Dare to Design

Can you guess what I've been up to this week? Maybe if you strike a ponderous pose like this one it will help.

I've been working on a dress design for Shabby Apple Dresses and their "Dare to Design Competition," and here it is.

I should have hemmed it up a little more for my short figure, but I was running out of time. As you can tell I'm getting this in just before the wire.

Here are a few of my favorite detail shots:



Love that sleeve.


It's hard to tell the little details from the full shot.

I made this dress from a cotton stretch sateen and was quite pleased with it. I was very taken with the colors in this dress from Sewweekly.com and thought they'd be lovely in a spring line. Here's a little swatch:

I just adore that plum, lavender, grass green, and cerulean. Oh and white, I love white. I wish I could have found a white with purple pinstripes. That might have been adorable, or a disaster to match up. Good thing, I went solid this close to the finish line.

Like Sewweekly, I get a lot of my inspiration from vintage clothing. This one has a bit of wiggle dress-ness. I am also inspired by film, particularly period pieces. For this dress, I kept thinking of Jane Campion's Bright Star and the line, "This is the first frock in all of Woolwich and Hampstead to have a triple pleated mushroom collar." I didn't quite make it to triple.

Ooo, and here's a little bonus, a shot of my sketch so you can see where my inspiration began:

I know, I know, all I needed to enter was a sketch, but I feel much more confident sewing than drawing. Plus, presentation is critical in this contest. Sorry little sketch, you're not so presentable. Come back when you've cleaned yourself up a bit.