Fortunately, I have been able to do some sewing today and yesterday (there has to be some advantage to being fit enough to be out of bed, yet not fit enough to be at work...). I'm working on another jacket for my boyfriend. Another black cotton one, for this spring. Just because he wears the one I made him in autumn all the time... This time I'm not using the formal jacket block but the casual one, which I've used before for his winter coat. No pictures now, but I'll show it to you when it's done.
What I want to talk about now, is further sewing plans... Dresses and jumpsuits, those are on my mind now. Of course, nice tops and maybe another pair of trousers would be more practical but also less fun. And, especially when I'm busy, I need enough fun projects to keep my sewing mojo up.
I'm thinking about a colourblock dress. A full skirted shirt waister, with some colourblocking, to be precise. In part because colourblocking is still very much in fashion, in part because Elizabeth has reminded me of that in her posts and in part because my grandmother once told me how, back in the early 50's, a fashion-conscious friend of hers would adapt to the new seasons' skirt length by adding bands of fabric in different colours to the bottom of her skirts. And because I've had this blue fabric in my stash for quite a while now. It is 100% cotton, a nice weight for a dress, the colour suits me and I've got lots of it but I have always thought it would look too uniform-y if I would wear it all-over.
So, colourblocking could be the way forward. I plan on drafting a fairly simple shirt dress with a full skirt (circle or wide with pleats), a waist seam, fitted bodice and short sleeves. I made the sketches with two different kind of sleeves: kimono (with underarm gusset) and set-in with shoulder extention (the first is more of a 1950's style, the second is more 1940's).
And then, I just played around with the colourblocking. The main part of the dress will be in blue, that's a given. And I keep in mind that I usually wear my black belt with all dresses in this shape.
P.S. This new blogger-interface is frustrating. Does anyone know how to leave one blank line between lines of text? Now, just pressing the return key seems to generate two, which stretches the text out in a weird way.
A vote for number 3.
ReplyDeleteAnother vote for number 3.
ReplyDeleteAnd, definitely, I regret choosing blogspot over wordpress...
I am curious as to how they would look with one color band at the hem. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteI found number two by far the most aesthetically appealing; on consideration I think this is perhaps because the others are just slightly boiler-suit-like in effect. I think the line of the colour blocking in version two, almost like a bolero, will be very flattering. The bands of colour across the shoulders, as in the other three versions, create a rather heavy-shouldered look.
ReplyDeleteI like number 1 the most :)
ReplyDeleteI like the last one the best. I am curious to hear which is your favorite. I loved the story about adding bands to the skirts. Very cool. And thank you for the shout out! :)
ReplyDeleteI like number 4 the best. I think the dark colour next to the lighter blue is beautiful so I would use that a lot. And then use the brown as an accent.
ReplyDeleteBlogger can be a real pain in the ***. Maybe if you try using the shift-button together with the enter-button? That works for me in Word, but I don't know if this is the same problem.
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ReplyDeleteBeautiful shirtdress ideas! This will be very lovely, and I love that story about adding bands to adjust for fashionable lengths... I like the first one; it has a nice symmetry.
ReplyDeleteI looked at your source code and you are getting an extra line break (sort of like "half a paragraph" in code-speak), which I think is caused by the way your browser is interacting with the blogger editor. Are you using Firefox? That might solve the problem. If it doesn't, Blogger has some nice newer templates/themes that won't have this problem.
I like #1 and #3 the best, they feel the most balanced to me, #2 looks a bit like a blue apron over a brown dress...
ReplyDeleteWhen I create my posts in Blogger, I bounce back and forth between the HTML editor and the Richtext editor, which has over time taught me that whatever wierd thing the code is doing I can change.