I will spare you the photos

Beautifully finished with a double zig zag*

After sewing so many toiles of my dress I finally felt ready to sew my real fabric. I don't know why but I was terrified of that fabric. I have already (successfully) sewn more expensive fabrics, more slippery fabrics, fabrics that where more prone to fraying and any other hardship you might think of. But this fabric truly scared me.

Quiz question: How much fun is turning a corner with this fabric? I actually poked  a n 8 mm knitting needle right through several times. How can this even happen with such a tight weave?

So after psyching myself up with all those toiles I told myself to get a grip and just cut into the cloth already. And so I made lots of notches and hand basted all my seams (even the straight ones), tried out the best tension settings and stitch length on a scrap piece of fabric. Then I decided that sewing the lining first really wouldn't be procrastinating. 

One of my favourite seam finishes: Fold and stitch. In this case a zig zag stitch on the lining seams.

When I finally started sewing I was still afraid. And there was this nagging doubt that things would work out as nicely as in the muslins. But I kept sewing anyway. And then I tried the dress on. And quelle horreur! It has stress lines in places none of my muslins or the lining had them. And a ripply zip fastner! The zip was fine on just the lining and I had a notch every 5 cm to match up my seams. And for some reason you can see the facing peeking out in some parts!

No rippling when  lying flat. Also: This fabric can only be sewn once and I had already started unpicking here. Hence the pulled treads.

As fate would have it I all that procrastinating meant that I had to wear the dress out ripply zip and all. I had a great night and I got a lot of compliments on the dresses colour and cut and even more for being able to sew something like that. But I felt like Everyone was staring at my back and the ripply horrors there!

Couldn't they have noticed my perfect rolled hem instead? Both from the wrong side.

And the right. Isn't the fabric beautiful? Even  though the colours are of ...

The question remains: What am I going to do with the back. I have a feeling that a cool pin tuck design might help. But if it doesn't I'll have completely ruined the fabric.

Butterfly

*Once again sorry for the bad picture quality. I couldn't find the cable for my camera so I took all the pictures again with my phone.

Sewing my muslin(s) and sketches ... lots of them

Some sketches that didn't make the cut for various reasons.

Since I want this dress to fit really really well, I'm actually made a muslin. And then another one after I noticed that it looked amazing in dance posture but had some weird wrinkling and bunching when I'm standing naturally. Since I want the best of both worlds I made some alterations, decided that cut outs in back would be perfect for reducing fitting issues (with dance dresses they're always in the back, that's why most dance dresses don't have a back to speak of). And then I made another muslin and some alterations on that. And then another one.

Long story short: I'm up to muslin number four by now and it's "hopefully" (fingers crossed!) going to be wearable. Since I need a LBD I'm going to sew it in black with a different skirt. I also have enough fabric to swap the back to a "normal" one after I checked the fit.

Have I already posted my sketches? I know I drew a bunch with the intention of uploading them ... Please forgive the bad quality ... I can't draw to save my life and my scanner wasn't co-operating :(

The first couple of ideas I had ... I'd already thrown them overboard when I started these sketches. But I always find it fascinating to watch other people's ideas evolve and so I thought you'd do to ;) I just might have watched a lot of Ginger Rogers an Fred Astaire before drawing the sketch on the right. Here's a better view of the dress.

The dress on the right is basically the inspiration dress I posted a while ago in longer. Even though I made fun of the lower back design right after drawing it I do actually kind of like it now. Unfortunately I don't think it offers enough eh em ... support

The upper back designs look kind of weird and again there's a "support-problem", which is also existent in the bottom right one. The one on the bottom left is of course a classic. But I wanted something a bit different. But since I liked the cross at the back the most I decided to improve on that. Which ultimately led me too ...

The two "winner" designs. They where morphed together. See ho they'd have worked with both the princess cut and the triangles and circle skirt design?

What my dress will ultimately look like remains a surprise ;) What I can tell you is that the muslin will be sewn as a shorter version of the triangles and cirlce skirt dress. I will only post pictures of the muslin after I have checked the fit and converted it too a halter top.

In case anyone's wondering ... here's what the pattern for the "circle skirt" looks like:

Weird, no?

And here's how I got there:

A lot of slashing and pivoting. It looks like an eye! The white pointy thing was a dart. 

I have some fabric marking to do! See you soon!

Butterfly <3

Preventing a sewing rehab

So I'm finding it incredibly hard to make my list of death and really develop a plan of what I should be sewing for myself. My body type shape is somewhat weird and I needed lots and lots of reading into dressing for your body type. The next step would be to find "my" colour palette. But once again that will take up a lot of time. But I feel like I'm in a sewing rehab until I have all that sorted out. But I don't really want that so I'll be combining my two addictions and sewing stuff to dance in!

I'm currently running some ideas past the lovely ladies at pattern review. They have a huge thread on sewing dance wear over there. But it's more about drafting for dance wear and selecting the right fabrics. I'll be sewing myself at least two long sleeved shirts for dance practice and maybe a new practice skirt too. I don't really need one but sewing all those - mainly straight - lines is fun and I'm still experimenting with getting the cut that looks most beautiful when twirling. I'll upload sketches as soon as I get the scanner to co-operate :)

I also found a really beautiful dance dress that I'll be copying - more or less - for my special occasion dress.
This is the dress unfortunately the link is down at the moment.

Until then!
Butterfly

A new dress for me!!! Let's look at what I should be wearing ...

So I have three month until I need a prom dress. That gave me a real kick in the butt to continue contemplating what looks good on me and what doesn't and also what I feel comfortable in because it's just so me :)

So first things first: My body shape! After looking at the photos from my last post again I decided that I'm really more of an hourglass. I'm still confused about the difference though. It seems to me as if a cello is just a plus-sized hourglass but then again they said, that size doesn't matter ... I think the hourglass would have needed a more fitted top to truly show the proportions of her waist. And a better bra. Or it might just be my weirdly high bust that makes me think everyone isn't supported as well as they should be.

But the thing that tipped me in the end was the legs and the high hip. Mine just look more like the hourglass' to me. The hourglass has more rounded calves and the thighs have more weight towards the crotch instead of resembling cut of cones.

The cello's legs (on the left) don't seem to fit mine, the hourglass' come closer to the truth.

The hourglass' high hip is also more dramatic which also more closely resembles mine.

The hourglass' high hip (on the right) seems to flare out like mine does.

So I'm an hourglass. But what the pictures also showed is that my shoulders are squarer and also wider:

This might just be the result of a weird camera angle (photographed by tiny tots), but I know that my shoulders are pretty square. Therefore my primary figure type is an hourglass, my secondary is probably a goblet even though my back is anything but wide. So what does that mean for me?

I'm going to stick to all clothing recommendations for hourglass body types. And I'm going to pick out anything for goblets that I think applies to me. Even though I might just take the hints for cornets instead since they are supposed to minimise only the shoulders and not the bust and I kind of like my bust ;)