Sunday, May 29, 2011

I'm going to a wedding! So I need a new dress!

I mean, duh. If there is any occasion that warrants a new dress, a wedding is definitely it. Even if you aren't the bride, which I'm not. So I decided to make my dress, on account of that is why I purchased a pile of vintage silk saris from ebay, well, that and I was taking belly dance classes, and one of the dances uses really big scarves, and they are expensive, but you can make two scarves from one sari, with a bit left over for sashes or whatever. And, they generally cost around $25 for five meters of fabric. Plus, they come in a zillion abfab colors and prints. I've been using some for embroidery, the stole was done using two of the pretty colored ones.

For my dress I am using one in turquoise and sea blue, with dark blue and orangey-yellowy prints in stripes. The pallu of the sari (for those who aren't familiar with the lingo, that is a decorative rectangle at one end of the sari, specifically, the end that is tossed over the shoulder and hangs down) and also the selvage edges have a very fine gold woven floral decoration that I am going to use for the bottom of the dress, and for the sleeve edging on the jacket. I am using a pattern from Simplicity, number 3799. It has a dress, jacket, a top which is a short version of the dress, and either cropped pants or walking shorts. I plan to make some pairs of walking shorts from this pattern out of heavy cotton fabric at some point, as my shorts have of late been wearing out and I can never seem to find comfortable pants-- they don't fit right and it drives me bonkers. Anyway, no pictures this time, but I'll be taking some for the next entry.

A friend of mine who also sews clothes helped me lay out the jacket so that I could get the entire body of the jacket out of the pallu, and also helped me lay it out so the front opening of the jacket will have the decorative border along it. The pictures will help explain it--it really is true that a picture is worth a thousand words.

I also want to try to make a hat and purse out of some of the leftover fabric, I think there is enough of the pallu fabric left to make a little evening bag out of, and if nothing else, I'll make a long strip of fabric to use as a hatband/headband.

THE Magpie

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