Showing posts with label sewing machine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sewing machine. Show all posts

Monday, May 31, 2010

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.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Dear Nicola (Dress 93)

Dearest Nicola,
I'm really very fond of you, so it's strange that I really only see you once a year (at Sally's birthday). You study silversmithing, so I was thinking about how you could incorporate silver into a dress.
This dress is really rather awfully drawn, so my computer being an uploadbitch is a rather awesome coincidence. I'll post it as soon as it's fixed.
The idea was, two silver 'clips' made from old singer sewing machine plates (see here for an incredible archive of singer 'plates') to hold a cowl neck together, and hold about three inches of hem into a mirror of the neckline.
All my love,
IP