Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Sugar pink and spearmint: completed!

I debuted my new pink and spearmint dress at BAMJam this past weekend. (Photo credit to Ankith Gunapal) One of my friends said the green dress is like "Ariel" from The Little Mermaid and this one is "Aurora" from Sleeping Beauty. I'll take it.


With my wonderful rookie Patrick. You can see the belt best in this picture.
I also did not tan for this competition, and I think with the colors of the dress, it might work. It's a much more "classic princess" pale look.
Jon is so smiley :)



This dress went through a process before I finally decided it was done, there seemed to be something missing though. It lacked that focus and that little oomph to make it seem complete.

I tried adding a little stoned design on a piece of lycra to the front, but even before it was done I could tell that wasn't it.

Then I toyed with a wide, underbust corset/wide belt kind of thing with beading. using that same stoned piece as the center


I ended up ripping out the beading, but still wasn't happy with any of the ideas I came up with for designs.


I tried some little leaf motifs to keep with the rose lace theme, but even that was meh.

So it was the day before the competition and I still wasn't happy with what I had and I had already promised to rent out my other dress to a friend, so I had to wear this one. In the afternoon I decided that maybe it didn't need something huge and ostentatious, maybe a simple thin sparkly belt in the chrysolite (mint green) would do the trick. And the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. I decided to make a 1" fully stoned belt in the chrysolite (spearmint).
Belt making!
I learned something very useful in my costume construction class lately that relates to covering elastic in fabric, particularly a kind of slippery, thin fabric like this dance crepe. If you place the side that wants to slip around more against the feed dogs, they will manage the fabric better and evenly send it through the machine. The result:

A beautiful flat seam, just ready to by trimmed back and stoned. I added a couple snaps, sewed on some big stones, and then set off stoning. I made a little motif for the center front and then started filling in with the 16 ss chrysolites. At some point, I realized I wasn't going to be able to sleep and finish completely stoning the belt. I decided to just do a bit in the front and in the back and taper to points on the sides. I added some sew on stones to the back and then the chrysolites.


When all was said and done, it was a little too loose and didn't sit right at my waist, but a little on my hips. Before my next competition I'll be making it smaller and finish filling in the rest so it's completely stoned.


I also started making a necklace to go along with the dress, but it also wasn't finished by BAMJam. This is a piece of baby pink stretch net attached to some cappuccino dance crepe with some clear fusible web I found at Joann's. I cut a little piece out of an index card to use as a stencil so I could make the sew on stones evenly spaced and symmetrical, but I managed to make it lopsided anyway. Oh well, can't tell unless you're looking for it.


More stones to be added, including some pendants and maybe some pearls!

ETA: Snow day means finished the belt today!

Also reworked the necklace to make it on the straight edge (more choker like) hopefully it'll sit nicely on my neck once it's all cut out. More to come on that still.

3 comments:

  1. woooooow!!!! you are soooo great, Blessing!!!! green finger!!

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  2. The dress looks absolutely amazing! You should start a dress shop!

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