Month: January 2012

The little black dress-clips dress

One of my sewing goals for this year is to make time to sew more for me. It’s a bit embarrassing to be a professional seamstress who never wears anything she makes! This goal is being helped by my newest obession: The Sew Weekly. Every week they set a challenge/theme, you complete it, and then get to post photos of it and brag about it. I love the inspiration of the theme – it helps me to sew in new directions. And I love their little wrap-up of the project (see my version at the end of this post) And the brag opportunities don’t hurt either 😉 This week’s theme was accessorize: sew a garment to go with an accessory you already own. It was the perfect theme for me. Mr Dreamy gave me the most gorgeous vintage marcasite dress clips for our anniversary, and I’ve been planning to make a dress to wear them with ever since. And I don’t really have a little-black-dress, so I got to kill two birds with one stone. …

Isabella has a companion!

Published by The Dreamstress

Remember Isabella my dressform? I’ve just bought her a companion. Meet Lady Murasaki: Murasaki is a vintage Japanese dressform. She’s a size 8 (so one size down from Isabella). She’s also slightly longer – so suitable for draping garments that are fitted over the hips. Doesn’t she have beautiful lines? She is foam (great for pinning and draping on) with a synthetic taffeta cover which has a bit of foxing from age. Right now I like the evidence of what she has been through; if it gets too bad I’ll re-cover her. I found her at the Asia Gallery. I’d actually noticed her months ago, but I didn’t have the money for her at the time, and the price was a bit more than I wanted to pay. I also wondered if I really would get much use out of such a small dressform. However, my last three clients have been size 8 or smaller, and I find it easier to draft on a small form and size up than to draft patterns and size …

Finished project: an utterly adorable 1930s playsuit

Published by The Dreamstress

A client contacted me to make a playsuit from a late 1930s pattern she owns. After we looked at lots of modern fabrics without finding anything inspiring I suggested an early-mid 20th century style print, and she picked an adorable bows & flowers print in grey and yellow from Reproduction Fabrics. I’m a huge fan of the yellow (so exciting to have a client who loves it too), and the print and colours are the perfect mix of pre-war innocence while still being fresh and modern. To relieve the rather busy print, I used custom made white piping with a very subtle woven-in stripe, and graphite-grey buttons. I think this was particularly important on the front of the skirt, where I did a piping-bordered placket. Isn’t the halter back of the playsuit clever? How it combines with the side-fastening of the connected shorts so that you can get in and out easily? And the halter is so unexpected: we don’t usually think of them featuring in fashion that early. To keep the halter modest, and …