Blue Dress

This is probably the best dress I've made, and I can actually say I designed it since I altered two patterns and it actually worked out this time! It's made of home decor fabric that is a stiff cotton which worked out nicely since it gives the skirt a nice body. I wanted something that kind of teeters between a party dress and a daytime dress. Waking up in the morning can be depressing and nothing cheers me up more than throwing on a dress, even a dress that is too "fancy" for a regular day. I'm wearing it now to go to lunch with my friend Dani.




and this is my lovely friend Amber trying it on!

Wholesale

I just ordered my first wholesale fabric online! It's really to see if the quality is good and if I like the weight and colors. Natural fabric is what I'm going for lately, I just think it looks richer and feels better. So I ordered some red cotton broadcloth and grey silk. Silk is so so lovely and many of the Japanese dresses I drool over are in silk. It's expensive but if I were to make a pretty silk dress I would want to wear it all the time. Gone are the days of disposable clothes! I do feel bad for the little worms though. Coming soon I will post pictures of the fabric I received and the two skirts I will make from them. Currently I'm working on a very frustrating dress pattern that involves a front yoke with all kinds of nasty corners to screw up. Here are some silk dresses I crave.




1) CLU
2) Twenty8Twelve
3) Mayle

Spring Cielo Photo Shoot!

My friend Taylor and I did this shoot in my living room last night. It took two hours just for me to do her hair and makeup! This involved hot rollers, fake lashes, and tons of smudgy eyeliner. Then we shot for another couple of hours. I'm still learning about my camera and I'd like to get really good at shooting in low light with lots of shadows and moodiness. As you can see Taylor is an excellent model and an even better friend to put up me!

heart-shaped falafel!

this weekend was kind of crazy, so nothing to show as far as sewing. i did make a too-small hoodie for a dog named bailey. i had to cut it off of him, he looked like a little sausage! the night before valentine's day we went to eat at ali baba and although the food took a year to receive it looked pretty good. i could eat this kind of food every day.

The White Dress

yesterday i had a request for a white dress.  here it is!  it's made out of poplin which has a nice slight stretch, and it's actually not overly transparent which is usually the issue with white.  also i got a blurry pic of my little sewing buddy sprocket.    

new fabric!

ok so yesterday i picked out the fabric and color scheme for the clothes i will be selling on etsy.  a yellow sort of between butter and canary, grey, black and white.  the plan is to make three designs and do custom orders for each.  i use vintage patterns and to show the design i'll just make the size the pattern happens to be.  the thing with vintage patterns and clothes in general is that they run very small!  so a "normal" size 10 or so in a misses is like a small nowadays.  i found a very cute blouse pattern with peter pan collar and cuff short sleeves, and i'll be making a classic a-line dress also with the peter pan collar (you'll see this a lot in my clothes!) and a full skirt.  here are the patterns for the dress and blouse and i'll be drafting the skirt myself.   

can't wait to get started!  

welcome

my first post on my first blog!  this will be a blog about my adventures in sewing.  i'm in the process of creating my etsy store and i'll be posting about the whole process of sewing out of my home studio and about everyday life here in the midwest.  my wish is to chronicle my journey.  there will be posts about the vintage fashions that inspire me, my thrift store finds and any clothes i create.  thanks for reading, stay tuned!