super cute cocktail suits and had sworn that I too would wear these as soon as I had escaped the torments of adolescence and the dress code of local schools. So these days when I'm a grumpy ageing b***h and I sneer at the younger girls' addiction to clothes and accessories I remind myself that fashion helped me throughout my teenage years and that looking forward to seeing the next collections in the magazines was the only thing that got me out of bed many mornings!
All this to tell you that I've made yet another rectangle skirt, this time with a most amazing polysilk that wouldn't have clashed in my designers' défilés :)



And this fabric screams nineties so much that I heard Supertramp's You win, I lose the second I spotted it:

See you!

I'm on a roll

All I can think of these days -apart from the usual- is DRESSES! I'm particularly happy with my latest creation because it's super cute and it helped me reduce my stash since it's made from remnants. Here's the thing:


The skirt is a basic dirndl in navy cotton with belt salvaged from two previously failed garments and the bodice is the SDB 4 N top (again!) in a remnant of printed cotton I used for this top.

I took a pic of the inside of the dress to show you I was able to get rid of some brown bias tape that just lay there and yellow bits of cotton to finish the armholes and neckline. Even the waist stay is old gros grain I had had in my stash for years, the only purchased thing is the zipper but I don't really mind :) Have a nice weekend and see you!

My little green dress

You know I'm so glad I haven't said in a previous post that I don't like wearing dresses made from one single colour/print because now I'd have a difficult time justifying the fact that I've been wearing this several days every week^^:




I LOVE this dress! I've modified the pattern to the SDB 4 N top to make it, I've gotten rid of the gathers and extended the bottom into an A-line skirt and added 5 rows of shirring at the waist and that was it. The fabric is medium weight polyester, it's easy to trace, cut and sew and it doesn't require ironing (!!!!!) but it is full of static electricity and clings to the body like crazy if I don't wear a half slip underneath. I like this fabric so much I bought some mustard, ruby red and peach for future projects :)
Actually I also had it in electric blue and made a quick dress for a date with baby using an old Burda magazine pattern, it doesn't look bad but I was a in a hurry when I sewed it and I think it shows:


See? The hem is uneven and the side zipper is wrinkly, so I will probably unpick them and do them again. I added a modesty panel to the original pattern because it's supposed to be a jumper and a side zip because I didn't use a stretch fabric as advised.
See you!

Two-colour dresses

Hey there, how are you? I've been experimenting with dresses recently, I'm trying to figure out a design that would allow me to wear them more often without feeling too dressed up. Indeed I've realised that I feel awkward wearing the same print or colour from head to toe, and so I had a revelation^^: how about using TWO different fabrics? I gave it a try using the bodice part of a Burda mag pattern (March 2011) and a simple gathered skirt with a sewn-on belt and remnants from my stash. I'm pretty satisfied with the result, the fit is great even though the armholes are a bit tight and the dress is actually cute:

I love the V shape at the back!

The green fabric is a remnant from another dress project which turned out perfect, I have yet to take pics of it but it's really cool, a simple gathered sundress with an early 80's feel, I hope I can show it to you soon! Back to the 2-tone dress, I got carried away and thought I had found the best project for some striped silk I had been hoarding for a looooong time: bad idea. The silk was far too thin and the bodice rippled and just didn't work well. Sigh, I took a photograph before ripping it:


I tell you this dress is doomed, I spent my free time sewing another bodice out of white cotton, this time with sleeves because I wanted to add a little something and the damn thing turned out too small -I suspect that it shrinked when I washed it even though I had steamed it beforehand :( I'm going to rip this one too and leave the skirt to rest a little while, maybe I'll have an idea and finish it eventually. That's it, have a nice week people, see you!

Miaou

Hello! A quick post to show you a top I made this weekend still using the latest SDB:


In the book design N has two layers -a cotton shell and an organza outer top- but I only needed one, so I chose to trace the shell part since it has much less gathers than the other part. I'm not even going to comment on the fabric, those who follow this blog regularly must know by now that I cannot resist a Japanese kitty print and the collar part is made of plain black cotton. The design is quite loose, which I adore, but strangely I felt like wearing it with a belt today.



Lol and yes I heard a song when I finished it, it was Sade's "Is it a criiiiiime?" that I completed with "... that a grown a** woman wears a top with kittens in bathing suits on iiiiiiiit"! See ya!

Lucky chance top

Hiya! I've recently bought this book and it has such sweet designs that I was eager to try them all. My favourite however was this one, the R dress:


I love the sweetheart detail, contrast upper bodice and the slightly loose fit which make the dress feminine yet easy to wear and accessorise. I wanted to make sure my usual alterations on the size and position of the bust darts (they are often too high for us westerners) were correct so I decided to cut a short version out of leftovers, but when tracing the changes I felt like no gathers would work better on a top. Moreover I have enough gathered tops to last me a lifetime! So, a few modifications later I ended with this:

Edit:

A somewhat decent picture of the top worn!

The pinkish/apricot fabric is a remnant from some very soft polysomething found in the dollar bin and with which I had tried to make trousers that ended the worst garment on earth and the upper part is plain white cotton. The neckline and armholes are bound with bias tape and even though I forgot the back slit I can pull it over my head without any problems.
On a side note and trying not to sound too creepy^^, I've noticed that when I'm satisfied with something I've sewn I often think about a song that matches the garment. For example when I finished this one I thought about an old French song by Sacha Distel called "La belle vie" -Tony Bennett sang it in English with "The good life". It's such a lovely song!

Have a nice week, see you!