A Tale of Two Dresses

I finally had a flash about Milly's Cup today. The problem had been slim pickins as far as fabric selection - I needed 12 yards total !! I wanted a nice muslin - why bother sewing it if not to wear it? But, do the math and you'll understand why I was looking for a super red tag. In a sudden grasp of the obvious I realized I could get away with doing the dress tea length for the muslin, thus eliminating about 5 yards of fabric. Another "oh!" when I realized I could also wear this muslin to my cousin's wedding, which a little birdie tells me is right around the corner (HLF you'd better call me!).

I packed up the little man and headed back to BigName, and... (imagine Handel's Halleluiah Chorus in background here) not only were they friendly today, but I found some fabric! It's not quite what I intend to use on the final version (silk chiffon and double georgette) but it's kind of exotic in a sherberty way. The print is poly chiffon and the lining poly habutai. Funny thing is that the lining is the exact color of edupraz's version of this dress! I didn't realize it until I came home and looked up the review :) weird- this dress wants to be a Buddhist. It also evidently wants to be tea length. So here's the start of Milly's Muslin:

And here's the dressform- I've still to work up a base...

I have discussed it with my sweetie-pie-husband-who-will-be-doing-all-the-work, and we are going to make another dressform. This one ended up being too big in the proportions around the waist, and the bust fell on it. I'll keep this one around because it will get use, but I'm going to try the next duct tape form with the wiring inside and see if it keeps f0rm better. As it is, this one is actually hanging from the ceiling overhead and just steadied on a disassembled music stand with pvc.

With all the duct tape, the people at Home Depot are going to start to wonder about me and my husband :)

Don't look down.

Especially at Metro Textiles. On a recent trip with Karen and Carolyn to see the endearing Mr. Kashi, I was overwhelmed by the wall-to-ceiling rolls of fabulous fabric. I already had a significant pile accumulated and I was trying to avoid another find by looking down at my feet. Well don't you know in Metro Textiles, all the goodies are on the floor! The 2.5 yard remnants that in the mad rush of squeezing bodies through Kashi's store fall helplessly around his cutting area. Half of what I left his shop with was a floor find. Like this beautiful pumpkin silk shirting with fine striping throughout-


It's the beautiful hint-of-blood orange that looks great next to berries, and it's my color of choice recently. It's also so buttery soft... I'm going to use it as the lining for my entry in the PR jacket contest- Butterick 5145. I plan to do view A, the short jacket, with the collar of view E (is that mandarin?). The fantanstic metal buttons are a find from Pacific Trims, another of our NYC stops. The jacket fabric is an IKEA cotton velour(?) drape that I rescued from Village Thrift. It laundered beautifully :) No muslin fabric for Milly's dress yet, but the dressform is coming along...

My First Burda

Quote of the day:
"Hey honey, I think Karen left a road map or something in this Burda magazine she lent me. Oh no... wait a minute..."

The Quest for the Cup Begins

I set out with a list of things to do today, and I'm pleasantly surprised by my sort-of progress :) I checked the local BigName for redtag fabrics to use on my 1030 muslin. I managed to find some poly chiffon and 1 (!) bolt of poly georgette- no double georgette. Of course, I have no idea what that means, so I'm off to find a fabric book tomorrow. I left empty handed. I'm thinking I might want to substitute the georgette lining for something more substantial.

And my absolutely wonderful incredibly awesome breathtakingly handsome manly intelligent husband helped me finally get started on my dressform tonight!!!! I wore the black turtleneck and nylon/lycra skirt from the plastermold fiasco- both fit snug to the body, and then he wrapped away for two hours with a white duct tape I found at Home Depot- it's near the paints in case you too find yourself wandering around for 30 minutes marvelling at how many different aisle categories duct tape could fit under, and yet still remain elusive. I read somewhere on Threads site that you should use 3 layers of tape. I think we have at least 30. Needless to say, we cut it off, hung it up and then went - "oh, I guess I need other stuff for it too." So tomorrow I'm back to Home Depot to get some hardware to mount the form, which I fear is bigger in places than I was prepared for.

I stocked up on watercolor paper and am eager to get outside and find more inspiration.

Chapter Two: Milly's Cup

What do you get when you cross this:

with this:

???

Eventually we will know, but for now I hope it looks a little like this:

I was visited by my angelically beautiful cousin, Milly, last week and found inspiration inside my local coffee shop. I had been drooling over my unopened Vogue 1030 for over a month now, stalking my street like Mr. Burns devising sinister plots to takeover the world- just trying to come up with something tasty for it. Milly was taken in by a chocolate-banana drink and I, being faithful to my tea at home, browsed around. And then this mug just jumped off the shelf and started banging itself on my head... The blue lining on the inside, the airy eggshell chiffon caressing it, its lengths on fire with watery color- I swear I stood in the middle of the coffee shop frozen with my eyes like saucers as I thought of this pattern, people thought there was a medical emergency.

I ran home and did the best sketch I could with my kid's watercolors and paper and then researched silk painting in earnest. I'm now in the works with ordering silk painting beginner kits to brush up on techniques and looking to get the cheapest/nicest/cheapest muslin fabric I can get.

And my darling son (22 mos.) will be starting daycare 3 mornings a week so I will have 11.5 hours every week of beautiful, glorious, fantabulously uninterrupted sewing time. I should have titled this "sleeping beauty" because I know I must be dreaming! You guys might actually get a blog to read!

Chapter One: The Frog Princess

McCall's 5583 for the Pattern Review Advanced Beginner Contest. And so it begins...

I have no idea what I'm doing...

I think I just created a sewing blog...