Thursday 19 April 2012

A Little Black Dress on a hanger

It's finished!

 

I finished it on Tuesday, half an hour before a concert I wore it to. (Sound familiar, fellow seamstresses, sewists, Sewasauri Re...whatever the plural of "rex" is?)
It was a classical concert in a small local venue. I sat in the last row and still got a perfect view and perfect sound. Four people; two played oboe and English horns, one played bassoon (called "fagot" in Czech - I wonder where that difference comes from?), one played spinet (which is not the same as cembalo, no matter what my online dictionary says) and piano. There was one piece by Mozart, one by Händel, others by composers I have not heard about before. It was one of those occasions you wish could go on forever. (And of course they don't...) The musicians were rather taken aback by our enthusiastic applause. And they've travelled the world with their music. Nice to see small town audience still has its perks.

Anyway - I finished the dress. It may need some tweaks here and there, but as it is, it's still one of the most detailled and perfected things I've sewn to date. Even though it's so simple. And I'm happy about my neat topstitched facings and partly handpicked zipper (that took some figuring out, and was the thing I was finishing half an hour before the concert) and that lovely neckline and shaped sleeves and pleated skirt. But I can't show you much of it, because right now it's cloudy and there's no good photographing light to be had. When there is, I'll do a proper photoshoot. I think this dress deserves it.
Also, it looks great with the Madeline hat - but it's not the sort of thing you'd wear to an evening concert. I'll probably wear it to a wedding on Saturday, though. (A man from our congregation's getting married.)
And I love the pattern, and want to use it over and over and over, with variations in the neckline, sleeves, skirt and colour. I want to make a Little Brown Dress, a Little Blue Dress, a Little Beige Dress... any more Bs you know of? A Little White Dress - that's a B in Czech...

Enough of dresses for now! This transitional period when we switch the heating off and on and off again, when one day it's warm inside and the other it goes cold, because it's colder outside than we expected - that reminds me I wanted to sew myself pyjamas from the cotton flannel I got way back in the beginnings of this blog, together with the Very Pink Poplin of Doom and other fabrics.
Oh, and then also this:
I've got turquoise and teal flannel. Hopefully there's enough of it to make a pyjama top and bottoms, each in one fabric and bias-bound in the other colour.

And one more good news - well, for me! I got The Czar's Madman by Jaan Kross in a secondhand bookshop today. One of my favourite historical novels - for 5 CZK, just (I guess) because it's in Slovakian. I've read so many books (mostly Agatha Christie's) in Slovakian that that's no problem for me. Score!

14 comments:

  1. gorgeous even only on a hanger! i can see why you want to make more... a Little Bling Dress? :)

    sewasaurus rexists are afoot today in the blogisphere, much to ruggy's delight... you, puu & cation have all wondered about the plural form (and cation drew a cartoon.)

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    1. Thank you. :-) For praising the dress and pointing me to Cation's blog (which I probably saw before, but forgot about); and to Ruggy for that fun term.

      Bling? Hm. That may be more difficult to squeeze into my life. I'm imagining a sequin-fabric dress. But where would I wear that?!
      I think I'll gift you the Little Bling Dress idea back, as an Oona Does It challenge. :-)

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  2. It looks great! Nothing like a deadline to get a lot of work done.:D

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    1. Yes. Only the quality of said work is sometimes debatable. But it's not here, which is what makes me so happy about it!

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  3. It's nice that you are happy with something more detailed and perfected than anything you've done heretofore. Good for you!
    The concert sounds nice, too,

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    1. Note to self: Detailed. Single L... I keep writing that wrong.
      Thanks. :-)

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    2. I didn't notice it! :)

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    3. Note to self! :-) The thanks were for your praise.

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  4. It's lovely. Clever you! To get it done and not be haunted by the inside finish is a rare combination to pull off! ;-)

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    1. Zigzag is my best friend! And the iron. And the nice seam (seam allowance?) guides on my new machine; and a scallops tutorial I found some time ago that basically told me not to clip all the time.
      http://buzzybeesworld.blogspot.com/2011/06/tricks-of-trade-sculpting-perfect.html
      I was lucky that the fabric did not unravel too much, so I could cut the seam allowances at the facings very narrowly; that was important at the shaped sleeves. Hopefully it will hold! :-)

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  5. Very nice dress. I have yet to make a little black dress. Although, I have to say, I am currently craving a little red dress!

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    1. Thank you! I'd just found out that I had enough occasions to use it - so I made the Little Black Dress I wanted to have. :-) I've been admiring little red dresses for some time now, too, but the occasions filter has not worked in their favour yet...

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  6. That is the nice thing about the simple clothes--you can really dig into those details and make it something really special. It's a lovely piece of work, and you certainly have the right to be proud of it! The concert sounds like it was a lot of fun, too!

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    1. Ah, thanks! Yes, I love the detailed simple clothes.
      The concert was also special because the bassoonist is the brother of one of our former ministers...

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