Tag Archives: red-dress

Who’s that girl?

You know that awesome feeling when you make a goal for yourself and you actually do it?

New Girl red dress
dress: self-made // capelet: Apostrophe (thrifted) // boots: Nine West (thrifted) // tights: F21

It feels pretty good.

New Girl red dress

I have a confession. I’ve been in love with Zooey Deschanel ever since I saw her in Bridge to Terabithia (which has always made me bawl like an infant, by the way), and when I got my Bon Look glasses a few months ago, my roommate asked me why on earth I didn’t watch New Girl. I didn’t really have an answer, so the next Tuesday, I snuggled on the couch with her and it was pretty much the best half hour ever.

New Girl red dress
New Girl red dress

Are you shocked that I was immediately inspired to make a dress from the show?

New Girl red dress

I used pretty basic pattern frankensteining for this one. I used Simplicity 1873 for the pleated skirt and then used Burda 7309 for the bodice and Burda 7739 for the sleeves, which I elongated to make them end just above the elbow. The dress itself is made of red cotton sateen and is super soft with a tiny bit of stretch. I might be wearing this on Valentine’s Day for whatever Boyfriend has planned that he refuses to divulge.

New Girl red dress

New Girl red dress

Still need to work on the lack of photo editing skills. We’ll get there.

Boots

Happy Monday, guys!

Hermione’s red ruffle dress

I finished this dress a while ago (like, over a year ago!) and then never posted pictures of it. Whoops.

Hermione red dress

Walking out of the movie theatre after I saw Part 1 of the Deathly Hallows was slightly overwhelming. A chunk of my brain wanted the movie to keep going and hated that I had to wait another seven months to finish the movie, another chunk was sad that there was only one movie left. But mostly I wanted to rush home so I could google photos of Hermione’s entire wardrobe throughout the film. Particularly the lovely blazer outfit from the beginning, the dark blue asymmetrical sweater thing, the gorgeous fair isle sweater, and the red dress she wears to the wedding. (Also Ginny’s dress at the wedding and Ron’s brown sweater but that’s a different story.)

Anyway, this dress was one of the first things I made from that movie, and was essentially the product of one week’s worth of sewing ruffles. Ruffles made of chiffon.

Hermione red dress
See? Ruffles. I wasn’t kidding. 

Other than the ruffles, the rest of the dress is pretty basic. I used red chiffon for the outer layer and a thicker red satin for the lining. I drafted the bodice myself and made the skirt out of four panels with a slight gather at the waistline. After that it was just a matter of looking at reference photos for ruffle placement!

On that note, it’s pretty difficult to take spinning photos of oneself. I failed miserably.
Hermione red dressHermione red dress

Have a nice Tuesday! :]

 

Edit: I’ve gotten several comments/emails about this so I thought I’d mention it again here. I didn’t use a pattern this dress, I drafted the bodice directly to my own measurements. If I ever decide to draft a pattern someday (which will not be in the foreseeable future since I have absolutely no skills in drafting patterns of other sizes), I’ll definitely make it available here.

Ruffles.

Hermione red dress progress 5

I’m getting the most odd collection of blisters on my hands. What’s even more sad is I can clearly distinguish which have resulted from knitting and which are due to sewing.

In other news, this dress is coming along quite faster than I had thought it would. The actual dress itself was pretty simple to put together, it’s all of the ruffles that have been a strange sort of therapeutic nightmare.

Next up: fixing/finishing the ruffles, and then beads!

As you can probably tell, some of the ruffles are crooked. I also don’t quite like the way they lie currently so I’m going to stretch them out to the edge of the skirt and then trim them inwards so they’re fatter at the waist and taper downward to the edge.

As for beads, I can’t decide what kind to use. In the reference photos I’ve been using, they either look like very small sequins or seed beads. I’m going with seed beads, but I can’t decide if I should get red opaque ones or the clear ones with red in the center.

Hermione red dress progress 3 Hermione red dress progress 4

Last night as I was getting ready to take a shower, I happened to glance at my reflection and noticed something red on my belly button. After a sudden panicking flash of “OH NOES I’M BLEEDING” ran through my mind, I looked down and realized that a tangle of red thread had taken up residence in my navel.

I feel like this indicates some underlying issues.