Making a dress (part 2)

Sorry for this horribly long two-part post around the making of my sister's dress...for me it justifies two posts due to the magnitude of the project. While for others whipping up a dress may be something they mention in passing at the end of a post relating to other things, for me it is an occasion similar to the birth of a child that requires endless photographs of the newborn and the eating of chocolate eclairs to celebrate.

Well, my sister arrived and tried on her dress...and it fitted, which was such a huge relief and I thought she looked wonderful in it. When I had phoned to let her know that it was ready she joked about whether she would be able to get her arms through the holes...which made me laugh and I felt comforted by the fact that she had asked me to make it for her, half-accepting that it may well be a disaster. It is a sign that she knows me well that she knew that aspect of dressmaking may prove troublesome to me (it requires small amounts of mathematics...I shall say no more) and how lovely it was to confess that the eventual arms on her dress were not the first pair to have graced the arm holes.

But the arms did fit and with room to spare for at least another quarter of an arm in each...should that strange need arise.

We were both pleased with the detail of this shiny button and the keyhole opening...but if I was ever to make something similar again I would use a lighter-weight interfacing for the dress facings as it took some work to reduce the bulk around the keyhole.

And here it is on the inside...I can see why there was a passing trend for stitching to be visible on the outside of t-shirts and I'm sure it was all to do with the rampant egos of machinists (possibly those new to the field of garment construction)....something along the lines of 'mmm, my seams are so satisfying that to turn them inwards to the body seems an insult!'

There's something lovely about covering buttons and I taught Zebra-girl how to do them while I made these ones...she was amazed at how the material is drawn up around the disc as you pull on the threads - the possibilities with such an activity are endless...

And finally here it is about to be wrapped to give to my sister. A couple of days earlier when I had been about to show her the new Moo cards I'd received for my shop (it's taking so long it's beginning to feel like it might be a figment of my imagination...but apparently late September is looking hopeful), she had stopped me from showing them to her and said she wanted to see them as part of the opening of her dress...attaching your first Moo card to something is a little like opening your very best new stationary...it has that 'ahhh' factor of loveliness...even Mr Teacakes has been coveting them...so much so that he has now placed his own Moo order.

Despite the fact that this dress was my sister's belated birthday present, somehow in all her muddled up loveliness she felt the need to buy me presents to thank me for making it (and that was before she'd even seen the finished result...it could have been such a sticky situation had I been forced to hand over only the shreds of butchered material)...the most perfect little pot for putting my rings in at bedtime:

And some spice pots that we had seen and coveted in Habitat last year on a day out together...

...filled with buttons, rather than spice, some of them are handmade ceramics.

There. I feel I can stop talking about the dress now. I won't mention it again. I shall instead tell you, in case she sees it here herself and is horrified by it, that my sister's hair is not really a strange greyish-blue colour, nor is her skin so anemic-looking. I have adjusted the colour levels a little in these photos, as red and black are such tricksy colours to capture, but that has had a most unfortunate effect on the other elements of the photo. In reality Laura's hair is the most lovely golden colour and I had the fun of cutting it on her visit home last week, which is one of my favourite things to do. She asked me to take three inches off, but I think in the end it was closer to four...but over the years I have come to realise that she always tells me a little less than she would actually like in order to leave room for inevitable error. For cutting hair is a little like installing arms onto dresses...but less repairable...but I'm not meant to be talking about dresses...