Purple Pleated Maxi

Hi! :)
I've been seeing a lot of pleated maxi and midi skirts around the blog land and have fallen insanely in love with them :P Espechially the floaty sheer type.

Naturally I was delighted when I found this wine/mauve(its not actually as purple as the pictures make it out to be :P ) chiffon fabric for only $4 last time I went thrifting. I spent a couple nights in front of the tv ironing my butt off. I think ironing a midi or mini length skirt would have been fine, but maxi length was a pain. Mostly because the ironing board was too short and I had to keep moving the fabric up and down so I could iron the whole length. However once that painful process was done, the rest of the skirt was pretty easy. I am really dreading washing this skirt, I have a feeling that all the pleats will just wash away :(

 The skirt has a thin self interfaced waist band with a side zipper and two hook and eye closures. By the time it hemming time I was sick of dealing with the pleats so I just did a simple fold over hem. It sort of flattened out the pleats at the bottom, but I don't mind. Actually I sort of like it :)

The skirt, as you can see, is sheer. Therefore some sort of slip is needed. Unfortunately, I don't have any sort of slip. Definitely on my to sew list :P So for photos I put on some leggings and rolled them up to mid thigh length. The first day I wore it out I wore stretchy singlet underneath, which did the trick in front of the mirror but as soon as I started moving it would slowly ride up and up and up. I thought it would be ok....
Mmmm, yeah, it really wasn't. I spent half the time trying to subtly hitch it back down. It was a tad annoying. However that was the only annoying thing.

I happen to love this skirt! Maxi skirts (espechially light and floaty ones) are soo fun the walk in!! And twirl in! And sit in! Thats with the leggings on underneath, not the stupid singlet :P As I was taking photos I decided to have a little fun instead of just the usual hand on hip type posing. Half the time I think I was pretending to be a dancing fairy like creature and the other half I was an explorer (because all explorers wear long floaty skirts) - it was fun :)

~Basking in the gentle wind~

~Oh no, falling...~

~That was close.. too close~

~Inspecting the plant life~

~Gazing at the clouds~

Maxi Skirts are fun

Hope you had a great weekend!! Til next time :)

Danielle Cut Out Dress

Hello! :)

This dress is my pride and joy :P During the 2 or so years that I have been sewing I have had some pretty terrible sewing fails, however this dress is definitly not one of them.

The bodice is based off the Danielle sewing pattern from Burdastyle and Vivat Veritas' backless version. For the skirt part I got a large rectangle and box pleated the length of it to fit the bodice. In hindsight I wish I had added pockets.

The fabric I bought from an op shop. I'm not exactly sure what sort of fabric it is but it is soft and a bit crinkly. The bodice is fully lined with a built in bra. Due to the back cut out I can't wear a bra with this dress so the in-built bra is a must for me.

The hem is also completely hand sewn (which took agessss) and the insides are all overlocked. I think the extra effort is definitely worth it though. It makes it look professional and it's nice not to haves raw egdes fray and dropping threads all over the place. The hand sewn hem just looks soo much better as well. When I made my Bella shorts I tried to use the invisible hem stitch on my sewing machine but the result doesn't even look half as good as handsewing does.

Closure is with an invisible zipper at the back, which you can't really see in the picture. But if it can't be seen then I guess it's doing its job :P I would have to say this is my favourite summer dress at the moment. It's flattering, comfy, lightweight and has a good skirt length that doesn't make me feel extremely self concious.

Twirling in front of self timer requires serious concentration :P

I think I need some new dresses in solid colours in my wardrobe and once I find the right fabric I will definitely use the Danielle pattern again. Did I mention it's free?

 

 

Bye for now!! :)

(Sorry for some of the overexposed backgrounds, the pictures that I took were quite dark so I had to lighten them a fair bit)