Sunday, June 1, 2014

Typewriters

Dress: Handmade by Myself ; Shoes: Cinderella of Boston ; Briefcase: Secondhand

Last month, I made it one of my monthly goals to finish three sewing projects - one of those projects being this dress! I found this fabric at Treadle Yard Goods, my favourite local fabric shop, a year or two ago. They carry this fab Japanese textile brand called Kokka. Kokka's prints always catch my eye and I've yearned over this time and time again. When I found this teal typewriter print, I knew I had to make the splurge.

I wanted the dress to be something close-fitting because such a cute fabric needs to be in a professional, mature shape - not a full skirt or anything too childish. Since I'm a cheapskate, I crafted the pattern myself which I will never do again. I'm not skilled enough as a pattern maker. After I sewed my original piece together, I found several places where it didn't fit right, and it look so long to have to go back and add extra darts or shaping to get the fit better. But, after hours and hours of tedious work and fighting with my absolutely terrible old sewing machine (1960s Kenmore with huge tension issues), I came out with this lovely dress with questionable craftsmanship.




Example of poor craftsmanship - back fabric panels don't align very well.



I thought these flowers matched the dress perfectly! My favourite thing about the dress - besides the adorbs typewriters - is the colour combo! Teal & burnt orange - so beautiful! It reminds me of a '60s Pop Art design. The pattern that I was inspired by was a '60s Misses pattern for a professional sheath dress. I made my pattern tighter fitting than that one, but the design inspiration was a '60s Misses sheath to play up the young Pop Art-esque pattern.




I wore this to the office (with stockings!) on Thursday, so brown pumps were a must. I wore a red cardigan in the morning as it was a bit chilly, but it soon warmed up to a toasty 80 degrees and I didn't need to wear the cardigan around the office. Thank goodness I'm not working the same place as last summer - the air in that building was kept at a chilly 60 degrees. Bloody freezing sitting around doing office work in those temps, only to go outside and have it be 95 and humid out!

So the thing I was actually getting to with this was stockings. I wear nude stockings but I'm thinking as the weather gets even warmer, I might want to ditch the stockings and go bare legged. Does anyone have good tips on how to go bare legged but still wear closed shoes? Closed shoes - like the ones I'm wearing here - trap so much sweat and odor. I don't want to ruin a pair of shoes just trying to shed a layer in the heat. And sandals aren't an option. Let me know if you have any tips of the trade for this!


I found these adorable little tin plates at a garage sale the other day. Although I'm currently living with my parents (underpaid post-grad life, yay), I've been collecting tons of little things for my next living place. Pots, pans, upholstery fabric, little tables, a fan, wall art, etc etc etc. I think these little tin plates will look great in my future kitchen. My bathroom & kitchen are going to be ridiculously kitschy - I already know!


I'm spending my afternoon & evening working. The full time job I just accepted is for a political campaign, which means that a lot of the work is evening/weekend work, and hopefully some working from home. It pays next to nothing, and it'll be a ton of work, but I'm excited to get out there and learn new things!

Have a lovely Sunday everyone xx

19 comments:

  1. That dress looks amazing on you! And whenever I have to wear closed-toe shoes like that without tights, I have these half socks that only cover your toes and heel, but don't go all the way up to the ankle. Kind of like these: http://www.amazon.com/HUE-Womens-Hidden-Cotton-Medium/dp/B006L3V612/ref=sr_1_8?s=apparel&ie=UTF8&qid=1401645870&sr=1-8&keywords=no+show+socks

    Hope that helps! :)

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    1. Thanks Brooke! I'll look into those - seems like what I'm looking for, and I like that they have nude coloured ones too. xx

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  2. What beautiful fabric!! Such a great find, really cute print with such gorgeous colours!! And please, don't be selling yourself short, the dress is super cute. Really flattering shape and something so adaptable you can wear summer through to fall!

    Great job, peach!

    Gemma
    Faded Windmills

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    1. Thanks Gemma! Yes, I suppose I am my harshest critic! I'm really excited to style this for fall already. I think it'll be great year-round :D

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  3. Oh. My. God. That print. I love it! Great job on your dress, I think it looks fabulous!
    With shoes like that in the summer I tend to wear white cuffed socks or patterned ones. But I'm not super professional style-wise, so that may not be your thing :)
    Congrats on your job!

