better late than never

i was thoroughly inspired and intrigued by the weekly challenges on the last go-round of project run and play. i love that blogger challenge.

when all the themes were announced my head was spinning—i had so many ideas for each week! i was gonna do it! keep up and add my contribution to the flickr friends pool every week!

umm…no. whomp whomp.

i started the first week: a pattern remix of no big dills “very biased skirt”. the plan in my head came to fruition—but with a LOT more work than i expected.

a simple sheath, with bias cut strips grading from a deep rust to a salmony orange to bright orange to light orange to white.

i bought each color in two different fabrics: a satiny solid and a sheer chiffon, and alternated and overlapped two of each fabric weight on each color layer.

i cut a front and back out of muslin and sewed the bias strips on each separately, then sewed the dress up and put a facing in the neck and arms. the pattern doesn’t match up perfectly on the sides, but it’s definitely close enough.

i seriously underestimated the time it would take me to sew all.those.strips.on. like, by DAYS.

my room was flooded with strips of fabric in autumnal colors. they were everywhere. and in the end i had enough left to make another entire dress, but i couldn’t stand the sight of them anymore. shhh…i threw them all away (a first class sewer sin, i know)

in the end, as usual, it was worth it. a one-of-a-kind dress that my girl loves. it’s definitely eye-catching. paired with black tights and shoes, sometimes a black cardigan, and we’ve even added a simple black sash at the waist. love.

oh! and the back:

a big black exposed zipper. i’m a big fan of the exposed zip—edgy without being over-the-top.

so here it is: the one and only project i did for the last project run and play, a mere month or so after it ended. yippee.