ballgown Archives - Handmade by Carolyn

the mother-of-the-groom, plus a gorgeous bridesmaid

03/06/2019 6:55 pm \ 26 Comments \ Carolyn

So, I made my own outfit for Tim and Kelly’s wedding too, of course! I’m posting about this outfit before the wedding dress, partly because I’m waiting for the professional photos … a social media blackout was imposed for the wedding, although of course I was far too occupied chatting to all our friends and relatives to even think about taking out my phone a lot of the time anyway!! I did take a coupla snaps during our getting-ready period, and during the reception, but for about 99% of the day my phone stayed firmly silent, neglected and untouched in my bag. And honestly, that’s the way important celebrations should be done anyway, I think!

If there’s a nice professional picture of my outfit from the wedding, I will edit later to put it here. But in the meantime these’ll do…

I used Vogue 1537, a Kay Unger design. I bought this pattern ages ago and have always wanted to use it for some special occasion outfit. What could be more special than my son’s wedding?!!

I knew in my head exactly the fabric I wanted to make it out of… textured damask or brocade ideally a nice warm light pink, though actually dark pink, would have been ok or anything even remotely pink would have been considered actually. Yes, pink is my current obsession, I may have mentioned that once or twice before, hehe…. anyway, do you think I could find anything even vaguely pink? of course not! despite the fact that pink is allegedly the colour of the season and although I scoured through every single fabric shop in Perth and Tokyo, and even hunted through the offerings of several online stores with the single minded determination of a sniffer dog. Ultimately a failed sniffer dog with absolutely nothing to show for a heckuvva lot of sniffing though, sadly…

I found a few damasks at Fabulous Fabrics, less than a handful of colour choices, and the colour that was the most acceptable to me was this ruby red silk. Admittedly, it is a lovely colour. I did consult with Kelly as to whether she thought it too bright – I didn’t want to be be too conspicuous!! and luckily she gave it a big thumbs up 🙂

The dress has a fairly plain front, which I love! with a shallow scooped, wide neckline giving a 60s-chic, almost Jackie Kennedy feel to it! The visual interest here is in the back; a deep low V with wide straps to hold the two sides stable, and which also fortuitously happen to hide one’s bra strap. Handy!

The dress has neckline facings, and is fully lined with deep navy/gunmetal blue lining fabric, also from Fabulous Fabrics.

I bought the deep maroon zip from either Spotlight? or Fabulous Fabrics? … I can’t remember which now. Often one store doesn’t have quite the colour I need so I’ll just quickly stop by the other and hope for a better match there!

I attached a small length of ribbon with a press stud so to hold the bra strap securely under. Remember the lingerie set I made specifically to wear with this ensemble? Now you can see why although my outfit is not navy blue, how it matches perfectly!!

The sheath dress as it is drafted turned out way too boxy for my tastes, in fact I’m willing to bet money that the model on the pattern cover has the dress nipped in at the back with a big peg or two! – and I ended up bringing it in through the back princess seams by several inches to give it a lot more shape through the waist. I also had cut the dress longer by 5cm all round, and just had to trim the hemline off shorter around the front, to make the shaping adjustment possible.

The coat!! I do LOVE the dress but the coat HAS to be my favourite part of the ensemble! It is single breasted, with three quarter sleeves, with arrowhead tabs and self-covered, decorative buttons – more about these infamous things later!, a deep, curved collar, and lovely deep deep patch pockets with flap openings.

It too is fully lined with the same navy/gunmetal blue lining fabric, and I stitched in one of my new labels…

spare button attached inside….

I loved making this, and wearing it, and I think I will be able to wear it again in the future, even over jeans or dresses for daywear every now and then. I will see!

I went all out with the bound buttonholes…

oh the button saga! sooooooo, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I covered 100 11mm buttons for Kelly’s dresss, and thought what this ensemble reeeeeeeally needed was also self-covered buttons, because after all the entire thing is all in one fabric and some other non-self-covered buttons would have just looked a bit random, probably not quite matching, and just scream “homemade”. So I ordered some 28mm buttons from the same vendor from which I purchased Kelly’s buttons. And waited. And waited. And waited!! For about three weeks! and I was just getting more and more worried, finally with only just over two weeks to go until the wedding, I thought that if they’d been lost in the post as I suspected they had, then I’d better order more NOW or the replacement order was just not going to get here on time. So I contacted the vendor with an emergency request to send me some more 28mm buttons by the very fastest postage service possible with a tracking number, and she did so. And to my great relief the replacement buttons turned up with just a week to the wedding! Phew!!

