365 days without shopping!

Let's be honest girls...we buy too many clothes. This year I have decided to put an end to my constant clothing consumption and re-invent, re-work and recycle my own wardrobe and the wardrobes around me. I will only wear clothes made by my own hands, exchanged / borrowed from a friend (or friendly stranger) or salvaged secondhand. And so starts my good fashion choices, even if I'm only making them for myself.

Monday, August 30, 2010

The Kitchen Tea/Coffee Date Dress

Why must we always do this to ourselves? We have an important event coming up, which of course justifies a new outfit. So we drag out our sewing machines, blow the dust off and away we go. With the lofty aspirations of the innocent we trawl the net for patterns, select that 'oh so perfect' fabric, lay it out and introduce it to our scissors. We bask in our own cleverness, imagining the complements we will receive when we spin the line 'Oh thanks I made it myself'.  Then we sew for our lives, right up until... that insurmountable snag!
     It could be a sizing issue, a pattern piece missing or a zipper that just won't zip. But low and behold 'that' moment happens, when you reach for the quick-unpick (yet again) and your arm spasms! You think it's just a cramp until you look down at the rest of your body and it to is convulsing, in the manner of a small petulant child, when it doesn't get it's way. 

Am I speaking to you? Or is this just me in a crumpled heap on the floor?

I don't know why (okay maybe i do) but every time I set out on a project I seem to overlook:

a) my skill set
b) my available free time
c) my sewing machine's capacity
d) every past project I've ever made


  I made this dress (featured above) for my kitchen tea, from the famous Burda Coffee Date Dress pattern. I was still sewing it as the first guests arrived bearing cellophane-clad goodies.  But it's okay, everything turned out alright in the end, except for the zipper, which no-one notices anyway right? 

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