Month: January 2012

Sweet & sour ‘Summer Berries’ shorts

Last week I told you about the Sew Weekly and showed off my first offering: the Little Black Dress-Clip Dress. The Sew Weekly theme for this week was ‘buttons’. I thought about doing something fancy with bound buttonholes, but I end up doing that sort of thing all the time, so there was no reason, and I don’t particularly need anything fancy and tailored and fussy in my wardrobe right now. What I do need is simple summery things, and stuff I can do swing dancing in when it’s hot. Solution: make a pair of vintage-inspired button front shorts. I’m calling these the ‘Summer Berries’ shorts. I’d originally meant for them to be quite nautical with white buttons, but when I went through my fabric stash I didn’t have anything that really worked, and the only thing that stood out to me as exciting at the fabric store were some raspberry pink buttons. So now I have bright blueberry blue shorts with raspberry pink buttons. And I’m eating a blackberry real-fruit ice cream as I …

A nautical playsuit

Published by The Dreamstress

Remember the darling little halter-neck playsuit from last week? Well, when I sent the toile for it to S. she noticed how much it looked like a sailor suit in white, and liked it so much that she asked me to make her a second playsuit, this one with a nautical theme. I suggested mixing things up a bit, and using a different bodice for the top half of the playsuit, specifically this little cutie from my pattern collection: We settled on blue fabric with a detachable white collar with red trim, and cute blue buttons with ‘X’es on them that remind me of compasses. The bodice top married to the shorts from the original playsuit well, all I had to do was adjust for a back fastening rather than a side fasteningso that she could get in and out of it. To play-up the nautical inspiration I added little white piping at the front pleats. Like the floral playsuit, this one has a skirt to button over it. I made this skirt a little …

I want these shoes so much

Published by The Dreamstress

American Duchess has just launched her first 20th century shoe: pre-orders are open for the Astoria 1900-1915 Edwardian Shoe. I’m very much in impressed and want one in each colour! Clearly I need to talk to Mr D about an extravagant early/late Valentines present. As much as I adore the Astoria’s, these lovelies were my first Edwardian shoe love, the first early-20th century shoe to have me plastered to the computer screen saying “OOooooh…want…now!”: Aren’t they gorgeous? Aren’t they swoon worthy? Don’t you just want a pair in dye-able silk that you can add your own sequins and diamantes to and tie with any color bow? American Duchess, please add them to your to-do list!