As I did with the bridal buttons; I spray painted the bare buttons with red spray paint, leftover from my Queen Rutela cosplay; which helps make the smooth metal surface a bit “grippier” and easier to cover. They covered up perfectly, and I could finally finish my outfit, in plenty of time for the wedding. So relieved!

there’s that spare button!

Dressmaking details now, er addressed, haha; the following is story time… please feel free to stop right now if the sewing details are all that is of interest. Fair warning:

So, the previous modelled photos are obviously a bit of a pre-enactment, and the above mirror selfie in which I am all made-up and coiffured as befits the mother-of-the-groom status about to be undertaken, was quickly snapped on the day while waiting for my uber, … it was such a busy day!! In fact it was a super busy week beforehand too, come to think of it. Kelly’s family came over from Adelaide during the week, and we had a delightful dinner at the Boatshed Restaurant with her parents on the Thursday night, actually overlooking the jetty where Tim proposed to Kelly which was nice! Then on Friday evening, we had a big family dinner with both parents and all of our kids, and T & G who are the other groomsman and bridesmaid alongside Sam and Cassie.

On the day itself, Craig and I walked Clara early, then I had my hair appointment, then quickly came home and threw on my outfit and headed straight to the hotel to “get ready” with all the other girls! though obviously I myself was ready by that point, Kelly had kindly invited me to be a part of the girly fun and I was really excited to join in with them too. Craig had already headed in separately for his own “getting ready” session and photoshoot with Tim, Sam and the other groomsman T, before he had to nip out and come back home to meet the dog sitter, pick up Craig’s parents and bring them in to the hotel where they were checking in for that night.

The hotel room where the girls were getting ready was a scene of quietly controlled pandemonium. Kelly had booked a suite with a living area, coffee table and desk area; the coffee table was piled high with snacks, fruit and drinks and just general crap; and the desk was absolutely chocka with hair and makeup paraphernalia… Flowers, dresses, shoes, and overflowing suitcases were stacked up in the dressing room. Not to mention the room was bursting with people too! Kelly, Cassie and G (bride and bridesmaids), L and me (mothers of the bride and groom respectively), H (Kelly’s sister), the hairdresser, the makeup artist, Shosh the photographer and a male videographer whose name I was told but which is now lost to me in the excitement of the day… everybody bustling and chatting and working and laughing and manoeuvre-ing around each other taking pictures… so much fun!

Cassie went and sat on the window sill to be out of the way, and she looked so pretty I couldn’t help snapping a picture…

we hung the wedding dress up in the window for Shosh to take some detail shots and I took a picture of her, taking a picture of the dress #someta …

Kelly putting on her jewellery… she was supposed to be wearing a bracelet belonging to an aunt for her “something borrowed”, but there was some miscommunication, I’m not sure what happened, but I ended up lending her my own bracelet … Shosh took a picture of me putting it on Kelly’s wrist, I’ll post it when I get it!

also, my three at the reception… my heart was fair dinkum bursting with pride when I took this one!

Cassie made her own dress, and it turned out just beautiful!!

oh did I mention I made the other bridesmaid G’s dress? She looks absolutely lovely yes? I think so, and I’m so grateful to her for her charm and natural beauty, making my dressmaking look far better than I deserve. To be honest, I wasn’t very happy with this dress, it was actually a bit of a nightmare and once or twice I nearly despaired of it and seriously considered heaving the whole thing in the bin and starting over from scratch… however it came together in the end and on the night G’s radiant demeanour made it look far more lovely than I could have hoped for! Thank goodness for gorgeous young girls!!

Essentially, I used the same patterns I used for Kelly’s dress; the bodice from Vogue 9239 (above left) and skirt modified from Vogue 1032 (above right), all custom fit to G. Style-wise, for G’s dress I obviously cut the skirt pieces so as to not have a train, and the back pieces are cut so as to have straight up princess seams at the back and not have that weird seam curve in to centre back. I made the initial muslins to include that curve and we all agreed that it was, ah, unattractive… The front and back skirt pieces were all cut so as to have a straight-as-possible waistline seam at the top, attaching it to the bodice. I altered the seams on the bodice so as to join up to the skirt princess seams, and of course did a FBA for both G and K. Both girls I had to custom fit quite extensively from the pattern, and I think I did a pretty good job here if I say so myself, because the fit is spot on! We discussed the neckline for G, and settled on a wide, off-the shoulder V neck, which is absolutely lovely on her.

