The Impossible Dress

June 1, 2013 peneloping

dress: self-made // shoes: Clarks

Actually this dress was pretty simple to put together, despite the collar taking two tries. The post title refers to Clara Oswald, the Impossible Girl. Yes, I’m nerding out, Doctor Who style.

Sometimes when I watch TV shows or movies I admire costumes and whatnot and it’s not until later that I go back and think “Hmm that one would be nice to make someday if I run out of projects..” And then there’s the costumes that sort of kick you in the butt and cling to your creative centers whining “Make meee IMMEDIATELYYYY.” Ahem. This was one of the latter.

I’d been searching for a fabric for this dress (and one other one, which I FINALLY* found and is being shipped to me soon!) and couldn’t find a single thing remotely close to it anywhere.

The original dress looks like this:

It’s a Vaudeville and Burlesque dress with a collar added. But what the hell do you call that kind of a print?! I searched endless combinations of “red floral geo”, “red dotted geo”, “red floral abstract”, just “red” etc. on eBay, Etsy, fabric.com, and even Jo-ann and found absolutely nothing that looked remotely similar. Le frustration.

But then I went to my local fabric store last week and there it was! Just sitting there on the shelf waiting for me. I have absolutely no idea what this kind of fabric is called but it’s a slightly textured chiffon-esque fabric but it’s almost opaque and slightly thicker than chiffon would be. Crepe? No idea. Anyway, it had wide horizontal red and magenta stripes so I figured I could just cut the pieces I needed out of the red stripes and if I really needed to, I could dye the magenta bits redder.

I immediately knew I was going to use Burda 7309 for the top, but while the bodice turned out beautifully, the sleeves were a bit wonky. Note to self: B7309 has crappy sleeves. So I re-cut them in Burda 7739 and they turned out perfectly!

For the skirt, I cut out a 54″ wide by 20″ long rectangle and pleated it (using my standard math-idiot eyeballing method) to fit the width of the bodice. I lined the bodice, but decided not to line the skirt and just to wear a slip or another skirt under it because the fabric is so gorgeously flowy and I didn’t want to ruin that. Also because of lazy. I also hemmed it like 4″ so the skirt’s on the shorter side.

The collar was surprisingly simple, once I realized that I had to match the length of it to the circumference of the dress neckline. I used this tutorial and just added one snap closure to the back of the collar and one to the front bit (with the opposite snaps on the inside back of the dress and inside middle front of the dress respectively) so it would stay put. I’m contemplating just sewing the collar in because realistically I think the collar makes the dress and I don’t see myself wear the dress without it.

Basically, I want to live in this dress. Unfortunately, I wore it out last night and around today and it was in the high 80s and low 90s and I almost passed out several times. Totally worth it though. And now I have an outfit to wear whilst I watch the 50th anniversary episode. By myself. In bed. In November.

Whatever. Dresses are cool.

*Apologies for all the caps. I hate caps. I’m just that excited.

Slump

May 29, 2013 Peneloping

Well then. I had every intention of spending two and a half weeks sewing and blogging my little heart out, until I sat down and realized I was in a sewing slump. Hate when that happens. I also completely epic failed at Me Made May. In my defense, I did get a nasty cold and getting dressed up when you’re sick is about as fun as un-picking a zigzag seam in chiffon. Which, incidentally, I get to do this evening.

I got my inspiration back today though! I went on a bit of a spree at fabric.com and then went to my local fabric store and found THE perfect fabric for a dress I’ve been on the lookout for.

Any guesses?

22 Comments sewing dress - fabric - replica - slump

Me Made May // week 2

May 16, 2013 peneloping

8. Colette Sorbetto with added collar/lace.

9. Refashioned men’s sweatshirt in XL.

10-12. Colette mini-bloomers, too scandalous for photographing ;]

13. Fleetwood dress copycat.

14. Hand-knitted Georgia cardigan in Knit Picks Stroll basalt heather

This week was a bit lame, to be honest. I had a really long research paper due on the 13th, so I pretty much spent the 10th-12th in the same set of pajamas. By Saturday evening, I pretty much looked like a homeless person. Not cute.

This week I decided that I need some flowy tops and shorts. I have some stuff planned out and I need to sit down and make a list so I can tackle it all in the two weeks I have off.

Sew ALL the things! –except dresses.

