Hi all,

Last night I had my second costume Salsa party in two weeks - whew! The theme was Salsa in Wonderland, so I decided to go as the Queen of Hearts. I thought about doing a corset top something like this one by smarmyclothes:

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=339892.0;topicseen

...but I decided I didn't have the time/ability. I drew some inspiration from these examples:
http://www.funkyfancydress.com/costumes-317/disney-costumes-398/queen-of-hearts-costume-26.html
http://www.adultcostumeshop.com.au/contents/en-us/p898.html

And this is what I came up with:



The skirt was fairly easy - a circle skirt in eight parts, alternating red and black. I put the heart, clubs, spades and diamonds on the correct colour panel. (I might be a bit pedantic!).

The bodice was more difficult because I didn't have a pattern, which on reflection was a bit dumb! The fit of the bodice was far from perfect in the end, but I was happy enough with it. The red flaps with the eyelets were actually really easy, although this is the first time I have done anything with eyelets. I really like the corset style. The ribbon was left over from Valentine's Day - only 50p for a metre!

I also made the petticoat out of a thrift-store lace curtain. It shows up nicely in these action shots:





Unfortunately I forgot how much flair a full circle skirt with a petticoat would have. I really should have worn shorts underneath!

Just a note on the petticoat. I used this tutorial:

http://home.scarlet.be/fenicia/tutoral/petticoat/petticoate.htm

When I was piecing it together I thought I might have misunderstood the instructions. the bottom ruffle was over 11 metres long! But, as you can see, this is indeed correct. I think my £2.99 curtain was probably cheaper than the same amount of tulle, and perhaps more fun :-). Here's a picture showing the petticoat itself:



By the way, the woman who won the best dress prize was wearing one of the costumes I linked to above. I think this means that the judges thought mine was bought too. I prefer this complement to any prize :-)

Thanks for looking!


 

Hi,

St David is the Patron Saint of Wales, and I was invited to a St David's Day Salsa Party. So I made a costume out of the Welsh Flag. The Welsh Flag is pretty cool:



I didn't want to cut the edges off the dragon, so I sewed up the side with the excess on the *outside* as a kind of ruffle. I also sewed a kind of diagonal dart through the dress to make it more fitted, and put some elastic in the top. Here's the result:



An action shot of the back:



And these photos show the ruffles a bit better:



Thanks for looking!

Hi all,

Here's a simple shift dress I made with some pink and purple paisley fabric I've had for years. I can't remember why I bought it, but in the end it made for a fun dress. It has bright pink lining, and the back of the bodice is in plain purple because I didn't *quite* have enough material. While I was making the dress I was invited to a wig party, so was inspired to buy a wig to match the dress. Believe it or not, I'm not generally a pink person (especially light pink)! Although admittedly I am now on the look out for some pink mary janes...



At some point I might try and tone it down a little by adding plain purple hem detail. Or I might just make it even more crazy with more pink ribbon.

Thanks for looking!

Hi all,

I've been reading craftster for a couple of months and getting very inspired. I thought it was time I shared one of my reconstruction projects:



I had a long, tartan pattern red skirt which I loved and used to wear a lot:



I lost a bit of weight since buying it, so it only just hung on my hips, and I don't really seem to wear long skirts these days anyway. So I decided to try and let my lovely skirt live on as a Burn's night dress.

Here is the dress I used as inspiration:




(I don't actually know who Taylor Swift is - should I be embarrassed?)

I took a dress that fits me well and traced the outline on two large pieces of paper:



I marked out where I wanted the patches to be then cut them into individual pieces of paper:



I lay them out on the dress fabric, making sure that the lines of the tartan were lined up differently on the different patches (remembering to allow for seam allowance!)



I sewed all the bits together, finished the seams with a zig-zag stitch, and hemmed it with invisible thread. And here's the finished product:




The bottom panel of the front of the skirt has three little pleats so I had to cut it a little wider than the rest of the dress. I also gathered the neckline with a few pleats at the shoulder - just using trial and error until it fit nicely. The back doesn't show up well in the photo, but there are two triangular patches on either side at the waist. The material is a jersey stretch, so I can *just* squeeze into it without a zip - yay!

Perfect for addressing haggises (haggi?) for Burns night.


******UPDATE******

Thanks for all the positive feedback! I am so flattered by such a warm response.

Check out Lilybet85's version here - I love the addition of ruffle :-)
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=339859.0