The slightly stretchy, navy blue crepe was bought from Homecraft Textiles? I think? and unfortunately it was pretty awful to work with. It did NOT want to iron flat and smooth and just seemed to shrink back slowly into a natural, very slight crinkle that just looked like it needed a good press all the time. So you’d give a good solid press, and an hour later it would once again look just like it had been rolled up in a plastic bag for the last few days. Also the neckline, despite extremely careful hand-basting and stay-stitching and under-stitching, just wanted to curl outwards, both front and back, in a way that fair dinkum drove me absolutely crazy and almost broke me, to be honest. I’m pretty sure I shed actual tears over this, at least once, although it’s all a blur now because I had “moments” over just about everything to do with sewing for this wedding #iwishiwaskidding. I tried everything I could think of to fix the aforementioned curling, ultimately the only thing that worked was a very subtle hand-done gathering stitch along the under-stitching line, which I drew up just very slightly and fastened off each end at each endpoint of the V, front and back. Sounds like a pretty tacky way of dealing with it, I agree, but I was desperate and in the end this actually seemed to do the trick. Hallelujah!

I did the narrow rolled hem by hand, which took about as long as you’d imagine #aLONGTIME The navy/gunmetal blue lining fabric from Fabulous Fabrics is the same that I used for my own outfit, navy blue zip from Spotlight.

When she was dancing she did a few twirls that really brought the dress to life for me and it really made me so very happy to see it looking so absolutely lovely in these moments… so I asked her to do an extra one for me at the end of the evening. Thank you G, for making this thing look actually amazing!!

Ohhh! I also made a tie for Craig! using leftovers from my outfit, so we can be all lovey-dovey match-matchy, hehe #SOnotus Well, I just thought it would be a nice idea. And while I had doubts he might actually want to wear it, he did, which I thought very nice of him 🙂

Of course the tie is properly made, with a padding, and an underlining as well as a lining because I do actually know how to make a tie! Also, many years ago I made a free pdf pattern for Burdastyle, it’s not a very sophisticated pattern by today’s pdf standards, but I’m thinking about polishing it off and making it more up-to-date for today’s seamster with much higher pdf expectations! However it does work perfectly well and my instructions, while sparse, do work! particularly if you’re not a beginner. Anyway! I slimmed down the shape because you know, even fashions in mens ties change and the width of that one is… well, wi-i-i-de in a most unfashionable way!

Aaaagh! One last thing, before I forget! I am sooooooo behind here… this one is not even wedding related?!

I made a new walkies-bag for Clara, to hold all her poo-bags and treats, here she is in all her haughty supermodel glory… I used the leg from some old jeans, the loop at the top is harvested from the double top-stitched side seam of the jeans so it’s super sturdy; and I also used one of the zips from the large bag of randoms Mum gave me a few years ago. It’ll be a miracle if I can actually get through that bag, but I’ve made a bit of headway over the years!

Hey Clara-banana!!!

So that’s all! at least until the wedding dress post, and that is going to be a HUUUUGE one, I’m sorry! I’m afraid that one’s going to take quite some time for me to put it all together… #gatheringstrength

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: accessories, ballgown, Clara, coat, dress, evening wear, own design, tie, vogue 1032, Vogue 1537, vogue 9239

the Zora Queen Rutela

26/03/2017 11:33 am \ 37 Comments \ Carolyn

OK, I’ve done some pretty involved and intensive projects in my time, in fact more often than not, lately! and this one definitely ticks that box too.

Quite a few months ago, Cassie mentioned that she wanted us to go to ComicCon together this year, and furthermore, she had already chosen a good costume for me to make…

source

This is Queen Rutela, the queen and elder of the Zora; proud, elegant and graceful aquatic-people who reside in the Zora’s Domain in the Zelda universe. If you’ve never heard of Zora, it’s ok, that’s perfectly normal because this stuff is the very height of geekiness and so far from the mainstream it’s a little embarrassing … However! you have now! She is a rather tragic character; the story is as follows: Queen Rutela was the wife of the late King Zora and mother to Prince Ralis. During the events of Twilight Princess, Shadow Beasts invade the Zora village, so Queen immediately sent her son to Hyrule Castle for his own safety and to inform Princess Zelda of what was going on, prompting the invaders to make an example of Queen Rutela by executing her in front of her people.

