Last year I went to Martha Pullen's School of Art Fashion for the second time. The previous year I won free tutition for this year so I decided to partake of the fun pre-day classes during this semester. It was so much fun to go and meet other women who enjoy and love sewing as much as I do. I met some really fun women there who I still keep in contact with and we send text messages of our finished projects and updates on our lives.
Yes SOAF cost some money but thus far both years have been totally worth the cost and I am signed up for this July 2013 as well.
I wanted to blog about this fun experience and tell you about the classes I took. So this was one of my pre-day classes I took with Kari Mecca. Now may I just say Kari Mecca is the guru of fun add-ons to simple dresses. She has two books out there Sewing with Whimsy and More Sewing with Whimsy that I bought and LOVE, LOVE and LOVE. She created these whismy sticks that make all the decorating fairly easy. Yes I bought those too and love recreating her stuff in her books for my daughter!
This dress was the first one I completed from the school last year (yes it took me that long but mainly because my store has exploded with customers, hooray!) If truth be told that isn't true I finished one dress at the school but I lost the top of a snap on it and can't find a matching snap here in our few crafting stores :( But this dress I had to finish while my daughter still fit in a size 2 I started it in at the school and here it is:
Even she is excited about this dress being completed.
The beading took me FOREVER but was so worth it.
I have never been more proud of a dress I have made as this one. I love everything about it. The dress itself was very easy to put together. The fabric is a cotton that is super soft. It is Floating Flowers by Kaffe Fassett for their voile collection sold a while ago by Westminister. The white is Swiss edged 6 in lace.
The flowers are made with ribbon using the whimsy sticks and adorning with beads.
The pink and blue trim along the top is also ribbon loops made using the whimsy sticks.
The underskirt and pockets are emblished with royal blue 1 inch (or close to that) velvet ribbon. Everything but the velvet ribbon was hand tacked on.
Before this class I had never done pleating like shown on the sleeves or worked with material like this. The hem was new to me as well. This is one dress I absolutely love but would never sell in my shop as it would be unlikely I would get the return back that would make it worth the amount of time each dress would take. But I can use the velvet and ribbon trim here and there on other outfits to give them more boutique flair!
Enjoy,
Barbara
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