Custom Made: 1920s Inpired Petal Dress

A couple of days before I left for Savannah I was working on finishing this dress.  This is the second, custom made garment that was auctioned off at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art's Fundraiser Gala.  As I met with the 2^nd woman to go over what she wanted, she told me that she was looking for something with a nod to the 1920s/30s.  She's getting married in October and the theme of her wedding is based from that era, and she was hoping on possibly wearing this as a reception dress.  So of course my mind immediately went to the gorgeous petal technique that I saw on the dress that Daisy was wearing in her opening scene of The Great Gatsby.  I fell in love with that technique right away on screen, and I had been wanting try my own spin on it for a while now. 

I drafted the pattern according to the woman's measurements.  The dress is made from chiffon and the lining from satin.  The lining is a completely separate dress from the overlay.  I find that whenever I make a dress from chiffon it's nice to have the option to choose between different colored slips. 

Every seam on the dress is finished off by either using a french seam, or by hand sewing the seams shut.  Chiffon tends to fray easily after a couple of wears and if all the seams are closed the garment will last much longer.  Each petal was hand cut and the edges on all the petals had to be slightly melted using a cigarette lighter to keep them from fraying.  After all the petal edges were sealed I started pinning and hand sewing each petal individually to the dress.  Many hours of hand sewing went into this dress, but it was such a fun dress to work on!  I'd like to play around with embellishing different garments with petals as well.     

All photos take by myself

I just ordered a new sewing machine the other day for my apartment here in Savannah.  It should be arriving tomorrow which I'm extremely excited about.  I'm partnering with a local boutique from Fort Wayne that's going to be selling my garments when I come back home on break.  I'm hoping in my free time to spend as much time as I can sewing between classes.

Also as a side note - I've put new photo prints for sale in my Etsy shop!  I'll be adding new clothes as well within the next week or two.  I have a whole week before classes start so I'm hoping to focus more time into my Etsy shop this week. 

  

I hope your Monday is wonderful and much more to come this week! 

New Beginnings and Feeling Nostalgic

Oh goodness, I've been quiet for so long that I feel like I have a whole other life to write about and I don't even know where to start!  The past few weeks have been a blur of working and preparing for my move to Savannah.  I arrived Thursday evening and I can't believe that I get to live in this beautiful city for the next four years. 

Today I was thinking about Indiana and remembering the dance party that I threw in my backyard last week. I wanted to have a time when I could say goodbye to my friends all at one time and make it special.  I was looking through the images on my computer today and it's making me feel slightly nostalgic for last week.  It was such a magically fun night and I thought that I'd share it with you.  It's so strange to think that just a week ago I was saying goodbye to all of my good friends in Indiana and now I'm in a new state.  

Also, several weeks back I had the lovely pleasure of meeting Erin from Design for Mankind.   I couldn't believe when I found out that Erin lives literally 10 minutes from in my house in Indiana!  She had contacted me about modeling for the promo film for her new website Clementine Daily that launched Wednesday!  Such an exciting new website!   If you've ever met Erin you'll know just how nice and welcoming she is and that's the same feeling that I get when reading Clementine Daily.  If you get the chance stop by Clementine and check out Erin and the incredible team of writers! 

Clementine Daily 001 from Erin on Vimeo.

Right now I'm unpacking and putting together my new room, but I have so many new projects to show you from this past summer.  My first class doesn't start till next week so I'm hoping to post a couple projects before then.  I can't wait to share more with you!

 I hope your summer was lovely!

Custom Made - Hand Printed Dress

Each year in the spring the Fort Wayne Museum of Art hosts an annual fundraiser called the ARTrageous Gala.  This year they asked if I would be willing to be a part of the even by auctioning off my time for a custom made cocktail dress that night in March.  The FWMoA has helped me so much through hosting the regional Scholastic competition throughout the years that of course I said yes!  It was such pleasure and honor that they even thought of me, and I was so glad to be a part of it that night.  