I liked the idea of going as Queen Rutela for several reasons, partly because she’s a mother so I felt she was age appropriate for me, also her story moved me because it is so sad, she’s so protective of her son and so motherly, it tugged at my heartstrings a bit. But mostly, well, let’s be honest, because her attire and bearing is just so beautiful and I relished the challenge of giving a good go to making it! Also, the Zora have always been my favourite species in the Zelda universe 🙂

ANYWAY! here we go…

Firstly, the dress. More accurately it’s a 3-piece ensemble, I made an ankle length petticoat/underdress, a skirt, and a long tunic top; all using white polyester stretch stuff (some leftovers, some new, variously from Spotlight, Fabulous Fabrics). The plain, strapless, ankle-length petticoat is one I made many years ago, so long ago I’ve completely forgotten the pattern I used. I never thought I’d say that, because I tend to remember patterns FOREVER, but not this time! The skirt has the other “skirt-y” layers on an elastic waistband, and the tunic top is a drastically modified Nettie bodysuit, basically my go-to Tshirt pattern. The sleeves are in two parts, a close-fitting “under” sleeve that is wrist length, and the “over”sleeve has a very high sleeve cap and a bell-shaped bottom edge that is gathered and “pouffed” into the under sleeve, then point-stitched in place to get artistic-y folding. At the shoulder edge, the extra fabric in the sleeve caps is pulled in with three sharp darts; making a jutty-out sort of shoulder cap… that’s a technical term there, btw.

I stitched frilly “gills” to the side underbust area.

Oh! I’m getting ahead of myself… those frills were formed in the following way; I clean-cut the eyes using my rotary cutter, then holding the edge just slightly and evenly stretched out, passed it over a candle flame; which melted the edges just a little and set them in a naturally curly frill. I took a little bit of practise to get this just right, with the right degree of frill and with minimal scorching! Fortunately, those bits that looked a bit charred black just crumbled off when I rubbed them between my fingers.

Once I’d made the three parts of the dress, I shrouded Bessie in plastic and newspaper, dressed her, masked off the bits that I wanted to remain white, and sprayed the skirt, then the top utra-carefully and judiciously with poppy red enamel spray paint (Bunnings)

The colour is a little brighter than ideal, I really really wanted a warm, dusky coral pink, but with spray paint you’re unfortunately stuck with whatever is in the VERY limited pre-mixed range… 🙁 /

Spraying was pretty scary, my application isn’t perfect, and there is a blotch on the R shoulder that is a bit heavy and which was pretty devastating for a while, but I had no choice really but to accept what I’d done. As it turned out I shouldn’t have worried too much because you couldn’t even see the blob once my headpiece was on!

Next, the fin/wings… I cut four-layers in light grey polyester organza, and simply stitched all layers together by skinny zig-zagging around all edges, and slip-stitched it in places to the top of the sleeves.

Next, the jewellery; and this bit was lots of fun! It’s a long time since I’ve played about with jewellry-making and I really enjoyed it 🙂 I used Super Sculpey modelling clay, jewellery wire and gold metallic acrylic paint (Spotlight) and some really lovely turquoise glass jewels (Fabulous Fabrics), and baked my pendants in the oven before painting them, and stringing them together. It’s hard to see the exact details of the Queen’s jewels in the short footage of her that there is, and what’s more, the details seem to vary from picture to picture, so I took a little creative license and designed my own, closely inspired by what I knew of the Zora style, and the arrangement that I could see from the footage.

The body-lace fastens at the small of my back; the necklace is supposed to sit out very wide on her shoulders, and I managed to get this look by stitching rings halfway along my shoulder, and the necklace clips onto these, wide on each shoulder. I also made a “beaten gold” collar/choker from interfaced gold metallic jersey (Spotlight), hand stitched radiating lines over it, and stitched the last pendant to it, then stitched white vinyl “petals” (Clark Rubber) around the lower edge. This closes by press studs at the back.

Headpiece: it’s simply a long tail in the same polyester stretch, stuffed with Hobby Fill (Spotlight). I inserted fins of fabric-covered cereal-box cardboard into the side seams, and I took the precaution of spray-painting the cardboard ivory first because the polyester is kinda see-through, and stitched it to the rim of a red swimming cap, also catching into the stitching a white plastic face-mask (Spotlight)

Now for the hair! This took quite a bit of nutting out…. I’d stretched the bathing cap/head-tail/face mask contraption to Mr ‘Ed, my foam head, above.

