The white dress is complete! From pillow case and duvet cover, to cutting additional lengthening strips from a vintage sheet, to scraping free time from between sessions breaking up old cement, hammering bent nails straight, and harvesting new pumpkins... It was a beautiful series of interludes that eventually culminated in this absolutely unique frock!
There was a kind of wrestling period at the beginning of the project - probably known in conventional terms as 'draping' - haha! - where I was trying to get the two Vs at the front and back neckline to sit neatly. Symmetrically! That took multiple tries, but the final style made it the most secure, harmonious ...and cute!
Once the shoulders were in place, it was a matter of deciding how voluminous the dress should/ could be - without it becoming heavy, or sitting frumpily. The final style came into being with the belt that I made too; it started off as a simple, light belt, but in the end I reinforced it with more layers and stitched edges, to make it sit firmly. I really like a dress in this fashion: it can fit multiple sizes, even. I made the notches on the belt too small at first, but then with the reinforcing I could stitch the back of the belt to the new notches, which made them much neater. The belt loops are positioned so as to make a gather at either side of the body, which makes the form flattering to many figures.
I was using three fabrics, and that made the structure of the garment quite particular: stiff white cotton for the sleeves in particular, made them sit pertly. Then the bottom border; that was made from strips of a leftover panel of a cotton pillowcase, which I had to fill in the spaces between of. The finished wide hem sits just right, with these nice and quirky triangles of spacing materials.
The main bodice has some jacquard fabric, which I didn't realise initially; after draping it on the mannequin the patterns became more visible, and I used them to subtly accentuate the form of the dress. I love when aspects like this aren't always visible at first - so that one can be surprised by the details, discovering the uniqeness of it as you wear it and get to know it better. 鈽猴笍 Modern clothing can be so predictable and dumbed-down that nothing is particularly interesting or exciting about it. We shove it on and take it off without having any sense of wonder in it. I love the idea of creating handsewn secrets into my garments.... Let's see what I make, once we have a proper atelier set up!
I climbed onto our 'roof terrace' to take the photos here: it was rather windy, and I had to be careful not to have it topple over - or to fall right off the roof! My phone camera was misbehaving beforehand, also, but I found some better settings on it. Hope you can see the details okay!
It's inspiring now to have cooler days to work in! A new garment is forming in my senses, and I'll be putting it on the dress-form soon.
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