Tag Archives: dress

Old men snoring

March 31, 2014 Peneloping

dress: self-made // shoes: Shelly’s London // headband: JCrew // belt: thrifted // tights: F21

One of my recent goals has been to try out some vintage patterns. I found this one on Etsy and pretty much dove in head first. The instructions were a bit confusing and the pieces were super brittle so there was a fair bit of tracing, marking, and trial and error before I finally worked it all out. I chose a plaid cotton to match my inspiration dress which in retrospect wasn’t the best idea because plaid matching is hardddd. Especially when you sort of have no idea what your’e doing. Yay!

Anyway, here’s the dress I was loosely basing this one off of:

The really cool part about using this pattern was that someone had done somewhat of an FBA on this pattern and had used old newspaper scraps from 1961 to reinforce it!

I’m pretty happy with how this one came out but I’m definitely going to make some adjustments for next time. First of all, I definitely need to learn how to do a FBA. Secondly, whoa short torso. I’m definitely adding at least two inches. I also completely goofed on the skirt and just assumed they wanted me to cut two of the skirt panels. Whoops. There were supposed to be three. I ran out of fabric and just went with it but I’m kind of sad that the skirt isn’t as floofy as it could’ve been. Oh well, the next one will have extra floof to make up for it. I’m thinking of doing a more modern take for my next one. Maybe in black minus the diagonal trim thingies and with a slightly more exaggerated beaded collar and white contrast cuffs.

In other news, my capstone project is nearly done! Which is a good thing because my brain is very tired.

PS How cute are these shoes?? They were a birthday present to myself and I’m quite aggravated that it’s raining because I want to wear them ALLTHETIME.

Peggy

March 30, 2014 Peneloping

dress: self-made, pattern here // shoes: Chelsea Crew

So a few weeks ago I was catching up on Mad Men and saw this dress.

And then Julia Bobbin announced yet another Mad Men Challenge. Um, yes please!

So then I had to figure out what pattern I wanted to use and whether I wanted to go woven or knits. At first I was thinking of using a wool blend and one of my go-to patterns, but then I realized I had the perfect double knit in navy and scarlet and that my trusty Lady Skater would be perfect!

I made a few adjustments as usual (omitted the neck band, shortened the sleeves, added the waist tab thing and the skirt panels), and I actually took some photos for a tutorial post I’ll put up later this week.

And as an added bonus, if I ever go to see a Barcelona soccer game, I’ll be all set in the wardrobe department!

30 Comments sewing copycat - costume - dress - mad men - outfit - peggy - sewing

Lacy skater

March 24, 2014 Peneloping

dress: self-made, pattern here // belt: thrifted // boots: Boutique9

My Master’s thesis-y capstone paper thing is due in exactly eight days. Not scary at all.

Actually, I’m nearly done. All the tough writing stuff is done, I just have to go through and fix some formatting, do some last-minute proofreading, and add in a couple references. Oh, and write an introduction. I’m crossing my fingers but I should be done in a few days.

On to the dress! I’d been wanting a lacy springy dress for about two years and finally decided I needed to just make one. I had originally cut the smallest size, which was a little tight in the bust, so I decided to re-cut a size 4 in the bust graded down to a size 2 in the waist. This turned out to be overkill. Whenever I get motivated enough to cut it a third time, I need to cut a size 2 bust graded to a size 1 waist. Get on that, self!

Since I was using a lace overlay with a lining, I omitted the neckline band. I also lowered the back neckline by a few inches to give it kind of a leotard-esque feel. I wanted the skirt to be a bit fuller but I cut it kind of stupidly so most of the extra material swings around the hips. Oh well.

Ok, back to editing.

PS If you didn’t already see, I announced the winner to the Sew Fun giveaway one post back!

14 Comments finished sewing project dress - lace - lady skater - outfit - sewing - white

Elisadots

March 19, 2014 Peneloping

dress: self-made, pattern here, fabric here // shoes: Swedish Hasbeens // glasses: Bonlook // watch: Fossil

We’ve all had our fair share of adventures in fitting. Sometimes patterns fit really great right out of the package and sometimes a lot of tweaking is involved. Some of us learn how to do FBAs and others of us (me) just wear bras with more or less padding as needed.