4 Comments outfit memademay - mmm13 - outfit - sewing

I never want to see a pintuck again

May 14, 2013 peneloping

dress: self-made // shoes: Chelsea Crew

You guuys, the day has come. I’ve been drowning* under a mountain** of end-of-semester papers and assignments but it’s finally all done!! I celebrated on Sunday by spending literally all day working on a dress. I woke up at 9am and worked all the way until 11pm when I physically had to stop and sleep on a heating pad because spending all day hunched over your sewing machine is apparently not good for one’s back. Especially when one strangely prefers sewing on the floor. Yikes.

This dress has been on my Sewing Inspiration board for ages. It’s one of the first Dear Creatures dresses I fell in love with and I had a vague idea of how I wanted to recreate it. I even bought the fabric for it weeks ago but I knew it was going to be a long process because of all the pintucks***. It was very involved but turned out to be the perfect project for a sewing-starved maniac.

I started off with a muslin (even though I never make muslins– shhh!) because I was only 95% sure my idea would work. I used the bodice from M6646 as a template, and traced it onto a sheet of paper. I measured where I wanted the pleats to go, and then marked cutting lines for each pleat. I did 8 pleats 3/4″ apart on the bodice, 4 pleats 3/4″ apart on the straps, and 6 pleats 1/2″ apart on the skirt****. All the pleats are 1/4″ pleats (well, except the ones that went wibbly).

Then I pretty much just cut each “slice” off and taped it 1/2″ away. And then I remembered that this pattern has a seam down the front center which I didn’t want so I marked and cut off the seam allowance.

And this is what I ended up with.

Andd then I did the same for the other bodice pieces. I did rework the sweetheart shape a bit so I had to compensate for that in the adjoining pieces.

And voila! Each piece took ages. But once the bodice was done, the skirt was much easier since it was just a rectangle. I had two 22″ x 23″ rectangles so I used the longer side as the length. I think I would have needed another 6″ or so to make the full 12 pleats and not have this end up a peplum top.

But squee! It’s done!

*Ok, drowning’s a bit dramatic.

**And no, I have no idea how one would drown under a mountain.

***I literally spent an hour looking up types of pleats because I could not for the LIFE of me remember the word “pintuck” or how to do them properly. I read about accordion pleats, box pleats, pinch pleats, knife pleats, etc. and eventually gave up and just went with my gut (I’d done them once before but it was ages ago). And then I posted a photo of the dress on Flickr and someone commented on “all the pintucks” and I was like *facepalm*.

****I stopped at 6 because I was worried the skirt would be too short if I did the full 12 since I only bought 2 yards of fabric. I might go back and add at least two more.

50 Comments outfit copycat - dear creatures - dress - fleetwood - outfit - sewing

Things I’ve learned from Me Made May (so far)

May 9, 2013 peneloping

The first seven days of Me Made May 2013

1. Refashioned chambray shirt.
2. Handmade skirt based on this Modcloth skirt.
3. Sorbetto top, Kelly skirt.
4. New Girl-inspired blazer using B4610.
5. Burda cap-sleeved dress in white floral.
6. Floral chiffon Darling Ranges.
7. Another Burda cap-sleeved dress in blue floral.

We’re just over a week into May and this whole me-made thing has been quite illuminating already.

1) I suck at taking outfit photos everyday. I have no idea why. It takes literally three seconds, especially iPhone ones.

2) I need more tops. I made a bajillion skirts recently and I don’t wear them that often because I’m usually stuck pairing them with a boring tank top and a cardigan if it’s cold, which makes me feel as though I ought to be working in a library. I think it’s because every time I think of a cute design for a top, my brain immediately wants to turn it into a dress.

3) I need to stop denying my love of the high-low skirt. I loved it last year, I love it this year, and it’s taken Megan Nielsen’s Cascade pattern for me to realize this.

4) I need to sew more knits. I bought a ton of different knit fabrics a while ago with the intention of learning how and then they sat on a shelf for months. They need to lead a more exciting life.

5) This is actually really helpful because in order to be able to come up with one handmade item every day with no outfit repeats, I’ve pulled out some garments that I’ve made and then never worn. Being forced to wear them out made me fall in love with one and decide that I hated the other.

6) This is neither here nor there but waking up with a size 2 DPN stuck in your side because you fell asleep on your tardis socks is rather painful.

14 Comments outfit me made may - outfits - sewing