La Latina Pin-Up Dress (Part I)

My friend C asked me to make her a couple of vintage style dresses to wear to work - think "sexy secretary".  I've been busy on the first dress this past week in between work, cleaning, socializing and procrastinating packing...  (We are moving to the coast in a few weeks - eek!).

I used Simplicity 2250 for the bodice, and am making a slim-fitting pencil skirt for the lower part of the dress.  I had some black polyester fabric kicking around in my stash with a red and white roses print on it - perfect for a sexy, retro feel.  Unfortunately I didn't have enough of it to make the wide straps that C requested so she could wear a normal bra with it, so I used a black cotton twill and then used scraps of the rose print to make piping on the outer edge of the straps.  I think it turned out beautifully!

C wanted the dress to be quite tight (especially in the skirt part) so I picked up some stretchy red ponti de roma knit fabric to bring out the red roses in the bodice.  As you can see from the photos, it's not a perfect match of reds, but it's the best I could do.  Hopefully she can wear a wide belt to help break it up a little bit...

The colours in this dress make me think of a sexy Latin pin-up from the 50's, or possibly ChaCha DiGregorio from Grease (she sure got a bad rap, didn't she?  lol) so I've sort of been calling it the La Latina...  I still need to finish this dress, complete the second dress for C, and pack up my house - all before April 15th.  Yikes!

Hello Polly!

This is a post for my grandmother who is learning to use the internet.  She is a quilter extraordinaire and made most of my clothes for me when I was young.  I wanted her to see my blog and see all the pics of what I've created (she lives 3 provinces away... dommage).

Granny and her 3 grandkids (plus one addition!) on my wedding day in 2008

In other news, my highschool pal Candace Lacina is lighting it up this year with her new album released on itunes, as well as her YouTube cover of Shontelle's "Say Hello To Goodbye" (which Ms Shontelle herself even tweeted about!!!).  Candace is an amazingly talented singer-songwriter based out of Calgary these days, and she has got to be one of the nicest, kindest, and funniest people I have ever met.  Enjoy!

Spring Wardrobe Challenge Underway!

Ahhh springtime!  Days are getting longer, people are walking around town in shorts paired with a puffy vest, dust is flying up off the road from vehicles, and I'm getting a sudden craving for pastel-hued clothing!  I made this office-appropriate dress based on the 9 to 5 dress from the Built By Wendy Dresses book (so awesome).  The book suggested making this dress out of an orange linen, but I ended up using a cheap pastel orange twill that I bought on clearance for $3/m.  I think the twill works alright, but in hindsight I should have not bothered with interfacing on the sleeve facings... it's a bit too stiff for my liking.

I pretty much followed the book exactly, except that I added 2 darts in the back to reduce some of the volume on either side of the zipper.  This is also the first time I've used an actual zipper foot to install an invisible zipper and it looks frigging fantastic!  The book also suggested making a belt out of the same fabric, but for now I've just styled it with a dark brown skinny belt that I already had.  I also ended up making belt loops to keep the belt  from floating randomly around my torso.

I'm still not 100% sure about the colour.  I really like orange a lot, but I think this shade might wash me out.  Luckily I get pretty dark in the summer (hooray for Spanish bloodlines!) so I think it will look better then.  Sorry the pics are kind of blurry... I guess the lighting wasn't too great today (too bright out).

I also finally got some photos of my finished Crepe dress...  It's been done for a few weeks - I swear! 

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, but as I said in an earlier post, I'm not sure if a sew-along is the right process for me...  I prefer to just keep on sewing once I'm in the groove and get the entire project finished!  I did a Pattern Review for the Crepe dress, and plan to make the dress again, but maybe with a few alterations.  I found the bodice to be a bit short for me (I have a long torso) and even though I made the second smallest size, I still had to alter the bust.  I think Colette patterns are meant for curvier gals, and sadly that is not me...