And sometimes patterns require so much tweaking and fiddling that you start wondering whether you’re shaped like a blob with one boob bigger than the other and arms coming out of your navel and how come this dress looks so effortless flattering on everybody else?!

Ok, I’m exaggerating a little but there was a fair bit of frustration that came along with making this dress. I’m pretty sure this was entirely user error because all of the ones I’ve drooled over have been absolutely gorgeous and no one else seems to have run into the issues I did. First the waist was too big. This happens a lot so I took it in some. But then the shoulders were gaping a bit so I took it in there. And then somehow the shoulders were gaping more. And then there was the skirt being too bulky, so I had to detach it and cut it into wedges* rather than rectangles. I’m almost positive I cut the smallest size but there’s a tiny chance I went a size up in which case that would be the issue.

Finally after lots of tweaking I ended up with something mostly wearable. I’m still not 100% happy with the fit so I might take it apart again and tweak. But not right now. Too soon.

By the way, how cute is this fabric?? Sarah’s got it in basically the entire rainbow and I’m pretty sure I need a romper with excessive bows in the turquoise one.

Anyway, this is actually my third version/attempt at this dress. The first one failed epically because the design I had in mind ended up being hideous. The second one is a surprise and has so far turned out AWESOME and I can’t wait to share. Except now I’ve jinxed it. Oh dear.

PS Don’t forget to enter my Sew Fun giveaway by Sunday! I’ve had so much fun reading everyone’s childhood crafting stories and you guys have been reminding me of a bunch of craft stuff I used to be into that I completely forgot about that I’m now majorly nostalgic over.

*I have no idea whether this is the right word for what I mean. Imagine a wide slice of pizza that someone’s taken a bit out of. Now make two of them and cut one in half vertically. That’s what the skirt pieces look like.

8 Comments outfit by hand london - dress - elisalex - outfit - polka dots - purple - sewing

Birthday dress!

March 7, 2014 Peneloping

dress: self-made // shoes: Seychelles // tights: F21

Everyone, meet Birthday Dress!

I’ve been so excited to share this and I pretty much ran right upstairs to take photos within three minutes of the last stitch. Did I mention it’s about 30 degrees outside? I had a severely runny nose by the end. Yikes.

Anyway, I can’t remember where exactly at the moment, but I saw this dress a few weeks ago (probably on Pinterest, actually) and decided right then and there that it was going to be birthday dress. I already knew I would use McCall 6646 and figured the black fabric wouldn’t be too hard to find, so I went to work looking up what types of beads to use.

Photo from Modcloth.com

I looked at Etsy, Joann’s, Fire Mountain Gems, and Sewfisticated and ended up cobbling together a nice selection of the necessary beads. If you look at the closeups you’ll see that there’s bugle beads outlining the curlicues and then inside them, it alternates one larger bead and three small seed beads. There seem to be three types of larger beads that are randomly alternating: pearls, montee rhinestones, and some sort of faceted bead. I had some pearls left over from a previous project and for some reason Sewfisticated sells 20g bags of 1/4″ bugle beads for $0.49 so those were easy. I decided to use bicone Swarovski knockoffs from Joann’s and then found these guys on Etsy.

The dress itself was pretty easy to put together but I got a little too excited and sort of jumped the gun and put the bottom half of the dress together before I actually bought the chiffon for the top bit, which meant that that was much more difficult to attach. Whoops. It worked out though! I just ended up making some bias tape out of the chiffon (SO much fun, guys) and reinforcing the heart-shaped neckline with it to conceal where the chiffon top attached.

Anyways, I’m incredibly relieved that I managed to get it done in time! My actual birthday was on Wednesday (27 – yikes!) but a super busy week means we’re doing celebrations tonight instead.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

37 Comments sewing birthday - copycat - dress - mccall 6646 - modcloth - outfit - sewing