Sand Dollar Gala Dress

The Gala was great!  The dress turned out well and I was really happy with the style and some of the design elements.

I used an African Wax Print (I don't remember where I got it), but I've had it for a while.  I have a whole collection of African Prints but this is only the second item that I've made for my self with them, and I love it.  The second fabric that I used was a brocade that I bought from FabricMart while they were going through their A-Z sale.  I really like this fabric as well, it's decently lightweight for a brocade and I'm glad that I have enough for another project.  I was pleasantly surprised when I realized the two fabrics had similar patterns, hence the name "The Sand Dollar Dress"

Please excuse the lack of seam matching. But the fabric matching makes up for it!

As stated in my last post, I used Simplicity's Project Runway S0571 in a size 14.  I'm learning that I don't like the ease that's built into these patterns and I'm going to start tracing a size down for the bodice. I probably could have fixed this with my muslin but I still need to work on using my muslins for fitting.  I've noticed that I tend to use them more so to get through the sewing instructions and understand what they want me to do than for actual fitting and adjustments. 

The best design element of this is the ingenious way they did the sleeves.  To help keep it off the shoulder and keep it in it's place, there's a covered elastic band inside of the sleeve.  I made mine a little loose, so I'll have to take it in, but the theory is great and I can't wait to see how it works on other creations. 

This was my first time color blocking. The pattern already had princess seams on the front bodice but it only contained darts on the back bodice. In order to continue with the blocking on the back of the dress, I had to change the darts to princess seams.  I can't find the tutorial I used (it really took me too long to write this post), but it was pretty simple and worked well.  I also blocked the sleeves, as you can see, so that the black fabric line continued into the sleeve for continuity.  The blocking of the skirt was simple, I just cut a line straight down from the center of the pleats.  Since the two fabrics had different weights, they hung a lil differently, but the end result was still good, imho. 

All in all, it was a good night and a good make. I paired it with a tulle skirt, a wide elastic belt, bronze pumps and chunky pearls and I received lots of unsolicited compliments (the best kind).  Thanks for reading and hopefully you'll see me on here sooner than later!

All photos of me in the dress were taken by J.Lamothe Photography.  And of course had to add a pic of the ladies.

Gala Preparation

I have a Gala to attend in a ffew weeks on July 19th.  It's for my National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) Professionals Chapter and it's for a pretty good cause, raising money for scholarships (hence the name STEM Scholarship Gala or SSG for short).  I've been collecting African Print fabric for a few years now and have only cut into a 2, no, make that 3, of the prints twice now for small things, a band on a dress, a small dress for a baby, and a mini skirt that I can't wear often because it's mini.  I haven't expanded my wardrobe the way that I've wanted with the fabric that I've been buying so I'm trying to force myself to cut into these and get over my fear of creating something unwearable.  Most of the clothing that I pin on Pinterest are styles where people use African Print that can be worn in every day settings.  I like being able to carry small physical homages to my heritage with me and I especially like when it's something that's freakin fashionable (and I feel sexy/beautiful doing it).  One of these days I'll catalog and show you the jewelry that I've collected on my travels or been gifted and document where each piece came from.  I've been sewing a lot more recently, so I'm going to challenge myself to create 3 pieces of clothing with African Print fabric as the focal point before I buy anymore fabric (even though I'm already on a fabric diet. Darn you Fabric Mart!).

So anyways, back to the Gala.  I made a few mock ups of options for a dress.  I'm going to use Simplicity S0571 (that also goes by 1418 on the website.  Not sure why the pattern numbers are different).  Here are the line drawings for the dress:

It's part of the Project Runway collection and I was drawn to the clean lines and the soft pleats on the full skirt.  I purchased the pattern originally thinking that I could do the last 'B' version for the front and the 3rd 'A' version for the back, but now I've realized that it may be a bit difficult.  I guess I can only get sexiness in one place, the shoulders or the back, but not both.  I'll accept it this time just because I don't want to futz with it too much, but I'll always be thinking about the one that got away....

I noticed something pretty cool in the directions.  The pattern actually for an elastic casing to be created.  I was confused as to where this would come into play but it seems to be a design piece for the off the shoulder version; it gets attached to the inside of the sleeve to help secure it in place.  I'm pretty grateful for that and I'm excited to see how effective it is.

Alright, so now to get to the mock ups that I created.  I actually posted it on Instagram too (follow me at AfroSoulJah) to get some opinions.  So far, people are gravitating to the Dark one with the black panels.

I won't argue with them (and it'll be easy to shoe match).  It helps to simplify the busy print and will be a nice touch of color blocking (not sure if that's still what's "in" or not). I'll probably work the black in with some broadcloth or possibly some pique that I have in my stash.  I'll need something that perfectly compliments the weight of the fabric.  I'll also have to modify the skirt pattern as it doesn't naturally have that blocking inherent to the pattern but it shouldn't be too much of stretch on my skills.

Thoughts and opinion?  I'm looking forward to this and I'll actually make a muslin for the bodice pretty soon!