Sunday, May 3, 2009

skirting the issue

couldn't resist the title, sorry. =)

i've been taking dressmaking classes at furama centre, and it's finally paying off somewhat. the first two projects (an a-line skirt, followed by a flare skirt) are done, and now i'm learning how to make a shirt. i can't help but be terribly excited by the idea that i'm finally able to put together clothes, since for the longest time i've been moaning about how sad it is to be forced to make choices that are limited to other people's ideas of what women should wear.

anyhow, my first skirt (the a-line, in itself already stodgy and schoolmarmish) felt lacklustre... an insipid little thing made with the cheapest cloth i managed to find at people's park centre, to which i added yellow piping in an attempt to spice it up. didn't quite work. my flare skirt, i'm happy to say, worked out much much better:



so i wore it out last week, matching it with a topshop floral jersey dress i bought on sale last month.





don't i look just gleeful in that last pic? glee was definitely in order: a fun new outfit, half of it made by me, what's there not to love? i trotted off to stamford house to see what i could find at the baylene sale, and while i was looking around the other shops in the building, one of the owners of Swirl told me how cute she thought my skirt was: very! so i did what any woman would do in my tiny sartorial triumph: i treated myself to a new baylene dress.

2 comments:

  1. i love the hem of your skirt. what a cleaver idea! how did you sew around it?

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  2. it's really easy... plus i cheated, heh. i traced the scallops on the right side of the skirt, then sewed over the tracing using the smallest possible zigzag stitch (took ages!) but here's a tutorial i found (chickened out when i saw how complicated it looked!)on vain and vapid that inspired me:
    http://vainandvapid.blogspot.com/2008/10/scalloped-edge-tutorial.html

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