Holiday Dress 2015!

So I managed to piece together the majority of the dress. I still need to do hems and waist bands BUT it's at a good spot that I feel like I can walk away for the night. I'm very happy with how it's turning out so far. I am absolutely going to find every occasion to wear this that I can because it's adorable and fun.

New Project: Leanne Marshall 1353

I have been thinking for weeks what i want to do for a dress for the holidays and I've finally come up with some that is both holiday friendly but can also be worn on other occasions. So my initial plan was to do a short fitted dress and then put a removable full circle skirt on top that I can choose to wear separately.

I'm using Leanne Marshall as a base and i'll adjust from their to make it the shape I want.

I'll also be doing a shimmered blush with a black lace overly for the dress and just the Blush for the skirt. I'm excited to get started!
Be sure to check back! hopefully I'll get some updates posted soon!

Denim Skater Skirt Overall

So after working on a very time consuming project such as a wedding dress it's nice to pick up a project that can easily be completed in a couple days. This was my first time working with overall hardware and i can absolutely say, if the package says to put the pieces together using a hammer you better use a hammer.

So to start I took a regular circle skirt, cut at an 18" length. from there I took care of the hem which I chose a half inch rolled hem to keep any fraying to a minimum. I also elected to do the double decorative stitching that you see in many denim pieces.

From that point I cut out the rest of the pieces based on the measurements I collected. The pieces I cut were a 4" wide strip for the waist band, a 12"x 12" bib, 2 straps that were 4" wide cut at about 32" and cut down later and the a 5"x3.5" rectangle for the pocket. from there it was all piecing together!

I ended up cutting a seam down the back of the skirt and putting in a zipper, The straps are crossed in the back about 3" from the zipper. and voila! a simple denim skater skirt overall!

A Wedding Dress? A Wedding Dress.

So I've taken a bit of a hiatus from the blogging about my projects because of starting a full time job and still putting time into sewing. I'm just glad to be back on here sharing my projects with all of you. so while I was away I made a wedding dress for a family friend and it was my first experience with a formal dress that was designed to fit how she wanted with the details she always dreamed of for her wedding.

The fabric she chose was a champagne satin and a white organza with floral embroidered detail. stunningly beautiful but honestly was a bit of a pain to work with because of the fabric being so fragile. so after the initial muslin mock up we proceeded with the open back, floor length wedding dress.

Once pieced together the dress had a lot of finishing detail work that was a real challenge for me because we wanted to showcase how beautiful the organza was but not have any bulky rolled hems. The final decision we ended up taking with finishing the edges with a really small zig-zag stitch and then melting the edges to lock the stitch in place.

After a fitting we ended up adding a panel on either side of the open back, to firstly showcase the organza more and to make the dress a little more sturdy and moveable. Overall the dress turned out beautiful, it was a great match for the location and she looked absolutely beautiful for her wedding. 

Project: 1960s Shift Dress

Shift Dresses are definitely a huge fall fashion staple and I am all for it! typically I am a Fit and flare type but seeing all the A line and shift dresses at work has inspired me to make one of my own, mostly because of all of them being too short for me. So I sat down with 3 patterns of 60s shift dresses and after an hour of weighing pros and cons of each pattern I chose the 1967 Simplicity 7119.  I chose this because of the detailing at the neckline underneath the peter pan collar. I chose some black linen and white lace and went to work.

After completing my project I now have a new appreciation for Shift dresses. They are Unbelievably easy and they are SO comfortable to just sit around in. They also seem to be very hard to mess up. even with the detail work under the color (which because it is in black is a little harder to see) this dress only took me about 2 hours to stitch together. I considered making long sleeves in lace because of fall weather and then instantly realized that it is still in the 80s outside and in the foreseeable future is following that trend. so maybe my next shift dress will have lace sleeves, but this one not so much.

Return to Project: The House Coat

so after a day of working on a futuristic dress for my sister I figured it was time to go back to the past and work on my 1950s house coat. so where I left off last was that I had the lining done for the the house coat and the bodice of the exterior done the sleeves and skirt had not even been cut because i gave up in a rage against my overly dull rotary cutter blade which has since been replaced. Since I got back to work on it I have made some more fun strides on it.

I got the Skirt and sleeves cut and attached to the exterior and I have attached the lining to the exterior (half way). I still have things to do as far as piecing it together as well as pieces to cut out but  it's getting there!

Progress Picture of the day (with a reversible view!) :

project #2 is almost complete

so a few hours later from my last post about simplicity 1325. I am almost done. all thats left is sewing in the zipper! SO with out further ado, my project of the day in its (almost) complete state!

which means!! I can now get back to my house coat...maybe I'll get that done....eventually... just kidding. it'll happen soon!