Hello Needleworkmonday community, a happy start of the week to us all also wish you all a great week ahead.
There was a time in my life, coming from a humble home, I didn't have fancy dresses, not that I knew or really cared about what having fancy dresses meant, but there was this urge I always had to recreate the dresses my mum gave me, let's say I had my style as I learned how to use the needle and thread at a very young age, I think seven, not sure now, my mum had a sewing machine that was gifted to her on her wedding day, she seldom uses it as she also got busy with other of her businesses not related to fashion.
It was always funny and surprising then to my aunties and peers because I grew up among extended family, as a teenager and my passion for a unique sense of fashion kept growing, I remember when I turned a boring long maxi skirt into a dress, adding my belt around the waist and a jacket to cover my shoulders to church, my mum literally gave up on trying to dress me up, I'm sorry mum for the stress I never rejected any dress or outfit given to me I was always happy for a new dress, as each of them sharks up more inspiration on me. The thing is I never paired them the way they expected, I would always end up with my style.
I'm an adult now, and yesterday, an event occurred that made me go back on memory lane, I was very late for a hangout and didn't have the time to get properly dressed the way I had envisaged, I was already wearing a black short armless dress, I was not in the mood to do anything special because I was out of time and then my eyes caught a thrift crocheted dress I got a long time ago but didn't get have any idea on how to wear it because it was see-through, I get cheap dresses like this sometimes and either use their applique or accessories to make a new dress, or just recreate them, or if they are very ok, I wear them like that. At that moment it clicked, all I had to do was put it on my already worn short dress and boom, I created a cold shoulder dress also with extra length, and zoom I was off in a jiffy, and when I got complimented on how beautiful my dress looked, I just smiled and thought in my mind same old Glory😂, some things or should I say some people never really change.
What I'm more grateful for presently, is the ability for me to recreate my desired style, as long as I can think it, I can do it, I'm a sucker for beautiful statement sleeves so when it gets my attention, I make sure to make mine. Canadian smocked sleeves has been trending for a while in my country, although mostly styled on gowns, I decided to do mine on a jumpsuit I made.
Here are the jumpsuit patterns
To make these sleeves, the materials used are:
Process
Continuing, I chalked diagonal lines on some boxes by leaving a box unmarked in between the marked ones.
Threading my needle, I tacked one end of the diagonal line to the other end, this is done in the boxes I marked the diagonal line
Which gave me this smocked result, beautiful, isn't it?
All I had to do was pleat the finished sleeves around my basic sleeve pattern next, armhole of my jumpsuit, I also added elastic to the base of the sleeves.
My jumpsuit is ready, tada! ✨
I hope you enjoyed reading through my sewing Process and journey.
All images used in this post are mine, except stated otherwise.
