I found these items in two charity shops. The shirt is a man's 100 percent cotton shirt from 'Animal' and the curtain is 100 percent polyester and from 'Ikea'.
I decided I wanted to make a party dress with a fitted strapless bodice. The back of the shirt was enough for the centre front of the bodice and, as the bodice I was making had princess seams, the rest of the bodice pieces were easy to fit onto the shirt front and sleeves.
The finished dress front.
The finished dress back.
I had initially intended to use the original shirt collar for the bodice band, but upon inspection it was quite worn and wasn't quite long enough to be caught in the side seam.
Luckily I had enough leftover fabric and was even able to line it up so that the stripes went along uniformly.
This is the dress inside out to show you the lining. I managed to avoid hemming the lining by using the selvage edge on the bottom... luckily my calculations as to length worked out for me this time!
The before and after shot. There is a bit more information on my blog, but it is mainly ramblings about wrestling with polyester!
9 comments:
This is brilliant! Not just the colour. I am sure you will get loads of questions about where you got it.
I almost wondered if you were in the Netherlands. ;-) But I see on your blog you are in Wales.
Sandy in the UK (England)
;-) - wouldn't be the first (nor the last!) curtain to find itself suddenly 'burdened' with a quite different 'job' than originally thought of.
In your/this case: Brilliant job with even colour-match. And the great 'stripe-job' - awesome!
And for Sandy: I'm sitting in Australia = it could be even 'more (dangerously) colourful' you elegant 'Brit-Relative' ;-) :-D !
One of my best (since most sighingly noticed) jobs with a former curtain was a stole which reached (especially due to my 'under-hight') from one foot-ankle to the other. Inbetween draped generously over the shoulder and with loops over the arms.
THIS was noticed by a veeery long-legged lady friend of mine with 'mature arms and shoulders' to match who aaaalways had troubles with the 'usual common short versions' available fix + ready on the market YET: no time to do the lengthy job of simple 'endless seaming' for a self made one.
The biggest fun appeared to her enquiry when I explained approx. "Yes, dear, you're right - it has a DROP of 2,x m in its entire length"
She looked at me and smilingly provided me a 'correction of my wrong use of the english language' (= greatly appreciated despite never reaching perfect!) with approx. "Dear, 'Drop' in connection with material we tend to use only when talking about curtain-length"
"Yeees?" I squeaked and continued "THAN I'm using the word correctly, since it WAS a former curtain ;-) !"
In correct order I've got then:
a) huuuge laughter
b) a friendly shoulder shove
c) the begging question to make one for her as well
LG, Gerlinde
You did a great job, particularly in the construction. It looks perfect and professional.
Beautiful dress - really lovely!
And Gerlinde, I enjoyed your story!
It's beautiful, I love it.
So awesome! Well done
And it looks like if you wanted to, you could wear the dress inside out too - the inside finishing is so clean! reversable - twice the wear!
There are no words for how much I love this dress. Seriously, gorgeous!
-Carissa
EOD
Oh my Goodness! Fantastic job on this dress! I am so impressed!
Loooove love love!!! I am totally going to have to make my own!
-TheRefashStash
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