Spring Ballgown: A Strapless Top with a Peplum

Last October 2017 my daughter chose a strapless top with a peplum, tulle skirt and a cape to wear to her organization spring ball. The chosen colors were yellow or white.

I had McCall’s 6838 a strapless top and 7047’s peplum in my pattern stash. The strapless top was easy to sew, however, adding boning became a challenge for me because it was the first time that I worked with boning. For the cape I used a free pattern that was posted on Pinterest.

According to the measurement on the pattern envelope (M 6838) I needed a size 16 based on my daughter’s bust measurement. I had a size 14 and I wasn’t going to buy another pattern. I measured the tissue pattern and the measurements were larger than indicated on the size 14 pattern envelope, except that I had to increase the waist by 2 inches.

I watched videos on You Tube  and Craftsy (Custom Corset: bones, casing & busks) to understand how to do boning. 

After watching the videos, I made four muslin for one reason or the other. Muslin #4 was the winner, then:
 Problem#1: I used seven shades of yellow tulle to make a tulle skirt with an elastic waist band. There was a total of 14 layers of tulle.   After completing the skirt, I realize that the fabric for the strapless top was not a good match for the tulle skirt.

Problem #2: I had a difficult time finding the right shade of yellow for the strapless top, eventually I found 1.5 yards of the perfect color fabric in my stash; however, it was the medium weight cotton with no stretch (sort of upholstery type), wrong type of fabric. Oh well, I had five days to complete the top and I made it work.

 Regarding boning: Craftsy video instruction concerning how to add boning was great. I used that method to add boning to the side of the strapless top.

YouTube video; I watched several videos, all instruct you to add boning to the princess seam and side seam area, one of the videos instructed to add additional boning to the center front and across the back of strapless top at a 45-degree angle.  

That did not work for my daughter because the boning in the princess seam for some reason caused the shape of the top to become distorted and it was not a comfortable fit.

Following the advice that I saw on one of the tutorials on you tube, I bought a long line strapless bra that was fully boned. And I hand sewed the top of the strapless bra to the completed strapless top. It worked well. The strapless top remains in place and it did not move.

 Lessons learned: 1. tutorials are great, however not everything in the tutorial will work with your project. 2. I am going to remake the pattern once I find the same color in the right fabric. 3. I plan to follow the pattern instructions and will add boning following the Craftsy class.

Even though this project was planned months ago, I did not get started on the project until one week before the event. Oh well that was an improvement. Last year I completed my daughter’s outfit 10 minutes before she was ready to walk out the door.

I truly enjoy the fact that my daughter's request took me out of my comfort zone. I am on the hunt for the perfect fabric in the exact same shade of yellow to remake the top.

Later.

A Stitch in Time- Historical Costumes

A Stitch in Time is a documentary that was done by the BBC. It combines biography, art and fashion. The host Amber Butchart is a fashion historian who gives background information about the paintings or historical figure she chooses for Ninya Mikhail ( historical tailor) and her team to recreate. The garment created are not an exact reproduction. Many of the original details are not recreated. I suspect that it was due to time constraints, the high cost to recreate an exact replica or not having a good visual representation of the garment. The garments were sewn by hand, just as they were during that period.  I've enjoyed the season one and hope BBC has plans for another season.

Here are the links for the series:
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bae5xuDKNQs&index=4&list=RDGSDDJrlJukM
2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09l2qzs

Later

Happy Easter & April Planner Layout

Planner Layout/ Ideals Magazines/ Barnes & Noble

Once a year I enjoy going to Barnes & Noble and spending time in the Annex section of the store. Not all Barnes & Noble have an Annex.   The Annex have  all kind of old books, magazines, cds, old vinyl records, art and books about any subject for cheap.

There is a perpetual sale of red, blue, green and yellow stickers. Depending on the stickers the books can cost from $1.00 to $100.00 or more. 2-years ago I found Ideals Magazines for $1.00 each and I bought all the magazines (10).

The magazines were from the 1960's; they had beautiful images, poems, a bit of history (Legendary Americans), recipes,crafts etc.   After reading the magazines from cover to cover I did a bit of research and I learned that Ideals Magazines were published from 1944 until 1967; I spent time reading each magazine from cover to cover and decided to use it to decorate my planner instead of keeping them in a bookshelf. I also bought a few more copies on E-Bay.

 I got the idea to use magazines, old books, calendars to decorate my planner or to use in journals ( sewing, writing, health journal, fashion, etc) after watching a few videos by this You Tuber.

I wanted a break from all the stickers and the washi tape in my planner, and yes it is a lot of fun to purchase them, however, there is a big expense associated with constantly buying washi and stickers and decorating my planner began to take up too much of my time and eventually I lost interest. I took a break and did not decorate my planner in 2016 for a 2-3 months. And oh what a relief it was.

When I began to decorate my planner again I used the pages of Ideals magazine and it only took 10-15 minutes, sometimes 10 minutes and it was done-dot-com.

It has been 2-years since I bought washi or stickers because I have a large collection and I also use magazines pages, scrapbook paper and wrapping papers that I already have in my craft arsenal. Also, I saw a You Tuber make washi tape out of fabric scraps and guess what I did a big portion of my fabric scraps.

 I don't pay full price for magazines or book (old ones), I get them free at the doctor's office or I buy books from the the library during the bi-annual book sale and the price range from 0.25 cents to 1.00. Additionally, my local library sell books and magazines all year for 0.25-0.50 cents.
You can also go online and google free magazines and you will be surprise to see how many magazines you can get for free. Oh this is not my idea, I got the information from this You Tuber.

Later....

March Monthly Planner Layout

# Wakanda Color Palette

I found this eye shadows color palette here. The brand is named Araza. I don't know anything about the brand other than what was written in the blog post where I found the photo. I love the colors because it is similar to colors that I saw in the movie. The colors of Wakanda, these are the colors that stood out the most to me.

Enjoy!

#Blackpanther #Wakanda

           

Went to the movies with the honey and had a blast getting dress. I have a closet full of beautiful clothes that allows me to get dress for any occasion  at any time. The jacket is RTW, it's a bold, colorful & beautiful leopard print; however it hung in my closet for ever because I was waiting for the perfect occasion to show it off. And show off I did. The blouse is another classic that is at lease 10-years old and the pants I sewed last spring.
If you have not seeing the movie, please run to the nearest theater. The colors and costumes are absolutely beautiful. For those who are into technology there is a glimpse of the future particularly as it relates to communication and science.
Later.....