For the hair I used skinny foam noodle (Clark Rubber) and stitched the top bit of the hair through all layers. This stuff is pretty bouncy with a mind of its own, but I damn well forced that sucker to be what I wanted it to be with firm and masterful stitching to get the folded part/hair at the centre top. Take that, foam noodle!! BOW TO MY WILL…

The blonde “coral” hair was easier and actually lots of fun, like being in kindergarten again… I snipped it into lengths, and painted the bits with various mixed shades of pale yellow, shaded with addition of lilac and metallic gold. I wanted the hair to be in shades because we all know a flat colour just looks fake and, well, flat, any painted thing always looks so much more vibrant and real and rich when it has several different shades in it. Going to this much effort sounds complicated and maybe even unnecessarily involved, but I whizzed through making the hair, loving every paint stroke. I strung them on yellow thread and stitched them to the cap through all layers, and painted part of the top layer of hair in the same way. There is 35m of noodle in this thing… I can hardly believe that myself but yes, really!

One “strand” came off while I was pulling the thing onto my head, aaaaagh NOOOOOO! which was a bit of a worry, obviously! but I had plenty of “hair” and luckily every other bit stayed put.

The final step was to spray-paint the top side of the head-tail with the same poppy-red spray paint. Scary!! but I was super SUPER careful… On another note, this picture below gave me a laugh! the head looks hideous, the stuff of nightmares!!! Zoe “looks” terrified but of course she wasn’t… she’s knows what’s real and what’s not. Even on Saturday morning when I emerged from the bedroom in full costume plus makeup, all the cats just looked at me, maybe a bit quizzically! but they still knew it was me.

Oh, wait… doing the make-up was the final step, of course! I painted white dots around her brow line, just like in my inspiration pic, and then trimmed away the mask. Cassie suggested a strip of Hollywood tape on my nose, which helped keep the nose piece firmly in place throughout the day. Also, with amazing luck, Priceline had a 40% off all makeup sale in the days beforehand so I got some white translucent face-powder and rather horrible bright red rouge-y stuff for the matching poppy-red circles under my eyes and lips.

The photo at the top is my first attempt to photoshop myself into a fake background! pretty good, huh?! this actually took me aaaaaaages… hehe, #photoshopnoob Well, I felt like Queen Rutela just HAD to appear in Zora’s Domain or it would be, well, you know, just like an unfinished and half-done effort, so I decided I just had to do it!

I didn’t get any photos of me actually at ComicCon in Perth unfortunately; we were just having way too much fun! plus my gloves made it impossible for me to operate my phone! However about a million people asked to take my picture, which is not as weird as it sounds, it’s just the done thing at ComicCon when you dress up; everyone does it! Also it was highly gratifying when people recognised my character, totally made my day!!! Every now and then I would hear a call; “Queen Rutela!!!!!” which was really nice!

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: accessories, ballgown, costumes, fancy dress, Nettie, own design, petticoat, skirt, top

Cassie’s dark moss-green ball gown

19/09/2015 7:20 am \ 39 Comments \ Carolyn

I thought it might be a good idea to take a few pictures of Cassie wearing one of her own self-made ball gowns, since she has pretty much abandoned her own sewing blog years ago… I’m sure she’ll appreciate that I took a few pictures for her one day in the future! I’m a wee bit sad that I have absolutely zero pictures of my own creations from when I was younger.

Cassie made this ball gown for herself three years ago, and wore it for the second time last night when she attended the Australian Chinese Youth Association gala with a group of girlfriends. These pictures are like a re-enactment, taken the morning after the night before! if you like!
Its first outing was to an Amanda Young Foundation ball, and it was at that time teamed with bright blood-red lipstick and fangs. Yup, fangs… she was a vampire! She cut the fangs from fake pinkie nails and stuck them to her teeth with nail glue. Apparently she had to pull the fangs off before she could have dinner though… aah, the trials and tribulations of being a vampire.

The top and skirt are deep moss green silk dupion with the bodice back in black lace. In lieu of a zip at centre back, she made a multi-button band, with 21 closely spaced shank buttons. To make this, she stitched a folded band of black silk satin for the button side, and hand-stitched button loops using black embroidery floss to the lace on the other side. All materials from Fabulous Fabrics.

She used a favourite top pattern, Burda 8609 and melded it with the skirt pieces from NewLook 6401. This is a really gorgeous gown pattern, that she has used once before actually for another different ball gown…. probably I should get her to put that one on for a few pictures too!

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: ballgown, Burda 8609, Cassie, New Look 6401

A good hair day

28/04/2012 5:20 pm \ 31 Comments \ Carolyn

A very special and super fantastic night; we went to the Amanda Young Foundation Ball. I wore my Grecian-style ballgown, made in 2004. An oldie now but still a goodie. I had my hair put up professionally, which always makes me feel super glamorous!
Now please excuse my lack of loquaciousness, Cinderella is off to bed before she turns into a pumpkin….

