Oooooo... Fabrics...

Yep. I bought fabric.

So I was rooting through the off-cut bin (I start many a sentence with that phrase), and what should I come across but two meters of black Ponte. Fancy that! So, obviously I bought it and promptly left the shop. Actually, in reality, it was probably at least 45 minutes later and £30 lighter that I finally left the shop with my exciting selection of off-cuts. And a zip.

Rolls & Rems, just off Holloway Road (http://rollsandrems.com/), turned out to be quite the little gem, much to my delight the off-cuts weren't so much leftovers as they were genuine I-can-actually-use-this sized bits of fabric. Hence why I left with three good sized, nice quality bits of material. Though goodness knows what I'll use the other two bits for, speculatively buying fabrics has gotten me into the state I'm in now; i.e. massive hoards of stuff in every available storage space. Ah well...

I haven't ACTUALLY made any progress on the dress pattern, it's still stubbornly refusing to take itself off the stand and be magically ready to use, but I now have fabric I can toile with and a zip to stick in the back. Can't be bad.

New Year; new start. Another one...

So, with a recently broken leg and everyone's New Year's resolutions ringing in my ears I figured now was the time to remember my Blogger password and get back on that draping horse.

Looking back at my last post, I did actually succeed with the intersecting darts exercise but failed to post the pictures and now can't find them. Yay me. But I have something a little more interesting to post about today.

You know when you find a dress in a shop that looks beautiful on the hanger, but when you put it on it's a little akin to squeezing sausage meat into a skin? Yep, me too. I tried on such a dress at one of my favourite high street shops a while ago and despite the awful fit, I couldn't get the beautiful design out of my head. So, thought I, why not have a go at draping it yourself?
Turned out not to be such a horrible idea. My stand was already padded and having learnt how to intersect darts I just kinda, well, did it.

I love being all excited about a project, pity that for me the excitement fizzles out pretty quickly and leaves me with a vague guilt about the unfinished work. This has been on the stand for a number of months now and I think now is the time to test the pattern with a toile.

Right now...

Okay, not RIGHT now, but this weekend surely. In the store it was made from a heavy-weight Jersey, (which after a quick peruse on google convinced me it was a Ponte, probably a Cotton/Polyester blend) and had no fastenings - hence the sausage meat metaphor.
After draping it in Calico I've decided that even though I like it in a more structured fabric, that the darting over the bust will probably lend itself better to a fabric with a stretch. Like Ponte. Oh, those clever garment technicians... Unless, maybe if I cut the whole thing on the bias and put in a zip. Eeek.

The fact that I have Calico here and don't have any Jersey will probably mean, as usual, I will do it the hard way.

xx