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 don't even know why or where any more but while I was thinking about what to make for my summer wardrobe I saw a picture of an Indian woman wrapping her saree (or sari). What really spiked my interest was the that you could see what we westerners call her "sari blouse". Indians call them choli blouses as far as I know. They're midriff baring, made out of cool linen or cotton fabrics, they come in bright colours and I think they're worn without bras. Or they can be anyway. All of this makes them perfect for summer. I don't think I'll dare to wear them as a normal top (it has actually cooled down a bit but when it gets warmer ... who knows?) But me thinks they'd make a perfect sports bra or sleep top if they're sewn with a bit more ease.
Wouldn't this make a perfect running ensemble? It's a choli top (I might have forgotten to draw in the three bust darts) and a wrap skort (which is going to be longer than that due to the fact that minis don't suit my body shape very well).
So much for bright colours :P
I wanted the skort to mimic a sari. Looking at the video bellow I could tell that I'd need pleats with lots and lots of fabric gathered into them (they've got to walk somehow right) and a wrapping section after that. I might drape the wrapped over part a little bit to mimic the draping going up to the shoulder.
So as soon as the idea hit I started looking into the making of choli blouses. I found this video series which is great. It would be perfect if I could actually understand what they're saying. I'm quite sure it's English thanks to words like "margin" and "dart" and I've always prided myself in beeing able to understand as good as every person who speaks English. Yep even Chinese Business English. But this? It feels like a completely different language :( This is the earliest video I could find. You'll have to go to their channel and search for the others. I'm not through all of them yet since searching takes up a lot of time. Time I'm stealing from sewing my evening/dance dress muslin.
Look! No back stitching, no smooth curve at the end of the dart. I imagine it would be under quite a lot of stress since these blouses have no ease so that probably solves the nipply-dart-problem but why doesn't the stitching become undone?
... that I have time of college? After weeks of writing one test after another I finally have time to lounge around my parents house, cook, sew and write blog posts :) Today is all about my personal colour palette. And how to find yours if you're hard to fit into the classical four colour seasons or the 12 or even 16 flow colour seasons.
A sudden heat spell seems to have come over all of Europe. Unfortunately I don't have enough summer clothes. Since I really want to sew something anyway I'll be making new ones for myself :)
What I need
something cool to sleep in (I might have slept in my undies and filled a hot water bottle with ice-water last night ...)
tops - preferably out of bright and cheerful Egyptian cotton - Those that I do have don't seem to tight in the bust and to loose in the waist. That's a good thing, but slightly annoying since i thought I'd just get out my summer tops from last year. I also don't want to use knits since I find that they cling and as soon as they're thin enough for such temperatures they're really see-through. And don't even get me started on people with knit tops and sweat-stains EVERYWHERE.
shorts - Once again I can't wear those from last year since they're to tight in the rear and to loose over my abs. I also feel like I might fall out of them since they're not long enough to give enough coverage in the back
skirts - something loose and knee length since I already figured out that mini skirts just aren't cutting it for my body type. Circle skirt anyone?
shoes - I'm not going to make these myself :P But dancer's feet are really ugly so I can't confront my fellow earthlings with sandals ...
a tunic to cover up in the sun - since it's quite humid this probably isn't going to help me stay cool but I burn really easily
DRESSES I always need more dresses
The problem(s):
I could really kick myself for this but I still haven't perfected my new foundation pattern. I know, I know! It took ages to find someone willing (and able!) to take my measurements. In the end I just showed a measuring tape into my little sisters hand. So I'm still making alterations.
My pay check arrives in three days and I'm pretty close to my have-some-money-in-case-something-unexpected-happens-limit. So no fabric shopping until then :(
I still haven't completely found my way through all the colour advice
Most of you probably know by now that I love to dance. And you've probably seen the beautiful standard gowns. If not just Google it (They have very full skirts and lots of rhinestones. And even more rhinestones :P.). So as you can imagine dancing in a skirt is quite a different feeling from dancing in pants. That's why I always practice in skirts. Mine and those I sew for others are usually sewn on the bias. It's how Ginger Rogers achieved that "swishy" look in her dresses. She also weighted the hem but I'm not doing that for practice wear ;)
So here's the deal: I managed to loose my practice skirt. You can go back and read that again: I lost an almost floor length skirt that flared out into two full circles. How do you do that you ask? Well ... and the rest is lost in mumbling as I bow my head in shame. To punish myself I figured I'd sew my new practice skirt out of knit fabric. I just don't like wearing knits. And you're heel catches in the hem during practice: I actually managed to get mine caught in the hem of the dancer next to me ....
