All posts filed under: What I wear

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. …

Bromeliad pink bridesmaid dresses

Published by The Dreamstress

Bromeliad pink is one of my favourite colours. It is also a colour that looks beautiful amidst the lush greenery of Hawaii. Not surprisingly, when Mr Dreamy and I picked a wedding location set in tropical gardens on the slopes of a mountain in Hawaii, bromeliad pink was one of the first colours I thought of for the bridesmaids. Unfortunately, I said “Pink” and two of my four bridesmaids said “Ewwww….no….” The other two bridesmaids were very obliging and said “Oooh, pink!” and “It’s your wedding, I’ll wear whatever you want me to” respectively. Being the sweet, accommodating person that I am (only slight sarcasm intended), I offered the two recalcitrant bridesmaids green, which they agreed would be much preferable. And then of course I went out and bought lots of bromeliad pink chiffon (which I loved) and muted jade green chiffon (which was OK), and showed both fabrics to the bridesmaids, and the recalcitrant ones said “Oh….that colour pink! We would wear that.” Well. Thanks. Too late. I first designed both skirts and tops …

The skirt that Would Not Cooperate

Published by The Dreamstress

You know how some sewing projects should be easy, and instead you tear your hair out over them for months and months? Yeah, this skirt was one of them. I think I picked the wrong fabric for the idea I had, and the wrong idea for the person (my Mum) I was making it for. I just LOVED the fabric though – silk cotton voile, fuschia warp and red weft. It glows in the sunlight, is light as a feather, and is softer than silk cashmere. And I loved the idea of the skirt – it was based on the one my MIL wore for our wedding, and it looked so good on her.< Mum and MIL at the wedding. But the whole project almost defeated me. The voile didn’t want to pleat, I couldn’t find red thread, the black threads I settled for caught, and the tension went off. Lining fabric took forever to find, the pleats puckered…anything that could go wrong did. And then I realised that what looks fantastic on my 5’3″ …