Details:
Ballgown; Vogue 2480, sage green and oyster white satin, details here
Sandals; Sachi, bought from some little boutique in Melbourne
Earrings; Sophie Kyron

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: ballgown, daily outfit, evening wear, hair, Vogue 2480

Old things…

17/11/2011 8:13 am \ 18 Comments \ Carolyn

… this will be the very last of my “old things” posts. I promise.
I’ve done a mammoth sort-through of the photos and I think this is it! (heaves a sigh of relief…)

Firstly, since this is the only garment in this post still in our possession (apart from the Grim Reaper come burqa outfit, that is); a cardigan I knitted for Craig. It is knitted in the fair isle method. Above is a picture Craig took of me wearing his cardigan on a holiday last year (isn’t he sweet, giving his cold inadequately-dressed wife his nicely pre-warmed cardigan to wear, hmmm? What a gentleman!)

And some close-ups of the cardigan I took today…

showing the right front, and at right the wrong side of the fair isle knitting… (as is correct, the yarn is carried over at the back with no weaving in, only if the distance is four stitches or less…)

Now, some costumes…
Sam as “Link”. I thought he was so cute in this. He loved this little outfit and often wore it just for everyday wear. (if you would like to see what this cute little jigger looks like now, go here…)

Sam, as… guess who? Hehe, the famous Harry Potter, natch, compete with broomstick and Hedwig the owl.
On that note, a black cloak is such a useful thing to have in the dress-up box. It can be the basis for so many costumes.

Here is the same robe again, worn by Cassie as Hermione, complete with ~~Garfield~~ Crookshanks the cat… I threw together the skirt and tie as well, but they do not bear close inspection…!)

(I’ve shown this picture before… but here it is again just to illustrate the versatility of the plain black robe as a costume), Tim and two of his mates as Grim Reapers. I made all three of their costumes.

Tim’s same costume again, this time worn by me to an Arabian Nights party. I didn’t want to hire an outfit and I didn’t want to make some bejewelled thing I would never wear again, and as every single female I have seen in the Arabian region is dressed something like this, so I was like, yeah this’ll do. I naively assumed other girls would have the same idea… As it turned out I was literally the only female dressed (I thought) anywhere near authentically! Also the only one not heavily sequinned and baring plenty of belly-flesh… I confess the costume was abandoned when we decided to start dancing! Don’t worry I had a skirt and top on underneath…

So, away from costumes now, and a ball-gown of my own design that I made for balls in years gone by (Sorry for the headless shot but my face and my hair look awful in this picture…!) It is silk organza, overlaying silk and silk jersey layers, three layers in all. It had a beaded and embroidered neckpiece, both beaded and embroidered by me, that is…

A dress I made for Cassie for her graduation dance at the end of primary school. It was a simple turquoise cotton halter neck dress, the fabric had metallic gold lines randomly strewn across. I also made her jewellery, of turquoise glass fish beads and strands of gold wire.

Some rather lovely (if I say so myself) wide-legged white pants that she wore almost constantly for a summer, and a little white broderie anglaise blouse. Both my own design.

Going way back, and this shirt is from a Vogue designer pattern that I believe my mother still has my copy… I know I also made and am wearing here the small-waisted and very flared skirt from the same pattern too…

I made both the skirt and top and also my necklace here. The top was an experiment, I flipped the shoulders out in a twist to get this cowl-like effect. It used to get a lot of compliments, believe it or not! (my friends are very kind) We are sitting on one of our sofas in its first slipcover, made by me too… (now looks like this)

Some more dresses. I really regret now I never got any good pictures of these two. The white and red one was rather nice; it was a dress, but looked like a matching skirt and camisole when I was wearing it, as it had layers in several graduated lengths. My own design. The patchwork dress, also my own design, took lots of planning; I bought the fabrics separately and cut and pieced them together, then made the dress. It has smaller squares at the top, graduating to larger squares around the midriff, and then down to the largest squares at the hemline. It is all on the bias, with a handkerchief hem, and I loved it!

A drop waisted, handkerchief hemmed dress of white dotted swiss voile, pictured against a famous backdrop. I still have this Vogue pattern too, actually…

And that should be all folks!
From now on, I will only be showing newly made stuff here….