    Rachel

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  4. Really cute dress!! I really should learn to sew one of these days. I've always wanted to make my own clothes.

    I have the same problem with closed shoes in the summer. I usually wear those little socks that only go over your toes and heel, but they never stay on my feet and slip off inside my shoe and get all crumpled. I've been looking into just buying some deodorizing spray and forgoing socks or tights but I don't know how well that would work. If you find a solution, let me know!

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    1. It's really easy to pick up sewing. I started when I was 3 or 4 years old, being taught by an old nun down the street, and have sewn on & off over the years.

      I have a feeling that those little socks will just slip down, which is maybe even more annoying that just wearing nude stockings. I've tried going barefoot and just dusting my shoes with baby powder to help with moisture/odor, but I think sweat, over time, just eats away at the insole of the shoe too much ):

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  5. I'm a frequent reader of your blog (past and present) but in all honesty a very lazy commenter... but something about that dress and that fabric just grabbed me! I've also recently taking up sewing and likewise am too cheap to buy patterns (they're virtually the same price as a dress!) So far I've been tracing around clothes that I have and adding a seam allowance and that seems to be going pretty well! I really struggled with bust darts so have been looking for other ways to get a good fit. I look forward to seeing more of your creations!

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    1. Hey Joy! Thanks for commenting - and being a long time reader! I haven't tried the tracing technique, but I feel like it isn't far off. I bet darts would be difficult if you're only tracing - how do you know how much to allow for that? I can't even conceptualize what that might be like to try to figure in the darts!

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    2. In all honesty, I didn't allow for it and ended up making an awful fitting dress I probably won't ever wear! But the fabric was cheap and it was a learning curve. The one I've just made has a separate panel for the bust, and I gathered it along the bottom before attaching to a chunky waistband, that gave a lovely shape and seemed pretty simple! I don't think I've explained that terribly well but I can't find a picture to demonstrate what I mean. I look forward to seeing more of your creations and maybe one day a dress tutorial?

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  6. I've always wanted to make my own dresses but no sewing machine and lack of detail always stops me. I really like the colours of the material and it looks great on you. For the legwear dilemma, I sometimes wear fishnet stockings with tiny socks on top so my feet won't get sweaty (but I only wear them with 3/4 length trousers because you know me and bare legs don't go). So skip those and go for pop socks/trainer socks (not sure what they are called in America) and your feet will be able to breathe

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    1. Thanks for the tip Selina! I'm a little worried about the short socks slipping down, but I'll give them a try & see how it goes (;

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  7. Awesome job on the dress! It's super cute. I have yet to make a dress yet. I've hemmed up a lot of things and made pillow covers/other random things but I haven't made a dress totally from scratch yet. I will someday! At least my Pinterest board thinks so! :)

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    1. Ah yes, I definitely started my sewing small - pillows, pajamas, etc. It's okay to start small, but make that leap to a dress sometime! There are tons of super simple dress patterns out there. (This one would have been simple if I hadn't been so crazy about "the perfect fit" and lining it.)

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  8. I love that dress, also the tin plates are so cute I can see myself having it.

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    1. Those tin plates are the best, aren't they?! And thank you xx

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  9. What an amazing dress! You created something so unique! I have a Kate Spade typewriter purse that is an exact match and I would love to have this dress in my life!

    Rebecca
    www.winnipegstyle.ca

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    1. Hey Rebecca! Wow, a typewriter purse?? That sounds really cute - I'd love to see that!

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  10. I can't believe I didn't comment on this (oh...I think I tweeted at you about it) this is THE cutest! I admire your patience and skill making this yourself! it is super cute and the cut is so flattering on you.

    and I don't know if this is still an issue but: try those "no-show" socks that don't stick out of your shoes, or maybe even cutting the feet off old stockings (like the try-on socks they have in shoe stores.) I know what you mean, I pretty much hate going without socks in shoes like this.

    ♥ perfectly Priya

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