Flower Girls

A few months ago I was approached by a close friend who asked if I could make flower girl dresses for her her two little girls. This was a very fancy destination wedding and the girls needed to be up to par with the rest of the bridal party. Aren't they the cutest girls ever! 

4th Of July Tutus

When I was young my mom and my aunt always dressed me, my siblings, and my cousins in matching outfits for our 4th of July family reunion. Some were cuter than others, but we still remember them and what a great time we all had together. This year, My cousin and I decided to carry on the tradition and dress our little girls in matching outfits. It was a lot of fun and really easy to create. The total outfit cost about $3.70 for the onesie and materials. Not to shabby!

It's a little hard to see, but the onesie just has a star cut out of felt that was hand stitched with white thread. We put little triangles of tulle behind it to give it texture and a navy button to tie together the read, white, and blue theme. The headband is just a piece of white elastic with two pieces of tulle tied into bows with a pearl button hotglued in the middle. The tutu is 1.5 yards of tulle cut into strips and tied around a piece of elastic. Super easy and full of impact!

Spring time, Spring time, All around

I love spring! I always feel more rejuvenated and happy as winter slowly melts away. I love the tulips and daffodils that shoot out of the ground. I love the fact that it can snow in the morning and be melted and sunny by late afternoon. And believe it or not I also love spring cleaning. But, being a girl I especially love all the new spring dresses! I have always loved getting a new Easter dress as a little girl, and when I got older, getting a new dress for Sweethearts, Prom, & Spring fling. My mom always made my dresses, and we had fun designing the patterns and finding the perfect fabric. It totally stressed my mom out, but I contribute most of my love of design and sewing to those experiences. When I was in fashion design school I made my own wedding dress and I felt so proud of what I had accomplished. I always felt proud to wear those dresses and I still have a hard time parting with them because they made me feel so good when I wore them.

Over the years I have helped out other young girls feels the same way as they attend dances, weddings, graduation ceremonies and other important events. They have learned that you don't have to design and make a dress from scratch to get the look you want and to feel great, you just need a good seamstress and friend. Altering or redesigning something is the best and most cost effective way to create your own look. This dress was way too short. I unpicked the hem and it still wasn't long enough. The top of the dress has fabric flowers out of different types of purple fabric. We were able to find a corresponding fabric to add as a trim and make it just a few inches longer.



This girl wanted a fun new dress to wear to a wedding, so I custom made this dress from a commercial pattern. Now she has a dress that fits her perfectly and she looks great!

This dress was for a graduation party. It started out with just tiny straps. were able to find matching fabric to make thicker straps and a cap sleeve. It made a huge difference in the overall look of the dress.

So what if you find a dress but maybe you hate the straps. What if its too short or too long? Maybe you just wanted a certain color to brighten up your wardrobe. For all of these reasons and many more, I am here for you. Let your imagination go wild, or let me help you get started.

Cute Dancewear pics!!

Here are a few examples of my basic dance wear items. I made these specifically for my niece and used her favorite colors. I have made many leotards and shorts to specific specifications of color and style. Here are some of her favorites.

This has a fun snakeskin patterned white spandex with turquoise bottom half.

super sparkly gold headband

Hot pink shorts close up

Fun pink and white tutu

cute matching hot pink shorts and polka dot leo with chocolate brown bottom half.

Raw Couture 2009

This post is way overdue!!!

These are pictures taken during the dress rehearsal of SLCC Raw Couture 2009. The entire show was based on different decades from the 1920's to the 1980's. I was inspired by the 1930's flowy, and drapy designs, but I transformed them into designs for modern ballet costumes. The fabric I used includes chocolate brown stretch velvet for the leotards and hand painted silk burnout for all the dresses and drapy elements. I used a gold tulle for accents and volume.

Illustrations and Sketches

Here is a sample of some of my favorite sketches and Illustrations.

Here are the three illustrations for my board for Raw Couture. Because the fabric was so intricate, and my illustration skills are not quite up to par for this type of project, I scanned a section of fabric on to the computer and used photo shop to fill in the different sections.
Here is a sample of flats I drew for my Illustration class. The are part of a larger line of ballet and lyrical costumes. I designed the tulle to have an embroidered diamond shape with pearl beads placed in a diagonal all through the design.
These are a few sketches I drew up for my dance studio. I made the simple empire waist dress with spanky shorts for a little seven year old class for our Christmas recital. I plan to make all of these sooner or later.

Swimsuits!!!!

I have never been a fan of swimsuits in my life. I hate trying them on, I hate wearing them, and I hate trying to find cute shorts or coverups to match. Well, today I might have had a change of heart. I am going to make me one or maybe two or three, and my sister one as well because I found the best new website, http://www.fashionfabricsclub.com It has every kind of fabric you would ever need that is cute and very affordable. They also have swimwear fabric, like this very cute black/gray/white polka dot starting at $4.95 per yard which for most people is more than

enough for one swimsuit! From what I can tell shipping is $6.95 for quite a few items. I haven't ordered my fabric yet to know if that changes for every new fabric you add to your cart or not. I wanted a ton of fabric off this site so I'm sure you will too. They even have all kinds of knit which you can't find very often in the local stores. I am toying with the idea of making swimwear as a summer project for adult and kids, if anyone is interested give me a hollar and I will give you a screamin' deal for being a friend of the blog. I will be taking my patterns from my leotard patterns that fits really well. It's very roomy and you don't feel squeezed in. I was very excited and had to share my good fortune with all of you. check out this website and you will not be disappointed, I promise!

SUCCESS!!!

I just finished sewing this top together. The black one is the one I made and the white one is the one I made the pattern from. It's not finished obviously, but I couldn't wait to post this. I have been very scared to sew this together! Every stage so far I have had some sort of hiccup, all of which I have learned tremendously from, but frustrating non the less. I have been doing every other project possible before this, but it was finally time to get busy. At first glance this looks like a simple project. When I took a closer look, I realized how different each piece is and how many sizes I had to make. I obviously got it backwards... but I was able to make it smaller and keep each pattern piece fitting together like it should! (Grading patterns is a skill I am still perfecting). I had to share my excitement with you and now I feel I can do any project headed my way.

Fabric Flowers

I found a new fun way to make fabric flowers. They are SO easy it's not even funny!! I've also heard them called yo-yos. These are so flouncy and fun! Here's how you make them:

• 

• Start with a circle double the size you want the finished flower to be.
• Use the basting stitch or a needle and thread to go all the way around.
• Pull the thread as tight as it will go and flatten the flower.
• Take a few stitches across the center to lock it shut, and tie it off.
• Add to any tee shirt, scarf, or headband.
  

I made a bunch of these for a dance class to go with coordinating shorts and tops. Fun huh!!

It's Not You, It's your clothes...

This is something I wish every woman would understand.

So I've been altering some maternity clothes for a friend and we found something interesting. Take a look at this picture of a jersey knit wrap shirt. Can you tell whats wrong? The arms look like they were made for an ape. The white line represents where the middle of her hand is. They are 6 inches longer than they need to be! To make matters even weirder, one sleeve is an inch longer than the other. What the Weird?!
This is an example of when pattern grading is not always used correctly. Grading is when they take a patter that's a size 6 and make it to fit size 2 to 16, plus size and maternity. For some reason they think that if the torso needs to be longer, so do the arms.
Most woman aren't a size off the rack!!! Sometimes we find a designer or brand that fits us the best, but lets face it, we like to shop at more then one store. Getting things altered isn't a bad thing. It most likely isn't your body, it's the clothes. So next time you go shopping don't get frustrated, just call your new seamstress for help! :)