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: ancient history, ballgown, cardigan, Cassie, childrens, costumes, dress, evening wear, fancy dress, Knitted, knitting, own design, patchwork, Sam, Tim, top

LBD, and a giveaway

12/10/2011 3:50 am \ 43 Comments \ Carolyn

It’s my blog-iversary! It has been two years since I started up this funny lil ol’ blog, and I’m marking the (sorta) occasion with a giveaway.
About six months ago, the lovely Gail sent me this pattern and I don’t mind admitting it has been something of my “prize”. A pattern that I have taken out to look lovingly at every now and again before tucking it back safely into my pattern box. One of those patterns with the totally lovely pen-and-watercolour illustrations on the cover of willow-y, supremely elegant, immaculately coiffured ladies of yesteryear gazing world-wearily off into the middle distance. Probably on their way to some impossibly glamorous soiree, or about to hop into the limo to meet up with Clark Gable, or some such. One can but aspire, right? But procrastination does not elegance bring…
so ta da!
Finally… I made a LBD. Hehe, obviously not the Little Black Dress kind of a LBD… let me explain…. there is a very very silly show on TV here called Beauty and the Geek, which of course I never watch being of a far more serious bent 😉 Anyway one week a geek had to answer a pop-quiz on fashion. And one of the questions was “what is a LBD?” And the geek answered “Long Black Dress” And they marked him wrong, whereas for me his answer was like a stroke of idiot savant genius and he should have been given a big “yeees!” for fashion insight, because Long Black Dress is as pretty darn good answer I reckon, and it is a rare lady who goes through her life without the need for the simple elegance of a long black dress at some point. And I have now filled that (hypothetical) need. With vintage-ly panache too, hehe.
And now I am passing on the love, and offering this pattern to another seamstress/seamster. It is Vogue 2858, an Original 1944 Design (or Dessin Original de 1944, if you want to get really chic about it :))
It has some rather unusual-for-an-evening-gown seaming techniques that I am assuming were normal for 1944…. I made a few “modern” changes to mine, although in a pathetically small nod to authenticity the raw edges of the seam allowances have been pinked :).
For a start, well the superior invisible zip has been invented, people! I made use of one.
I also left off the shoulder pads. I did start out making them, but left them off the final version. I’m afraid shoulder pads are just Too Dreadful on me…

This pattern is a size 12-16, and all the sizes still there marked out. If you’re wondering; I traced it off so I could grade to my own size… yup, it is still a bit of a wrench to be parting with the original, but I can do it knowing I still have my own traced out version should the need arise for a LWD (long white dress). Or a LRD (long red dress) Etc etc etc…

If you would like this pattern for your very own piece of 1944 elegance, just leave a comment on this post. Of course, if you would still like to say something nice about my new dress but don’t want to be entered into the draw, then please feel free to do so… 🙂 I do love nice comments too!
This offer is open to anyone and for two weeks, so on 26 October I will put everyone’s names into a hat, those who say they want to enter, and draw one out.
No, I agree that is a very questionably low-tech method and doesn’t have quite the panache of that random number generator thingy, but frankly my dear I just don’t give a damn. *

Details:
Dress; Vogue 2858, black crepe
Sandals; Micam by Joanne Mercer, from Hobbs shoes

* the obligatory Rhett-ism… couldn’t resist, hehe

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: ballgown, evening wear, giveaway, Vogue 2858

