The Garden Party Dress

The warm, golden sunlight in these pictures will probably alert you to the fact that these pictures were taken months ago. Oh well, best get blogging about this dress before winter finally gets here!

The impetus for this dress came about when an acquaintance handed me the invite to her wedding. Dress code - 'formal'...which always brings to my mind some sort of Disney princess dress (like this) - you know, floofy skirt, lots of sequins and tulle, the works. The type of dress that I would wear to a Manowar show, but felt a bit uncomfortable wearing to a mid-summer, outdoor wedding reception. Thus began the hunt for a 'grown-up' dress pattern. 

A quick online search lead me to Butterick B5281, a reissue of a 1946 pattern. Those illustrated babes looked so elegant and sassy, so a few clicks later and I was on my way to replicating that sassy elegance. Unfortunately, elegance is a foreign country to me, as evidenced by the above photo of me hanging on to 2 wine glasses. Oh well, I'll go for sassy then.

On to the technical bits. For the bodice, I decided to trace a size 10 at the bust, graduating up to a size 12 at the waist seam and skirt. The other change I made to it was to hack about 5 inches off the skirt, because I have short stumpy legs. Since it was rather more complicated than my usual patterns, I decided to make a toile first, in the same fabric that would later be used for the lining (a pink polycotton sheet for the bodice, and a navy blue acetate for the skirt, both from the opshop). The dress fabric was two metres of slightly sheer ikat-looking fabric that I purchased last year at the Wimbledon car boot sale. It's most likely a wool/polyester mix - it has no label, but I have a skirt that feels exactly the same, and is about 70% wool/30% polyester.

Constructing the dress was suprisingly easy, although the shoulder-flap bit on the left threw me a little.The trickiest part was probably inserting the side zipper - my first! I took my time and yelled a few unnecessary words, but managed to fit it in without too many wrinkles. It's a lapped zipper, which I thought fitted the whole vintage pattern thing a lot better than an invisible zipper.

Although it wasn't too difficult to sew up, it did take a lot of time though...so much so that I was sat at my machine at 10.30pm the night before the wedding, trying to finish fit the lining in. I cheated in the end, and set in the sleeve lining with big rough basting stitches. The skirt was roughly turned up and sewed with big machine basting stitches. No-one else could see it, and I've since managed to clean it all up. 

Dress - selfmade, necklace - vintage, brooch - vintage, tights - Sainsburys, shoes - from Hong Kong

Polish It Off

Manbacon and I spent the first few days of October in Poland, ostensibly for his cousin's wedding, but in reality we were getting fed until we were fit to burst. Not that I'm complaining. 

We drank lots of kompot, which is basically fruit (in this case, apples) boiled in plenty of water, and sweetened with sugar. 

Lots of cured meat products, including sausages, bacon and plenty of ham - for breakfast, lunch, dinner and in-between snacks. 

Manbacon caught a cold which he then thoughtfully transferred to me. His parents made us this rather interesting concoction of milk, butter, garlic and honey to drink before bedtime. I know it sounds disgusting, but it was honestly rather pleasant. 

Delicious homemade golabki (go-womp-kee), served with a sort of cabbage and meat stew in the second picture. 

These two pictures above are just a couple of dishes we were served at the wedding. However, after all that delicious homecooked food, the food here paled in comparison. The pork was dry and chewy, and most of the other dishes were just uninspiring. 

More photos to come in the next few posts!

Two

All Smiles

What a lovely couple.

Early Spring Weddings

Knowing my penchant for old wedding photos, lovely Petra presented me with these two beauties she found recently.

Wedding Dress

My housemates' wedding on Wednesday provided me with an excuse to get all dressed up in the middle of the week. Sure, I was probably overdressed for a registry wedding in Brixton, but who cares, when dressing up is so much fun? The wedding, not so much, but that's a whole other story.

Gah! Why do I always look so nervous when being photographed? Anyway, here are the details, Wardrobe Remix style.

Hat: MVE (Music and Video Exchange)

Jacket: MVE

T-shirt: Some shop in Warringah Mall

Skirt: D.I.Y from the Mancreature's old shirt

Tights: Very old

Shoes: Sainsbury's

Bag: MVE

Necklaces: Op-shops

Now that I see it written down, I probably should be embarrassed by the fact that half my outfit came from MVE. But I'm not - after all, I did work there for a month, and the Mancreature for nearly three years, and so I guess it's inevitable that we managed to get our grubby little hands on a whole bunch of stuff.

Oh and to answer my sister's question - yes, Sainsbury's do sell shoes!

Animal Antics

My friends A+B got married last Wednesday, and requested that guests bring their 'own picnic and giraffe'. So, being the dutiful wedding guest that I am, I made a giraffe and brought it to the wedding.

It was excited at being allowed out of the house, and proceeded to go a little wild. Here's the visual evidence -

Even a giraffe needs to rest after all that excessive drinking and partying.


He even managed to persuade the bride to take him home at the end of the night. I think he might stowaway in their baggage and join them in their Spanish honeymoon.