The final episode of the trilogy

So, back in May I did a couple of posts about how I was inspired to make a dress. Well, I did, in fact, finish that dress in time for my cousin's wedding in June, and I thought I should show off the final result. Ignore the squinty eyes, and concentrate on how pleased I am with the result of my labors!

I used the pattern pictured in this post, and of course used the fabrics featured in this and this post. Overall, these were excellent fabric choices. The polyester silky is actually cooler to wear than I had been anticipating, and once the teal stripes have some lightweight interfacing, they are also the correct weight. I did cut the Vneck a little higher than the pattern calls for, and I eliminated the back zipper (I detest center back zippers. I think they are so ugly). Because the pattern is meant to be loose, I actually just pull the dress on over my head. I even took in the side seams at the waist about 2 inches, and can still just pull it over my not-very-small bust. Once one understands the geometry of how the neck band fits into the front, this is a very easy pattern to sew. I will probably make another one in the future, maybe with winter fabrics. I do still need to add pockets to the side seam of this dress. Maybe next week.....

Velvet Fantasy

So, apparently Easter Triduum and a birthday means that I don't post for a full week. Whoops! Today's fabric is from a fitted jacket that was given to me by a friend's mom about 3 years ago. I adore the jacket, but the fabric plus the style makes it a bit fancy for most of my daily activities. I often wear it interviews and the like. I included so many photos this time because I think it is necessary to try to fully capture the impressiveness of this fabric over the internet. The first shot gives you a good idea of the scale of the design of the fabric. the coin in the corner is a quarter. The fabric is a 70% acetate/30% nylon burn-out velvet in rich deep jewel tones. It has a variegated abstract geometric design that has about a foot between repeats. One of my favorite things about this fabric is its texture. Not only is a velvet (which means Soft!), but the gold lines are actually a permanent glitter glue that rests on top of the velvety pile (which creates fun hard bumps, much like braille). If you look at the second and third pictures, you will notice two subtle images of flowers amongst the colors. Those are scattered liberally throughout the fabric, and are caused by the nap in the pile being reversed. This makes it a not-quite-true-burn-out-velvet, but I imagine that the method used to create this effect would be much the same (what exactly that method is, I am not sure. Any audience information would be much appreciated). In other terms, the flower images are created because the velvet has been shaped so that the light hits it differently in different parts. The fourth image is a bit blurry, but it shows almost the entirety of the the pattern in the fabric before it repeats.