My Prom dress!

 

Sorry about the long time no see! Even though exams finished a couple of weeks ago I have been chock a block with work experience and other commitments, but now I am FREE. For now anyway, which means I have plenty of sewing time. I haven’t stopped sewing by any means, it’s just finding time to take pictures but I am determined to succeed.
Anyway, now onto all the important stuff. It was my year 11 prom on wednesday, and of course I had to make my dress which has been in progress for the last couple of months, right up until an hour before I left. It was squeezed from 3 metres of dusky pink satin along with a clutch to go with the outfit. More about that in another post.

The dress consisted of a fitted bodice and gathered skirt, with a lace covered collar and waistband/belt. I felt that the collar didn’t quite work, and that the dress was better off without it so that idea was binned.

I ended up wearing the flower crown that I made and curling my hair with straws inspired by the video from cute girls hairstyles.
















The waistband/belt was attached by 3 rows of hooks and eyes. The bow at the back was a last minute adjustment.
I used an invisible zip, but as it was white it went completely against the point of an invisible zip so I handpicked it to make it as less visible as possible.

Overall I’m pretty happy with the end product and I got lots of compliments throughout the evening. I think I did achieve the simple, classic look I was going for so that’s good.






Sorry about the ridiculously small photos. I’m trying to figure out how to make them bigger without them getting all pixalated Please bear with me.
Thanks for reading,
Lauren x

A Swing Dress

This was my first attempt at drafting and i made possibly the worst fabric choice in the world: Chiffon. The whole process wasn’t helped by the fact that the dress was cut on the bias so it expanded. I must have ended up hemming it about 4 times, and it was still uneven with the underlining, so much so that it now has a balloon effect. It’s safe to say that the only time I will ever wear this dress will be to a fancy dress party as a fairy. Plus, it’s a bit tight for me so my friend Lauren modeled it instead.

It’s basically a long circle skirt, with the part above the waist measurement being another circle forming the neck band. In the end it turned out not to be so long, because I’d chopped off so much of the hem, trying to get it all to be the same length.





In hindsight, it really would have been a good idea to do a little research on chiffon, but at least i’ll never make the same mistakes again.
On a positive note, it really is very flowy… And it doesn’t look as puffy as I thought it did. Win.

The Shrubbery Top

This top is named the shrubbery top for 2 reasons. a) it’s covered in leaves and b) pictures were literally taken in the shrubbery, or the leafy part of our garden anyhow. I’m not sure whether it’s too baggy but I think I like it how it is for now. I’ve decided to do a bit of list of the fabric I used and the techniques and all that lot, so I guess I’ll just jump right in.






Pattern: This is from the may 2013 edition of mums Prima magazine. Unfortunately their patterns start at size 10 and I’m quite a bit smaller than that. It just consists of 2 pattern pieces (a front and a back) which the sleeves are included in. I think this is called a dolman sleeve top?


Alterations: I’m pretty sure that I made a muslin, but I can’t for the life of me figure out where I put it. I think I took in about an inch from the middle of both the front and the back pieces and also an inch or two from the sides.
Fabric: The fabric was leftovers of some leafy cotton that I inherited from my mum. Apparently she made flared trousers out of it… There wasn’t enough for a full length top, which was alright because now I have my first ever crop top!

Techniques: This was the first time that I’ve ever used french seams, and I am so proud of the inside of this garment. There are no raw edges to be seen. I used bias binding for the first time for the neck, sleeves and hem which is also new to me.
The pic to your left gives you a fairly good idea of what it looks like from the inside.






Loads of thanks to Lauren who took the action shots!

Prom dress bodice wearable muslin

After changing the bodice completely I wanted to make another mock up to make sure that it fit okay. This time I wanted it to be a wearable one so I used a £2 remnant of dupion to make this dress. The bodice is simplicity 4070 and the skirt is 2 gathered rectangles. The bodice is fully lined as I wanted to make my insides as nice as possible.

And there’s my Dad in the shadow trying to take a picture.

I discovered that the arm holes wayyy too low so that was changed on the original pattern.

I had to use a white zip because that was the only one I had that was long enough. The machine stitching was awful even though I tacked it beforehand so I unpicked it and instead attempted a hand-picked zip for the fist time.

It’s still not perfect, but it’s much better than it was.

I’m glad that I made this dress as now I know exactly what I need to do to make my prom dress fit perfectly. All I need now is a party to wear it to…

I made a tie!

It was my dads birthday yesterday and the night before I thought “aha, I’ll make him a tie”. I scoured the internet for a pattern and found this by pukingpastilles.com which is perfect. It took longer than I thought it would to make, seeing as I sewed the pieces together all wrong and instead of going in a straight line it zigzaged. By 11pm I still hadn’t finished so I decided to take it into school the next day to finish off. After form period, biology, break, lunch and after school with the help of a friend I finished my tie. And I have to say, I’m quite proud of it really.
He loved it and even wore it to work to next day. At least he was wearing it when he came home.
It was a huge success and I can see me making many more in the future for male birthdays.