Denim Three Quarter Sleeves Mini Dress

 Well, to be honest, this is a disillusionment, in more than one sense. 

First, I bought the fabric online last year, from the UK. I can't remember the exact shop, it could be Stone Fabrics, but I am not sure... I have looked their website now (and some others) and it is not there any more. I remember it was Robert Kaufman's, and I also can recall the disappointment in the colour of it. If I can get the right colour with my S10 phone, how come they cannot get the right colour in their pictures??? I was looking fore something paler, closer to classical medium coloured denim. The good part is the fabric is still beautiful, in spite of the too flashy blue, because of the sewn in white dots. Well, that for the first disappointment. 

But there are more. 

I saw this pattern in a BurdaStyle magazine, held by my local bibliobus (which I totally adore). I am eternally looking for the perfect gathered-at-the-waist dress. Not found it yet, I am always trying a new one and having to do major adjustments. This particular one was thought for viscose, so the 1st fitting was hilarious (in the opposite sense). To the button stand and opening at the front starting point modification, I had to lower the waist 4 cm all around, and take A LOT of fabric off the skirt. The only good news is that sleeves were perfect, and the open front and v-neck were too. 

But then I cut too much fabric off, and I had almost not fabric to gather. I almost flunked it to the bin! It was a complete failure, it looked like a sack, and not in the good sense. 

Luckily, I had the brilliant idea of tightening the upper bodice 8 cm in total at the waist, and this gave some more figure and some more skirt gather! Few!

I finished the dress in cold weather, and I could only wear it once. The pictures were taken after working in it all day and sitting in a bar some more. It wrinkles in an ugly way, is the last of my disappointments. So, I do not know it this will get much wear or not, we will see. 

Update: who'd know this would end up being one of my favourite dresses? I love it! I feel great wearing it, it combines wonderfully with my grey wool jacket and I'd make it again with some spotted corduroy I've seen online, if I hadn't thrown the pattern away after so many major changes. So, great dress, still looking for this pattern.

Denim Mini Shirt Dress

 ...or how to get away with 1.5 square meters of fabric, haha!

Well, that fabric had been in my stash for a couple of years, with the idea of making some jeans... but then I thought it was too thin for that, and when I finally decided to give it a go and put the jeans pattern on it, I saw it was totally not enough, thanks to the unusual 1.5 m width instead of 1.70. No jeans, not even pirates could be made out of it... so I got the inspiration while wearing this other dress, which is a pattern from Burda Style magazine that I almost threw away at the beginning of the season due to lack of shoes-to-go-with-it inspiration. I literally rescued it from the waste bin when I mentally matched it with combat boots. 

I had to perform a massive hacking in that pattern. First, I transformed the princess seams into darts going up and down from the waist band, which I added. I then made a typical denim dress yoke, drawing it by hand in the paper pattern, both in the front and back bodices. Finally, I added a couple of cms in the armscyes bottoms to compensate to the lack of sleeves. I used the same collar and collar stand, which were perfect, and I made some belt loops for the waist band. 

I looked and looked in my remnants stash (the little pieces of fabric I keep after making a project) until I found this stripped red and white seersucker fabric, which became a perfect match. 

The final result was so lovely, I was surprised. The perfect fit. Very happy with it.