The Dramatic Conclusion

I just know you're waiting with bated breath to see how I solved the Case of the Befuddling Pseudo-Sleeve (see yesterday's post), so I won't torture you any longer. But before I show you the finished product I'll take you through all the steps I took to get there, and I'll warn you--it gets pretty ugly.

Here's where we left off:

For whatever reason, I just couldn't get on board with the sleeve like this. Too heavy? Droopy? Victorian-looking? I began to doubt the yellow, so I tried a similar motif in charcoal.

Um, no. Just no.

Ehh...again, no. Kind of makes me think of hairy tarantula legs. Let's go back to yellow.

Aaack! No, no, all wrong. I'm just backpeddling now.

Still no. I don't hate this concept, but it's all wrong here.

I don't hate this either, but it kind of reminds me of the Carrie Bradshaw massive flower-on-shoulder trend. Still a no-go. Getting closer, maybe?

Oh, hey, I like that. More of a shoulder/back piece than a sleeve, and it totally works. How does the back look?

If you block out the creative squalor in the background, it looks like we have a winner! I love how this orientation of the crochet piece frames the back. I loved it even more when I put it on my gorgeous model Mallory! Photo shoot pics coming soon (with a preview in the new header!).

I know you're breathing easier now. :) Thoughts? Comments? What would you have done differently?

Look #3

Happy New Year, dear ones! I've recently emerged from Christmas-yarncraft-gift-and-decoration-making-induced coma and I can't wait to show you everything my loved ones received, but before I do, let's continue with the new collection!

Warning: Many pictures and indecisiveness ahead.

During the process of figuring out the crochet piece for the first look, I rested the piece on the form to free up my hands for a second, and...

...a cap sleeve was born.

I really liked how the natural shape of the piece draped on the shoulder, so I decided to add this to a tiered dress for look #3.

Dude, get off my chair. As I was saying, a tiered dress. When a dress has a ton of pieces to keep track of, I use a rather unattractive method to keep them all straight.

Hot, right? Yeah, not so much, but it helps me keep track as I start sewing it all together.

The base.

The base with the bottom layer.

Bottom and middle layers.

All layers with the cap sleeve.

And, Ta Da, I hate it. The top layer is too short and it looks like a $10 dress from Dots or something. And no, I'm not hating on Dots, I got a pair of shoes there once. But still. Not the aesthetic I'm going for. Start over.

Ruching. I'm down with it.

The skirt of the dress in its final fabric, a brown, tweedy-looking slinky knit.

I couldn't decide if I liked the free flowing bodice piece over the ruched skirt or not. What do you think?

Yeah, I think not. I like the gathered top better. More refined. Also, note to self: ruched skirt, if not stabilized when sewn, will keep getting longer and longer and less and less ruched. That's what's happening here. I had to completely tear it apart and sew a ribbon into the seam when I sewed it up the second time to keep the gathers from falling out. I make mistakes, we all learn. Everybody wins, right?

Ahh, very nice. I'm pleased. Dots-B-Gone. Now to add the sleeve:

Hmm. No, that looks too dainty. Too much like the doily shoulders of yore.

Hmm, I still don't know. Too heavy or droopy or something. Let's look closer.

Yeah, that is just not working out for me...is it the color combination? The yellow yarn on the pallid skin of my dress form? The length of the sleeve? The fact that it's not really a sleeve at all, but a decorative strap?

These questions baffled me for a few weeks, and I had total designer's block. I took a break and tackled it again, much later, closer to the photo shoot date. Check back tomorrow for the conclusion of The Case of the Befuddling Pseudo-Sleeve. The final result is exciting!

Look #2

Welcome to the second installment of the new collection! For this second look, I wanted to make a day to evening look that was easy to throw on, comfortable, and stylish but didn't look like everything else in your closet. I started with a basic v neck bodice. This one fits rather poorly because my draping fabric didn't have near as much stretch as the final fabric. Please, I ask you. Learn from my mistakes.

If the neckline looks obscenely low, that's because...well, it is. I made this particular look to fit my unusually long torso, which is also why the empire seam looks a bit low.

Draping the skirt. I draped this as a rectangle--bad idea. You'll see why in a second.

Here's the bodice with a slim little sleeve.

Not bad overall, but the skirt is pretty atrocious. Puckery and boxy and just plain not ok. I went back and added a few curves, and...

The finished product. It might be hard to tell what's going on around the neck. I added a tie to the back neckline, but liked it best when the tie tied in the back under the arms.

For the shoulder detail I adapted the Flemish motif from the first look.

Mr. N commented that it looked military inspired, which I consider a huge success! Anything beyond "dress with doily shoulders" is fine with me. I wore this to work once (don't worry, I wore it with a camisole. I'm not trying to spill my goodies at work) and I was really happy with it. It was comfortable, easy, and interesting, which was my goal. What do you think? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Evolution

If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you know I have an insatiable desire for and obsession with yarncrafts. It only made sense that my next collection incorporate knit or crochet techniques. Knitwear is a huge industry and far more common in apparel than its cousin crochet, so I decided to take on the challenge of working crocheted pieces into my designs in a fresh and modern way, steering clear of lace collars and granny square ponchos.

For the first piece in the new collection, I started with the simple silhouette of a long sleeve minidress with a low back neckline. Here's the shell without the sleeves.

Then I played around with some crochet samples:

This was kind of cool, but the yarn looked too bulky to me. I added sleeves and made a new crochet sample in a lighter weight yarn in a more sophisticated color.

Disappointed. The back is still so exposed, the color is too close to skin color, and it still looks like I just slapped a crusty old piece of lace onto a perfectly simple little black dress. The piece is far too complicated to be appealing. Back to the drawing board.

Then, as I was flipping through a crochet book, I found a Flemish floral motif that was simple enough it could be manipulated a hundred ways and still look interesting and modern.

I was starting to like this, but needless to say, it needed revision. So I started doing the math.

After yet another sample, I was getting somewhere.

Since I still needed to find a new color, I made another sample in this beautiful yellow wet-spun linen yarn I recently bought.

Wow. Yikes. That's surprisingly terrible. Also, it still looks a bit...strained. The flower motif needs more petals so it fills the space better.

Wow, that's more like it. And the dark color is a great contrast against the skin (the skin of my dress form, anyway). I think I've cracked it! Here's the finished garment. The beautiful gray yarn is Lion Brand's Superwash Merino Cashmere.

Though it took a while to get there, I'm really happy with this piece. And I can't wait to show you how great it looks on my model...but not yet! I'll take you through the process of the other pieces too.

Thanks for stopping by! What do you think of this dress? Would you wear it? Or rather, would you buy it? Would your friends buy it? I'd love to hear what you think.

One Year Ago

I was reaching.
I was struggling.
I was pushing.

Now?

I'm doing it all again. I'm in the home stretch of an intense, long process and I have so much to show--or, rather, I will after this deadline. I've come a long way over the course of a year, discovering who I am, what I do, and whether any of it is worth anything to anyone. The conclusion I've come to time and again is that I have to trust myself. I have to believe. Because it's all worth it to me.

New collection coming very soon.