Dress Journey: Rainbow Chevrons

A couple of weeks ago we were commissioned to make this amazing rainbow chevron dress, here is its dress journey...

This was the toile/mock-up of the design of the dress, a simple t-shirt shaped top and a gathered waist skirt. Please excuse the one sleeve! I was using up scrap fabric and to save on time I only needed to show one sleeve...

So from this our customer asked for some of the fullness in the skirt to be taken out as it was a tad too much, but other than that it was just right.

This was the fabric, I'd searched everywhere to find a suitable rainbow chevron fabric, which isn't easy to come by! This was a cotton poplin fabric and was lovely to work with, even if it did send my eyes funny at time!

Cutting out the patterns were a tad difficult to match the pattern but I soon found out the pattern would not match across the side seams. But as long as it matched the same colour rows going across, it was the only thing I could do. It did take me 2 hours to cut it all out but I knew it had to be right.

Here is the top sewn together and as you can see, the side seam pattern didn't match perfectly but the colour rows did, which was all I could do. I made sure that there was a perfect chevron line running straight down the centre front and centre back though to keep the balance of the garment.

The skirt had to be a large rectangle shape, it couldn't have been done in triangles to make the skirt swing out as the pattern would have just sloped off towards the side seams. So it was a rectangle and then the top was gathered in to create a bit of fullness and ripple.

This point was the top and skirt joined together, I was so eager to see what it was like! It still had the neck and hem to finish however.

The concealed zip and neck facing was next in, finishing off with my label put on and then hemming on the skirt was the last step!

It's finished! I think its such an impact statement dress! Plus any accessories can be matched to it as it has all the colours.

As a little extra, out of the scraps I made one of our cute rounded shirt collars to team up with any outfit because the fabric is just too cool!

And here is our lovely customer in her dress! Amazing! <3

Rotherham Show 2013

September 7th & 8th was the 34th Annual Rotherham Show at Clifton Park and I was lucky to have a stall at this amazing event! Hannah Elizabeth was based inside one of the large marquees, the Rotherham Youth Enterprise tent, along with many other young entrepreneurs that were involved with the enterprise as well as businesses involved the Prince's Trust. 

I met lots of lovely new people and business, some being very creative and different to the usual. The whole show had so much going on too, vintage car rally, dog shows, massive fun fair, horticulture, crafting, a musical stage, diversity festival and soooooo much more! Some of the businesses I shared the marquee with were Wax Groove, Static Clothing, BitterSweet Boutique, Patchwork Pig, The Screening Project, Props Skate Shop and more. Here's some of the photos of my stall in the marquee and some of the events that went off.