For the custom dress - I first drafted the pattern using the woman's measurements.  After the first pattern was drafted I made a mock up dress to make sure the fit was correct.  I had to make some small adjustments in the shoulders, but other than that the fit was fine.  Once the adjustments were made to the pattern I started the construction on the real dress.   I wanted to keep the design of the actual dress pretty simple, because there's so much work that went into the print.  The pattern on the fabric was all hand drawn using fine point Sharpies.  I lost track of how much time went into the doodling, but I'm sure it was over 15 hours of just doodling.

And to answer the question that I know many of you are probably thinking - yes the dress is for the most part water resistant.  I did a test with water and it was fine as long as there was no aggressive scrubbing (when I did scrub it just faded a little).  Since the dress is made from linen it will have to be dry cleaned anyway, so fading should not be a problem.

The dress is fully lined with an invisible zipper in the back of the dress.  There is a placket of hand covered buttons over the zipper to create a little vintage element - but without actually having up button up the whole dress.   

All photos taken by myself

There was a slight bidding war that night and I was asked in the middle of it if I could make two custom dresses instead of one.  The other dress is incredibly detailed so it's taking more time than I initially thought, but I'm planning on finishing it before I leave for school which is in 3 weeks now.  If I go by the plan, photos of that dress should be up soon!  

In non-sewing news - my sister was home visiting last week and it was so incredible to see her again!  It was a lot of fun and we took a few photo shoots, which I'm hoping to post soon.  In the mean time, here are some of our instagram pictures from the week. 

Ruth's Instagram.  My instagram. 

I hope your August has been nothing but spectacular so far!  I'm hoping to finish a few more posts before I go to Savannah, so more should be up soon! 

My Inspiration Journal

Old hardcover books are one of my favorite things.  Not only are they cool looking, but I love to hollow them out and use them as journals.  Sometimes I don't even hollow them out (like in this one), but I just start adding pictures straight to the pages.  Sometimes I feel like I forget the inspiring images that I have saved to a folder on my computer.  Believe me - I have folders and folders of saved inspiration photos, but there's something special about having a book to flip through.  Here are a few of the pages from this year's journal.

This journal is now full, but I just made a new writing journal from an old book the other day.  I'm starting to get into writing a lot more in journals, instead of pictures.  I found an old diary I kept when I was in the 3rd grade.  Sometimes I forget how much I've changed, and it's such a cool reminder to look back and read some of the things that I've written in the past.  

  My new journal looks exactly like the 2nd to last picture in this post - only that's going to be the style of the whole journal.  I recommend making one yourself!  All you have to do is find an old hardcover book, take a glue stick and paste a new piece of paper over the words - then write!  It's always so satisfying when a journal is completely filled.  You might even remember this inspiration journal I made and wrote about a couple years back.

If you're able to find time to keep a journal I highly recommend it!

Gypsy Travelor

These are my last set of photos taken while in California.   I think I've said this before, but sunset is always my favorite time of day, and I've never seen a sunset as beautiful as it was in California!  

There was such a difference between the sunset overlooking the bay and the sunset overlooking the beach.  There's a desert area on the bay side with walking paths, which was incredibly still and quiet.  Like everything was just frozen in time.  I almost feel like that spot was created just for me to find and capture the time as the light went from an overwhelming golden to a still dark. 

Outfit:  

 High Waisted Plaid Shorts:  DIY pants made into shorts

 Sandals:  Aldo

 Sunglasses:  H&M

Necklace:  DIY made from a drawer knob. 

 Headband:  DIY made from scrap fabric.

The sunset on the beach was a completely different story.  The beach was loud as the waves came towards you.  The white caps looked like mini charging horses that eventually fade into the overhead sun that was being reflected on the flat sandy shores.  Right as the sun would come down there was such a beautiful sense of peace, and I didn't want to move, because I felt like it would ruin the moment.

It's saddening that these are the last pictures I took while in California.  I want to go back so badly, but I think it might be a while longer yet.  I guess that just makes thinking about it even more special.  What's your favorite place that you've ever been to?  I love hearing stories of travel, because I dream of traveling all over one day.

I hope your July has been lovely and full of fantastic memories!