Finally made!

Ever since the toile was made for my final assessment project during my Innovative Pattern cutting course (Click here for link), I’ve been itching to get it made into a garment. Finally, this week I had some time and materials available so I went ahead and made a dinner dress for my sister.

I only changed the skirt bit on the pattern by extending the length of the dress to make it into sort of a maxi dress.

I used several type of materials for this dress but most of it were remnants. The base is a cotton sateen themed with a kind of modern lace I found in the remnant box. The lace thing caught my eye as it looked like a modern lace. From the picture, it looks like sequins but it’s actually pleats of a ribbon like material and loops of strings. The bottom of the dress is just normal silk chiffon backed with the cotton sateen. I’ve left the hem raw, first to cut off any additional length when I am fitting it to my sister and second to leave it floaty and light.

I really like the results but have to admit that this lace thing was really difficult to sew. Due to the gap in the lace, my sewing machine would sometimes skip stitches. The original skirt base was also suppose to be an ombre effect chiffon from black to white but the black dye I used only managed to achieve a navy blue colour and not the black I wanted (although I dyed it twice). I guess normal shop bought dye doesn’t work for silks (I was supposed to use acid dyes?).

Maybe time to consider a print/textile related course; and a new sewing machine?