first day of summer dress.

this is the dress I made to wear for the first day of summer. I just loved the little fairies on the bottom. I used new look pattern #6902 for this one. I’m going to post a few detail shots under a cut.

Alice in Wonderland dress

I made this dress by remaking an old dress that I was getting rid of anyway. it was a one piece I turned into two. the old dress was blue and had a full tired skirt so I thought, hey why not? I had to completely remake the top. and added the sheer overlay, to both the top and skirt. I hand embroidered the bottom, but I feel it could have been so much better had I spent more time on it. I used a template for the embroidery from here http://alice-kingsley.livejournal.com/ the skirt is a bit shorter then I would have liked but since I was working with a pre-made dress I didn’t have a huge amount of choice in length. I made it as long as I could. and not that you can see it at all in the picture but I am wearing a black and white striped petticoat underneath, like what Alice wore in the movie. I love the way the shoes turned out. I found a pair of cream colored shoes on ebay then spiffed them up a bit with decor. which was in itself a process, that included steel wool, a razor blade, black leather dye, black shoe polish, and a bit of black paint for doing touch ups. glue and black rickrack. I made the gloves with a pair of netted socks that I cut down to be gloves and striped in blue marker. which you can’t really tell in the picture. for the most part I like the costume, I just need to take better pictures one day.

not the happiest with my 1860's bodice.

I was talking to my coworker today about my 1860’s dress. she has been into civil war reenacting for years now and I could tell she wanted to give me pointers on the dress but didn’t want to hurt my feelings since I took so long on it.. but really I wasn’t that thrilled with the way the bodice turned out anyway. she told me I probably need to shorten my hoop a bit. which I agree. its a bit too long. she said I should do it from the top so the hoop is higher and fills in the bodice better. that is the part that was bothering me so much is the fact the bodice points flip out. but then I started thinking about another dilemma and that is even if I shorten the hoop I think the bodice itself is too short. I forget sometimes I have a rather long torso. for now I’m not going to do anything but if I get real ambitious I might remake the bodice. I love the sleeves so I don’ t need to redo those. I had some fabric left over and I’m pretty sure without the sleeves is should be plenty. I’m also leaning more to a square back as opposed to the pointed one. I think it would fall nicer. this is something I need to think on for a while before deciding.

a dress for summer.

currently I working on a summer dress that I intended to make last year. I bought the fabric near the end of the summer though so I only got as far as cutting it out before the weather turned cold and I just saw no need for a summer dress then. fast forward to now. its hot again so I dug it out and am about seventy five percent done with the dress. I wasn't intending on lining the entire thing, only the bodice, but then tonight as I was working on it I decided too. I had an unfortunate event with the lining I had originally intended on using. when I pulled out the piece of the dress that had been stored away for ten months they were terribly wrinkled. I set the iron too hot and burnt a whole right in the lining! it was all I had left of that particular kind so I dug around in my stash and yea! I found something I could use. I had a lot of it, so I am lining the whole thing. hopefully it will look alright lined. sometimes these cotton dresses don’t do well when lined. hopefully everything turns out.