party through the decades dress is complete!

Ahh, finally! Three days later and it's done! I'm super excited to be entering in this competition. I had such a blast making this dress. As I posted earlier, the dress was inspired by the 1940s and peplum dresses. I decided that I would make it sort of a "New Years Eve" party dress since the colors reminded me of a NYE theme.

I really wanted to make this out of taffeta, but I had SO MUCH satin left over from Halloween that it would have been kind of wasteful to go buy all new fabric. I drafted the pattern by hand, with cap sleeves and a peplum skirt. I made it more comfortable by giving it an elastic waste. I also gave it my signature "cut out back" that seems to show up in a lot of my projects. Then I spent about two hours making rosettes from fabric scraps and sewing them onto the bodice. I added a little bit of chiffon here and there too, just for fun. I really like how it turned out. I think that its wearable enough for me to maybe debut it in public. :)

I really hope I win!


You can view my submission here.

party through the decades contest - one week deadline!

Burda Style is hosting another   competition presented by Bernina which has definitely grabbed my attention. Party through the decades! Essentially, you must choose a decade and create a party dress to represent it.

Well, the deadline is a week away. LUCKILY, I have FOUR, YES FOUR days off to finish. So, there's no excuse for me not to try. So, I'm choosing the 1940s as my decade to represent, naturally.

I'm sort of dying to make a peplum dress. I love that wonderful silhouette with a unique edge. I especially love this pattern! I would ideally like to make something like the green dress on the left, or maybe even just a skirt version. Nonetheless, very classy indeed.

And how cute are the ruffles? I love the diagonal buttons!

Loving this keyhole neckline and the fluttery sleeves. This would be so amazing made from a sleek, silky fabric!

Hopefully I get myself together tomorrow and get to work!

Wish me luck!

experimenting with 1930s pin curls

I've been playing around with these really cool vintage pin curl guides online. And, since I'm working with shorter hair than I'm used to, it was hard to find one that would come out right without looking fluffy and matronly. This is the guide I worked from:

Instead of using wet hair and letting it dry, I opted to use a curling iron and heat set them (much, much faster). I need to work on the brushing out and styling part, but I think it turned out okay. I had a bit of trouble with my bangs, I ended up having to push them to the side in a weird mass of curls. That's something I'll have to work on...

I'll eventually post a how-to video once I get my video blogging back up and running. 

this week in pictures

things to look forward to this month

dying leaves. everywhere.

finding alternative ways to stay warm.

old b-movies

cappuccino

 chunky, over-sized, sort of ugly sweaters

...and

the new apartment! 

to be fair...

I hate making first posts on a blog. It's not like you can post anything great because it's just going to get buried in the muck. So, I make awkward posts for awhile until I feel that the blog is substantial enough to fill with the real stuff. Excuse me, my brain is slowly deteriorating.