Tag Archives: mint dress

Finished Mint Dress

Posted on by Nina
17

I finished it over a month ago! Finally got around to taking pictures. Here are all the posts about this dress.

A couple more WIP/detail shots:



It isn’t perfect, but after I finally wore it for the first time last weekend, I loved it! I guess sometimes I just need to stop looking at all the details that aren’t perfect and enjoy the dress as a whole :)




This is the first “complicated” dress I’ve ever drafted, and I’m quite happy with it.  Although next time I don’t think I’ll make a scalloped edge with the 2/3 circle skirt, they just don’t show that well… and that it’s hard to tie the back nicely without help! Also, the skirt is a tiny bit too small, and it makes the zipper look weird. Maybe a hook and eye can fix that.

I also finished the fur shrug today, I’ll post pictures tomorrow.

I got a serger!

Posted on by Nina
4

I ended up ordering the Brother 1034D from amazon, and shipped it to Switzerland (the $ is so cheap right now and it was still cheaper than getting a cheap one here..), and now I have a serger! Lucky for me I can start serging right away, we had the right transformer in the garage :) ALthough I still need to get thread…

Haha, at first I was so scared to press the pedal all the way down, because the light started to ficker when I applied just a bit of pressure. So I called my dad (scared the machine would break if I pressed the pedal down further), and after he got tired of me putting my foot on the pedal and then stopping and saying “no, I can’t do it!” he just pressed it down. And everything is fine. haha…

I have to admit, I don’t know what those cone-y things are (next to the machine in the picture), there are four of them so I suppose it has something to do with the spools? This is exciting! I have a machine I need to learn how to work!

I finally made the pattern for the skirt for the mint dress, and marked the pieces on the fabric. It was hard figuring out how to fit all of the pieces (with the annoying shape of the back pieces, the hem facing, and me wanting to sew the bodice pieces doubled up because of the sheerness):


(played around with the contrast so you can see the pieces marked, that’s not really what the color looks like!)

I’m off to cut!

Scallops and Fabric

Posted on by Nina
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Corrected the back bodice pattern (I decided I’m going to leave the front as I drafted, without the under bust dart, the straps keep the fabric from folding!) and started on the math for the 3/4 circle skirt pattern today.

I don’t have enough fabric for a full circle, so I’ll make a 3/4 circle skirt. In order to fit all the pattern pieces on the fabric, I’ll have to sew the straps from 2 pieces (the back piece with the ties and the straps is this ridiculous shape that wastes so much fabric! I hope it’ll be worth it :))

Also made “test-scallops” from newspaper. I think I’m going to make the scallops about 12cm wide (the top one in the picture):

On an unrelated note, I got this large pillowcase at the thrift store a few weeks ago, and I’m not sure what I want to do with it yet (the spool is there for size comparison):

I like the stripes and the color! Maybe a romper (chevron effect)? The colors are very summery and “fun”. Or a dress with a gathered skirt? I’ll have to see if I have enough fabric.

Mint Muslin

Posted on by Nina
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Well, it isn’t exactly muslin, just scrap fabric I had lying around:

I added a “dart” on one side as you can see, and it makes the fit better, but it makes folds in the fabric. I think the only solution would be a seam under the bust like this:

On the other hand I don’t want it to be tooo bustier-looking (don’t get me wrong, I love bustiers, but it’s just not what I’m going for…). And I don’t want to have too many seams on the bodice. I need to think about how I’m going to fix it. Maybe I don’t need that dart and the fabric won’t bunch up under the bust once I have the straps?

the straps need to be fixed first, which is why I had them tied around my neck:

Mint Dress – Design

Posted on by Nina
3

I feel like tie-backed dresses have been following me! First of all, I’ve been thinking of sewing another one of these:

(another dress I made for my Maturaarbeit last year, it’s not exactly “tied”, but it has that shape too)

And then I found these online yesterday:


1. from lookbook.nu (the look has been deleted… or at least that’s what the site tells me) 2. from burdastyle user cationdesigns

So that’s what the back of the dress will be, tied (see sketch below). I had a hard time deciding what I wanted the front to look like:

But after going through my 40s/50s/60s inspirations folder, I settled on this picture for inspiration:

(via Gertie’s Blog)

A sweetheart neckline! I’ve been wanting to make one for a while, so why not now? I will make straps though.

So I spent some time today drafting the pattern for the front. From what I can tell there’s a center front seam, a side bust dart, and two center bust darts. Not sure if there is a bust dart coming from the bottom, but I drafted a pattern without one:

the cut out piece is the pattern I used for the floral dress, slightly altered to fit this design. The bottom one is the next step where I pivoted the bust dart to the center front seam. I then added another fold to the center front (just by holding it up to my body and pinching the tissue paper):

(ignore the top dart (drawing mistake), just the two along the center front seam and the side seam will be there)

I’ll do the back bodice piece tomorrow and sew a muslin too :)

Mint Dress – Inspiration

Posted on by Nina
1

I’m ready to jump into the next project! I think this will be the last one before I leave for the states in August.

Last year I bought three meters of a pastel-mint colored cotton for 5 € (in the same shop I went to this year), and used some of it for my Maturaarbeit (I kind of messed up the dress and didn’t like it because it’s design and colors didn’t fit the concept anymore):




Well, I still have a lot left, and I want to make another summer dress, one with a little less going on (fabric wise) than the floral “betty draper” dress, and instead concentrate on the design and adding little details. I know I want a circle skirt with a scalloped edge, the rest I’m not sure about yet, still collecting inspiration! I’ve started using Pinterest again for this, and have a pinboard for every project I have planned (I also linked these in the sidebar ->), here is the one for the mint dress.

This is the fabric and the buttons/beads I’m considering for embellishing:

I’m still figuring out the design, more on that tomorrow.