Dear Reader (This month's dresses!)

Dearest Reader,
The dresses up for voting this month are
Dear Half Way Mark (Dress 102) Knife and Fork
Dear Half Way Mark (Dress 105) Patches of Text
Dear Half Way Mark (Dress 106) Orange Peeled
Dear Half Way Mark (Dress 107) Spats Dress
Dear Half Way Mark (Dress 108) Quoted Cleavage
Dear Ilana (Dress 114) Strawberries and Cream
Dear Antoine (Dress 116) Le Petit Prince
Dear Koko Black (Dress 117) Nom Nom Nom
Dear Safta Haya (Dress 118) Copper and Midnight
Dear Metro (Dress 119) Tracks and Tunnel
Dear City Hatters (Dress 121) Top Hat and Macaw
Dear Darryl (Dress 122) Pallette
Dear Tom n' Jess (Dress 123) Vase/Face
Dear Alice (Dress 124) Carrots
Dear Dad (Dress 127) Space Invaders Arr.
Dear 1980's (Dress 129) Mirror Image Collar
Dear 365ers (Dress 131) Ruled Margins
Dear Collectors Everywhere (Dress 133) Film Trimmings
Dear Renault (Dress 134) Grille'd
Dear Scrabble (Dress 136) Seven Buhbillion Letter Score
Dear Dianna Wynne-Jones (Dress 137) Backless with Torq
Dear Pentel (Dress 138) Graphite 1920s

Vote well! Vote often! Vote wisely!
And please invite your friends to participate, the more votes the merrier!
All my love,
IP

Dear Reader (New Poll)

Dearest Reader,
Here are the dresses up for voting this month
Dear MTC/Malthouse (Dress 69)
Dear Maya (Dress 70)
Dear Gabrielle Adler (Dress 71)
Dearest New Pillow (Dress 72)
Dear 13/5/10 (Dresses 74, 75, 79, 80, 82, 83)
Dear Honeybee (Dress 86)
Dear Tramdrivarr (Dress 87)
Dear Wright Bros (Dress 88)
Dear Beautiful Red-Headed Girls (Dress 90)
Dear Sally (Dress 92)
Dear Ater (Dress 94)
Dear Patternmakers (Dress 99)
Dear Jorge (Dress 100)
Dear Kate, Stevie & ? (Dress 101)
All my love,
Happy voting!
IP

Dear Reader (Poll Results)

Dear Reader,
The poll results are in and:
1 vote for Dear Monfash (Dress 50)
3 votes for Dear Young Queen Elizabeth (Dress 53)
2 votes for Dear Melbourne Dandy (Dress 56)
and 1 vote for Dear Winter Night (Dress 61)
So Dear Young QEII it is!
New poll will be up soon.
New feature: multiple votes accepted.
All my love,
IP

Dearest Pina Bauch (Dress Made 1)

Dearest Pina Bauch,
This dress was damn HARD. I've never designed and then made a dress from scratch- i'm not very happy with how it came out, but i'm just relieved it came out on time in one piece. It's really the wrong week to be making a dress- i'm stressed as hell and today has NOT been a good day, but knowing I'm carrying a product of my design in my bag is a pretty awesome feeling.

I started making the dress at about 3pm ( I think) it really did not work, and when I realised that the fabric did not stretch as much as I thought it did, and the quick-fix-remedy I tried did not work, I chucked a MASSIVE tear-fit,  drank a glass of concrete (as they say), toughened the f*** up, and started again. Bloody hell. But I managed to salvage the skirt from the old dress for the new sleeves, and even though my machine freaked out towards the end the new dress was done by 11pm. 

It fits like a hero (losing a kilo or two definately would not hurt either) as long as you don't look at the stitching on the inside. Nothing is worse than tension troubles in a machine.

These photos are even worse than the product, I'm just proving I made it, and I'll post proper photos later.

Image 1: just a plain shot of the dress hanging on my purple door. (awful, I know. I picked the colours for my room when I was 13!)

Image 2: Stretched out the sleeve so you can see the shape of it. If you look closely you can see the elastic straps.

All my love,

(And exhaustion)

IP.

Dear Reader (Making Dress 1)

Dearest Reader,
Well, we come to the beginning of our third month, and the votes (all three of them!) tallied unanimously in favour of the Pina Bausch Dress... now a dear friend of mine was looking for a dress for an art piece, so I may well make it for her, but I'll definately be making one this month, voting has begun for the next month's dress; so: Go! Vote! If there aren't more than 20 votes (total) this month I may have to choose the dress myself. We'll see...
All my love,