"To sew, or not to sew: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous malfunctions,
Or to take arms against a sea of time constraints,
And by opposing end them?
To succeed or not succeed; in sending one's offspring forth,
into the world dressed as another?"
(William Shakespeare & Me)
I don't limit myself to vandalism of great artworks, sorry Will..
I like to take risks. And not just with famous artists or bards.
Like taking my little daughter to a fabric shop a week out from the next dress-up party. I know from experience she will be overwhelmed. She wont be able to limit herself to less than five fabrics for the one dress...
But it's worth every minute to watch the excitement on her face as she skips around a forest of glittery fabric rolls arms and fingers stretched, touching everything. All the ooooooh's and aaaaah's and 'WOW, mummy look at this!"
This was the case with the fairy costume. The fabrics were a little pinker than I'd hoped (I had imagined pastels) but of course She-who-Worships-Pink had other ideas and it was her dress so what the hey.
We came away with Pink panne velvet, hot pink georgette, pale pink and hot pink tulle and a couple of meters of pink ribbon.
So this is a rough sketch of the design, my quazi-tutorial below is even rougher!
I started out as I often do,using the stretch velvet to make a tube dress. Then added to the waist a full skirt - nothing fancy just a long straight piece sewn together on the short edge (this is where you measure your skirt length) gathered on one long edge. I cut the bottom long edge into a sort of petal shape and left it a raw edge. Luckily you can get away with that using tulle; my sewing machine chews up fine edges.
I tacked then sewed this to the velvet tube at the waist line, leaving the bottom of the tube below the waist to act as a petticoat.
I used some ribbon sewed into the top facing for straps to be tied into bows on the shoulder. Across the bust I gathered rectangles of tulle in both colours, and hand stitched that over the bust. Pulling it in vertically at the center front I added little clear butterfly beads (from the $2shop) over the top of the stitching line.
After that I cut leaf shaped pieces of the georgette finishing the edges on the machine with a fine zig-zag.. Miraculously I managed this without having the fabric chewed up and stuffed below into the bobbin housing, which is what normally happens.
This is where you can have fun and just get creative: I sewed these spaced at short intervals over the skirt waist sewing more butterflies at the top of each - but you can play with shapes and layers all you want. At this stage it's just getting all dreamy and floaty which is what little girls are after.
As the day came closer the weather got cooler. Strappy dress was looking like an uncomfortable option not to mention an invitation for a chill, so I pulled out a girls bolero pattern.
I re-cut the pattern front on some brown paper - cutting away and reshaping it to lay open under the dress's bust detail and tie underneath with left-over ribbon. As it turned out the bows on the dress sat over this as well which added more detail and made the bolero look like part of the dress.
That's it for this weeks crafty. I'm still renovating so I need to go now and attach some handles on a cabinet Pinkster and i finished last night, there are venetians to be hung, paintwork retouching..
One of these days Fridays I'll finish up an apartment!