Red Emperor, or Catch of the Day

15/05/2011 7:31 am \ 43 Comments \ Carolyn

The theme for this year’s Amanda Young Foundation Ball was “Nautical, but Nice”
(If you have time, click on the link and view the information video on meningococcal disease. Having this knowledge could save a life…)
As usual I had about a zillion ideas for a dress. Was so so sorely tempted to make a completely brand new gown. In fact originally I had every intention of making a whole new ballgown for this event. This was a very enticing thought, there’s nothing I like more than delving into the glamour of the eveningwear section of the fabric store… but I confess not an very eco friendly option really (sigh) After much enjoyable fantasising about such nautical fabulousness as mermaid-like dresses or dresses looking like a breaking ocean wave (I had visions of a turquoise sheath, with a frothy white lower skirt section to represent the surf), eventually I directed my thoughts to my collection of evening gowns already sitting in my wardrobe, and working with something I already had. Last year’s gown had possibilities; this is what it looked like last year…
I decided to re-work this gown and be a Red Emperor, as in, the fish…hehe. In the end, of course, the gown was almost completely re-constructed and is pretty much a new dress.
I removed the red velvet bodice and silk midriff section, and made a new red silk skirt to go over the old lining/petticoat with its attached grand silk flounce around the bottom. Then re-attached the midriff and bodice. I thought this would be OK, but unfortunately the red velvet just looked wrong on top of the dress, otherwise composed entirely of red silk. So I unpicked that off of the midriff section and away from the zip, un-picked and kept the red velvet ribbon shoulder straps to re-use, and made a new bodice, out of the pieces of red silk left over from cutting out the new skirt.
All the un-picking and re-sewing together of seams took ages, about five days. All the skirt sections are hand-hemmed, and I estimated there is between five and six metres of hem altogether in this dress. (Later edit; I just measured, 8.5m!) Luckily, I already done the lower skirt and petticoat last year….!
The new parts are: the wrap-over upper skirt and the bodice. The old, re-used parts of the dress are: the lining/petticoat with the lower silk flounce, the midriff section, the velvet ribbon shoulder straps, and the invisible zip. Yes, I re-used the ZIP! I think I’m most proud of that part of the whole she-bang, silly as it sounds.
If you look really closely enough, under a strong light, you can see that the lower flounce and the midriff section are a different shade of red than the upper skirt and the bodice… from floor up the fabrics sections are old, new, old, new but meh. I think they are close enough to be good enough. Also the different shades are divided up over the dress, so it still looks OK.
So when I had finally finished, I had a kinda new red dress that I am completely thrilled with, even more than last year’s version I think!
But even though it was “red” and sort of “royal”, fitting in with my plan to be a Red Emperor, it didn’t scream “nautical” by any stretch of the imagination. So I gathered a few fishy accessories; the fishing net to be my stole, and I also bought a few lures and a bit of fishing cord from the fishing store to make some jewellery.
So sufficiently nautical, yes?
And when I came out to show the children my costume and asked them what they thought I was, Sam immediately said, “the catch of the day?”
And I wondered if that was a better title than my Red Emperor idea…

Details:
Dress; based on Butterick 4657, petticoat and lower skirt of my own design. Originally looked like this, and my other dress using this same pattern here
Gloves; Vogue 7949, red jersey knit, my review of this pattern here
Stole; fishing net
Jewellery; made by me from fishing lures…
Shoes; Raymond Castle. These are my oldest shoes, I’ve had them since I was about 19…! 😀

a side view…

a back view…

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: ballgown, Butterick 4657, evening wear, own design, Wardrobe Refashion

Grecian ball dress

26/02/2011 6:09 am \ 23 Comments \ Carolyn

I made this ball dress in 2004, for a conference function we were attending in the Louvre in Paris, where I couldn’t look underdressed. It was an important event in our calendar and I needed to dress to impress. Thankfully I think I looked suitably presentable. I remember being super happy with my dress and the very glamorous Parisian evening. The dress is still in my wardrobe, so I must still feel good about it!
Since then I have worn this dress to three other balls and about three or four other things, so it is my most worn formal dress. At the time of its construction, Grecian goddess-y looks were quite fashionable so I was inspired by that trend. But as it turns out this is quite a classical design that I really do love, so I’m sure I will wear it again in the future too. On one occasion I made an appropriately styled headpiece and handtorch from cardboard, aluminium foil and gold cellophane and went to a costume ball as the Statue of Liberty, and had my picture snapped for the newspaper as a result. My picture in the paper is not a common occurrence! At the mo’ I can’t find a picture of that outfit, but if I do I’ll put it up here…
I made it using Vogue 2480, out of silk satin in two shades, that has additionally a (synthetic?) thread running through it to make it subtly sparkly. The two colours are oyster white for the underdress, and a coolly subdued sage green for the top part of the dress. I love the draped design at the left hip, as well the long skirt has a beautifully shaped little train at the back that I think is very flattering. The only slightly strange thing about the pattern is that as the draping is all on the left side of the dress, the invisible zip closure is on the right side.
So, obviously this is not a daily outfit post, but I had my hair done the other day and I’m not one to let a good hair day go to waste. I haven’t shown this dress here yet, and I decided the day of a professional ‘do is a good day to do this dress justice. Plus I’m anticipating Me-Made-March ’11 coming up and a daily outfit post for a whole month… (oh dear) and I don’t want to risk boredom by OD-ing on the daily outfit post thing. You’ll get enough of that soon enough. I’m just worried that if the weather doesn’t co-operate (by that I mean cool down just a tad) I will definitely be the most boring participant in this challenge because the same few little sundresses are just going to appear day after day. I would really like to avoid that scenario. Let’s face it, the same outfit over and over is… totally not exciting.