Sewing 101: The dress, the curtains & the birds.

Remember the dress I mentioned I was sewing a few months ago? Well, it is now finished!

Despite a few sewing glitches around the neckline and a 2-week hiatus from completing the hem of the dress, I can now say that not only is the dress finished - but I also wore it!

The dress is form-fitting and slimming. The fit is absolutely perfect as it should be because it was made to fit my body. My favourite part of the dress is the neckline and the bodice area. There is something to be said about making your own clothing. Not just from the satisfaction of finishing a project, but that you actually get to use the finished product, and the end result looks damn good too! FYI - This photo does not do the dress justice.


Truth is, I had help making this dress. My sewing skills from Grade 7 and 8, just didn't cut it to complete this dress flawlessly. I must give credit to my good friend and sewing tutor, Cara of Leopard Spotted Designs. Cara's background is in costume design and she has worked in numerous films and movies as a professional costumer, dressing many famous celebs. She also teaches sewing at a Toronto-based sewing studio.

Cara also made these lovely kitchen curtains for me from (get this) cheese cloth fabric!! This loosely woven fabric, provides privacy, while allowing natural light to penetrate through. Clean, simple and with no frills. I LOVE my new curtains! Thanks Cara!!




And because all good things come in threes, Cara also sewed up these adorable fabric birds for me and I stuffed them with polyester fiber fill. I also added some rhinestone eyes to the birds, just because. I have a vase with some branches in my living room and these birds will look just perfect on there, once I've finished attaching the ribbon on them, of course.



So this ends my foray into sewing 101. I don't think I will be sewing anything else at the moment as I must tend to other pressing matters, like my neglected Etsy jewellery shop.

Projects galore!

In a previous post, I had showcased an assortment of vintage beads my friend K had given me to incorporate into a necklace. Well, the necklace is finished! I have created a long necklace using sterling silver parts (chain, beads, clasp) along with the one-of-a-kind, vintage beads. I am very pleased with the results as I'm sure K will be when she sees it up close!



On another note, I have become inspired to sew a summer dress for myself.
Here is the lovely grey-blue fabric I will be using.


And here is the Burda pattern for the dress. I'm so excited to be making this dress! And you know what? The supplies hardly cost that much. The pattern, 3 of metres fabric and the zipper came out to $30 CDN with the Fabricland member discount card. Of course, there is labour involved, but since I'm making the dress for myself, I'm not factoring in the cost of the labour. I'm anticipating that it will take me a while to complete, as I am a newbie. All I know is that if I had purchased a similar type dress at a clothing store it would have been priced anywhere from $60 to $100 and it would have been made in another part of the world, and probably in a sweat shop.


I have also (finally!) completed the Photoshopped image that my photographer friend J asked me to help him with. Here is a portion of the image with the copyright watermark splattered all over it. Yes, I'm paranoid and neurotic! (As a side note, for the Bloggers that may want to know how to re-create this copyright watermark effect, there is a tutorial on YouTube showing you step-by-step how to do this using Photoshop).

On the image below (and with the help of Photoshop), I tweaked the model's make-up, the skin on the entire face and body, the eyes and eyebrows, the hair, I added a motion blur in the background and I also highlighted some details of the vintage car. I sent the photographer a jpg of the finished image and he really liked the work I did!!! I have learned quite a bit at my Photoshop course. I now have new work to add to my portfolio and a new skill set to add to my resume!