Dresses and doodads

Actually, it's really just dresses. I won't lie, I traced the figures out of a book I have because I was too lazy to draft them myself, but the dress designs I did entirely on my own. My goal this summer is to wear only summery, sunny dresses. What better place to start than making them yourself?

This is the first one. I've started it in a delicious coral cotton, that has this fun white floral design. I got kind of frustrated with it, but I guess that happens when you have no pattern and you're making it up as you go. It's already a bit different from the design, and not just the colors, but I'm excited to see how it turns out.

If I ever finish it.

So she's a little pasty, but I blame it on the digital saturation I had to do to make it appear properly bright. Markers, man. So nice in person, so bland on the computer.

The alterations to the real dress are pretty simple. Mostly, the blousey part of the bodice is really huge right now, and there are no straps on the top, the neckline being elastic and squared off like a tube top. I'm not sure I like all that elastic on my torso, but we'll see.

This blue one will probably be the trickiest. I love the idea of pockets, and I love the buttons, but because this top is more fitted I'll probably have to actually rig up a pattern and follow it. We'll see. I consult my mother on all these projects because she's a genius, and I'm sure she'll have some excellent ideas on how to make this work. I'm not sure if I want to do patterned fabric on this one or a plain fabric.

I'm hoping this dress will actually be the easiest to put together. It's not actually the same skirt as the yellow one, although it sort of looks like it, because instead of the skirt being tiers joined on every level, this is three ruffles layered on top of each other. The peasant top bodice should be fairly easy to engineer, and I'm hoping the skirt will be too. We shall see.

I visualize this dress in patterned cloth. Maybe a small, faint pattern, but a pattern nonetheless.