A Dress That BLUE my Mind Away.

Good morning fellow needleworkers, I hope your weekend went well and you have rested enough ready to grind for this week.

Okay, I am about to BLUE you away. Did you get what I did there?

Last weekend, I embarked on one of my favourite jobs and yes I have enough pictures to show for it.

My client worked in my office with a Royal blue London crepe fabric and thank God she had a style in mind which made the whole process so seamless.

She has a very beautiful stature and she is fair in complexion which I think the color fits her skin perfectly.

"Make me this dress for my birthday," In her words and yes I fell in love with the style she showed me.

As simple as this dress looks I made it for almost 6 days, why? I was overwhelmed with everything. I had so many jobs pending and I had to prioritise which came first, so I was multi-tasking, cutting and sewing different clothes at almost the same time, have you tried that before?

About three clients were calling my phone continuously so I had to place my phone on aeroplane mode and freeze my WhatsApp so that I could breathe for a moment.

I wonder why client thinks fashion designers are robot, they just want their outfit immediately, well I had to focus on the birthday Lady please, as I wanted her to be excited about her day so I decided to make and complete this dress first before completing the rest.

The London crepe.

This fabric is a bit stretchy and very sensitive to hot iron, one must be very careful while ironing.

I placed the fabric on the floor and began to draft out by placing her bodice measurement on the raw fabric.

This dress has a flounce around the shoulder with a turtle neckline, so I marked out 3 inches width and 3 inches depth for the neckline and then I cut it out.

I marked the shoulder which was 14 divided by 2 and then the armhole, waist, hip and full gown length and cht it out as seen.

This is how I got my flounce, a 360 flare, or I call it the zero flare using a depth of 12 inches and a width of 5 inches since the fabric was folded in four.

The sleeve also has flare around it, more like a funnel sleeve, so I cut out the flares for both sleeves, I worked with just 2yards of fabric by the way, and I managed it so much simply because the length was by 60.

I marked and cut out the upper sleeve using her round sleeve measurement which was 12 inches divided by 2 plus seam allowance for each sleeve.

So we have the bodice for the front and back and the sleeve, my zipper and blue bias to turn the hem of each flare to give it a neat finish.

This was me trying to place the flounce by the shoulder to get a perfect manipulation.

At times like this, I tend to be in the moment, with no side talks or chit chat so I don't lose focus. Haha, I am that serious when it comes to my job, please.

After being sure of what I wanted I secured it with my pins.

I used the bias to hem the flounce and then secured it with my stitch on the shoulder slope after adding a dart on the dress and then I gave it a good press.

I proceeded to join the other flare to the sleeve and make it a funnel sleeve.

As seen here I also made a box pleat at the midpoint of the sleeve.

Now, it was time for the turtle neck and the zipper, enjoyed making the dress, the fabric was so easy to work with but I had a little challenge fixing the zipper since it wa a bit stretchy, the trick I used was placing a newspaper on the zipper before sewing on it.

I joined the long strap I had cut out to the neckline and added my zipper as seen here.

I placed the work in progress on my mannequin to be sure the neckline wasn't choking and then I went ahead to complete the dress by shaping it using her body measurements.

The dress was already tempting me to make one for myself, I just loved everything about it.

See how neat the neckline came out.

Then I attached my sleeve to the armhole and I think it's time to blue you away.

I took different angles of the dress so you see how fancy it looked for the birthday princess.

Right side view, see how the flounce is seated pretty.

Front view, where you can see the neckline very well, the sleeve too and the fitted dress.

Here is the left side view with the funnel sleeve showing very well and that pretty box pleat too.

I just couldn't get enough of this dress please, the color blue my mind away.

I will always give you a GIF to show you what it looks like in case pictures don't do justice to it.

Our birthday lady's dress is ready and I just delivered it a few minutes ago, she was extremely excited, now it's time to face other pending jobs as I have just attended to the most important one.

What do you think about the style and colour, did it BLUE your mind too?