Look at my little silver tiddler!So, a few years ago, at the annual Fabulous Fabrics Christmas sale, I was moved by some mad irrational impulse to purchase 2m of silver sequined stretchy fabric. Exactly why is mystery to me now… since silver sequins are completely unsuited to my colouring and just about everything in my wardrobe. Must have had a brief “ooh, pretty shiny!!” moment, compounding the alluring thrill of 50% off euphoria. But anywho I succumbed, and it has since been sitting in my stash taking up shelf space for too too long. February’s stashbusting theme is to make something for someone you love. So I made something for my daughter.
Fortunately she looks utterly fabulous in silver. I must have unselfishly and subliminally planned it ;)
Now, I know it seems like I am making a lot for Cassie lately, and not much for any of the boys in my life… well, I tried. I offered the sparkly silver fabric to each of my boys, really I did. Inexplicably they did not respond to its sparkly gorgeousness with much enthusiasm. I only wish I could capture and show here the expression on Sam’s face, when I showed him the fabric and straight-faced said I was planning to make him a silver sequinned hoodie … priceless!!! You’ll just have to imagine it for yourselves…. still giggling about it....
Anyhow; the only person in my family who leapt upon it with cries of joy was Cassie. So (shrug) it couldn’t be helped. I’ll have to make it up to the boys somehow :)
My lucky daughter has the ideal year ahead for her to make good use of a sparkly silver cocktail dress. She has masses of 21st's on the horizon. Word; she goes out a lot anyway, lucky little social butterfly that she is.
I adapted a pattern that is one of my oft-repeated standbys ... Burda 8511. This is a plain and simple sheath dress pattern, with two bust darts in the front and two long shaped vertical darts in the back. I’ve found this an excellent style to adapt to individual shapes, just by subtle alteration of the darts and side seams.
For Cassie’s dress; I sewed up the side seams and left off any zip closure… the fabric is stretchy and doesn’t really need a closure. The dress pulls over her head quite easily, like a fitted Tshirt dress. It looks tight but it's actually not at all, she really is quite tiny!
At her request, I custom fit the dress to skim her figure closely, and fully lined it with a sewn-in lining. I redrafted the pattern pieces to eliminate all darts in the lining, and used a soft, stretchy, grey marled jersey knit, leftover from this drape drape dress that I made for myself. Note how the lining looks completely skewiff??? That marle/stripe in the fabric really is printed on that random slant. The lining is cut perfectly on grain, I assure you!
The neckline, armscyes and the lower hem are turned under and hemmed by hand.
Actually, a word on that. Remember my sparkly gold cardigan, that I stitched entirely by hand?? The thought of doing more of the same was inducing a slightly depressive status, so I consulted with a lady in Fabulous Fabrics who I recalled had made herself a skirt of similar stuff. She reckoned a denim needle worked fine. So I tried it out... and hehe, of course it was. (blushes) Not that I regret stitching that cardigan by hand ...... much. No, really; I guess it does me good to slow down and spend loads of unnecessary meditative time on a project every now and again. Teaches one humility, yo.
Repeating that like a mantra to retain some shred of self respect.
So, stashbusting, yeah!! (air fist punch) Actually, the dress did not take up the entire 2m of the silver fabric… so there might be some more silver sparkliness to appear here, anon.
'Til next time, lovelies!
Details:
Dress; Burda 8511 modified, silver sequinned stretch fabric
Sandals; Betts
