So, my friend was getting married and I needed a dress.
I would be the only one standing with her and she wasn’t picky about what my dress should look like. She did make a request that it be strapless and floor length.
I decided to make my dress. Now, at this point I had only made myself about a few items like a maxi dress, maxi skirt, circle skirt…..you know, the easy stuff. I had no clue what to do for something more elegant, and the last thing I needed to do was mess up a dress. My friend was definitely on standby. She encouraged me to give it a go, and if it didn’t work out, well, we would have been shopping for a dress once I got into town.
It was an outdoor wedding that ended up being inside due to rain. The color scheme was turquoise and gray with orange accents. She also wanted her day to have a beach feel to it. Lots of shells, stones and colored sand were part of the decor.
I thought about making an all turquoise dress until I remembered my Mother-in-law love giving me a moo-moo a while ago. I realized that the colors were the same as the scheme for the wedding.
It was a bit bold, so I didn’t know how my friend would feel. I sent a picture over to her and she loved it.
I was like, “ok, here we go.” I didn’t have much room for error. There was no way I could get another moo-moo, so I decided the fabric would be used best as some type of long skirt. For the bodice I used Simplicity #1606.
I didn’t have enough fabric for a long semi-circle skirt, so I made it an A-line. Of course, I made a muslin. I mean, this thing had boning and everything. I didn’t know the first thing about it. Sometimes you just have to jump in and not look back. I was able to use most of the moo-moo by cutting it right under the neckline. I used some of the remaining fabric to decorate the guest book.
Things got a bit difficult in trying to cut the skirt pieces. It was different from the skirt in the pattern so I kinda had to do my own thing, which would have been ok had I not cut the material a hair to short. I needed also to account for the back zipper to be put in. Either way, it wasn’t bad enough to throw the project out, but I did need a solution. So, here’s the dress with bodice and skirt attached.
There was a slight slant of the back zipper to the left side of the dress, and I couldn’t figure out how to remedy that. I would not be wearing it with that slant, trying to make sure the dress was twisted just right all night. No sir, no ma’am. My solution, add a removable peplum belt.
As the young(er) people would say, “That peplum is everything!” Lol. It was such a welcome addition to the dress. I was comfortable, felt beautiful, and no one knew that up under it my zipper was on tilt. Lol.
This dress form does not do it service. It looked really nice steamed and on me. But hey, this is what I could make happen for the sake of the blog. And for about $11 (moo-moo = free, bodice fabric = $6, boning = $3, thread = $1.50) and a little bit of my time I’ll take this dress any day.
I thought I could make it with the whole sleeveless thing, but alas I could not. The night before the wedding I made myself a bolero. I didn’t have my machine, so it was a hand-stitching type of situation. I couldn’t believe myself, but I was desperate. No pic of that, but if I get one I’ll update the post.
I’m starting to see things in a whole new light. We’re told that we have to do things a certain way……..walk a certain way, talk a certain way, spend our money a certain way. Who makes up this stuff? Before I started cooking from scratch (which I don’t do ALL of the time by the way….matter of fact I’m in a cooking rut even now, lol), I could only buy food prepared in some way by others (boxed or fast). Before I learned how to sew, I could only buy clothing items made by others. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with those two things. I just want to emphasize that my options were limited, and I knew no other way. It didn’t even dawn on me that I could make my own spaghetti sauce instead of buying it in jars. My thoughts on our capabilities are changing, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to just go along with what’s normal, because someone says it’s normal. My normal looks quite different than it did a few years ago. I’m ok with that. I’m ok with this journey, and looking forward to dropping even more of the stinking thinking I’ve been accustomed to.
Didn’t plan on the post being this long. But, hey, if you’ve made it this far you might as well go ahead and tell me something that you do now that, at one point, you thought was impossible. Or one area where your eyes have been opened, and you no longer see things the way you used to.
After
clouds full of rain 