My pattern pieces basically looked like this:
This is the half finished skirt: It has a separate waistband, that goes almost all the way underneath my but. The teal coloured fabric is a polo knit that I - obviously - never used. It's now serving the purpose of an interfacing. I just have another 3 meters to somehow use up ... I don't know if you can see it but I'm actually in the middle of pinning my waist elastic to my "interfacing". I like to do this on the body as it provides neater results. It serves much the same purpose as waist tape for full skirts made out of heavy fabric: Holding the skirt up. Only that it isn't gravity I'm fitting against but my own (and others!) dance shoe's heels. The knit is so light weight that even centrifugal force in quick turns shouldn't be a problem without a waist elastic, but the heels just won't stop hating knit hems ...
Looks like I'll have to repin ... the seam is supposed to be further down
While this knit fabric actually looks quite nice (better than I'd thought knits could look anyhow) it's somewhat see-through in the wrong lights (read: bright light, read: stage light and summer sun-light) so I'll have to sew a short lining skirt.
I'm going to sew in short shorts like the those Ginger Rogers had underneath her dresses. Can you tell I'm a bit obsessed with her? It's perfectly normal for Ballroom gown (both Standard and Latin-american) and probably American Smooth and Rhythm gowns to have sewn in panties. You're not even allowed to compete without them. Yep there are rules for that. They're written down here. Some countries have "extra" rules though.
I'm still not sure if I'll
a) not hem at all (less for the heels to hold on to).
b) use horsehair braid in the hem (probably to pretty for a self punishment skirt but a lot closer to the dresses we'll actually dance in) which is very much in vogue in standard gowns at the moment.
You can see some examples of horsehair braid in hems here:
Isn't Joanne's skirt just beautiful? I think it's has a very full crinoline underneath and tulle flounces with light fishing wire in the hem. Anyone want to guess the meterage?
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.
I can't believe how
crowded the past few weeks month have been. I went
from writing pages upon pages in my diary every day to writing maybe
a page every three weeks :( I always just fell asleep before I got
the chance to write anything. But thinking about my personal style
and all the clothes I'm going to make when I have a break from
university calms me down and helps me focus better afterwards. So
let's get started shall we?
In my last post about
body shape and personal style I came to realise, that I am an
hourglass with shoulders that are just a bit to wide. It might just
be my preference for pear body shapes over hourglasses. I don't know
why but I also prefer heart shaped and inverted triangle faces over
oval ones. Contemplating why that might be is a matter for another
post though. So my aim today is to find a list of desirable
properties for my clothes and also a list of things I should avoid at
any cost.
Since my ideal body
shape isn't the same as the “ideal body shape” all body shape
bibles etc. talk of I had to piece this together for myself. I mainly
used two great websites to help me do so:
http://www.insideoutstyleblog.com
which is simply amazing! Imogen Laport – who runs the site –
defines more than just the standard four body shapes and even shows
photos of different women for each shape. All the tips are very well
thought through and coherent. I found her hints for minimizing
square shoulders especially helpful.
http://bodyshapestyle.com
is also a great place for advice. I especially enjoyed this article
about the whole skin vs. shape dilema and also the butt vs. bust if
you go for showing skin. Though it is meant only for evening wear I
think it can also be used for every day wear. There was also an
article that contained the sentence: “Use the best type of fabric
you can afford.” What's not to love about that?
So I started with the
list of things I shouldn't wear:
THE LIST OF DEATH
(not melodramatic at all)
high necklines, especially turtle necks as they make my shoulders
look wider and overemphasise my bust
cap sleeves or
gathered sleeves: again to much emphasis on the shoulders
Since this is a
fluffiness issue extra fullness at the hip and emphasis on the waist
could work
frills and colour
accents around the shoulder line
this one goes
without saying: baggy clothes! No-one looks good in baggy clothes!
And I don't sew for myself only to have clothes with horrible fit
either.
Wide necklines –
I'm taking this to mean necklines that go past my bra strap as
necklines that just about cover them look great as long as they're
not to shallow.
Chunky fabrics –
I'm not objecting as I like “feminine”, drapey fabrics that move in the
breeze much better
anything strapless
as I like to be able to dance in all of my clothes and I think a
strapless bra sliding up and down all the time wouldn't be very
helpful
this picture also
illustrates that I have to be careful with short hemlines as it
tends to look cheap very quickly (but I'd be happy to accept other
opinions on this … do you find this dress appealing on my figure?)
On another note: These
pictures make me realise that my ribs seem to be sticking out quite a
lot. That might explain some weird fitting issues I have around the
waist and under bust region. Do you think I could/should wear a
corset for formal events to push my ribs in? It wouldn't need to be
industrial strength as I can just push my ribs in with my fingers. A
long line bra might be all that's needed now that I come to think of
it. That might also help with the strapless bra problem. Does anyone
have experience with wearing a long line bra to go strapless?
