Saturday 9 August 2014

Colette Mint Truffle

Who doesn't love a mint truffle?



This was a loooong project in the making. I originally planned to make this dress for my brothers wedding, LAST spring. Then I moved to Warwick, bought this gorgeous spearmint coloured chiffon for £7/m in Royal Fabrics, Leamington Spa, and then never made the dress until now.


I had quite some trouble finding a suitable lining. The pattern calls for the bodice only to be lined and recommended a structured fabric, so I bought some similar coloured cotton before realising that the skirt would be entirely see through - obviously!!

I then bought some white *stuff* in Harlequins, also Leamington Spa, not sure what it is but I bought enough to line both the Victoria jacket and Truffle skirt for a lot of money before realising I didn't want to use that either, for either project. The challenge was in the drape: structured enough to hold the bodice together, but drapey enough to compliment the skirt. Using two different linings was an option, but colours like this are hard to come by, let alone in two different weights.

Eventually I found this funny fake silk at a market in Leicester. The guy told me it was silk, then told me it was like £3 a meter and I quickly questioned the fibre. It's a lining fabric similar to the nasty acetate stuff, but drapier, and less vile feeling. I still feel like I settled with this lining, but the colour was a great match and really brought out the green of the chiffon so I went for it. It's cheap but not unpleasant feeling. It didn't pass the burn test. But the chiffon is polyester too so it really doesn't matter.

Fitting the dress was a breeze, and the making was easy enough until I tried to attach the lining to the zip, which just wasn't happening, so I put the whole project aside for about a month, annoyed. I eventually picked up the project again and slip stitched it by hand in front of a film one night.



So, I lined this normally, but in hindsight I definitely should have underlined it. All the darts and seams are visible through the chiffon, and don't always sit directly above the also visible lining darts. Silly Jodie. You can see what I mean much better from the back -


Oh well.

I actually finished this about a month ago, but haven't had a chance to take photos as I haven't actually worn it yet, nor had a buddy for a photoshoot, but this morning I woke up at 6am and it was sunny and lovely and I just thought I'd get dolled up and take my tripod to the park. And that's what I did. I took a few tips from Rachel at House of Pinheiro, so thanks Rachel for that! Need to fix that washed out sky though. Any advice guys?


Taking photos in the park with a gorilla pod (because I left my tripod in Chris's car, whoops) was really quite hard! It was too bright in the sunlight so I had to find shade, and also had to find something to attach the gorilla pod to. Eventually I found this railing by the river, after some other unsuitable locations. Check out my gorillapod in action!



I really thought I'd stretched out the neckline, but looking at the photos it looks fine, I think I expected the sleeves to sit closer to my neck? But how pretty is the skirt drape!? I love this feature, it makes an otherwise very simple dress totally lovely.


Breezy! I did all the chiffon hemming by hand, using this brilliant tutorial on doing a rolled hem by hand, and all the seams are finished using my newly discovered mock-serger stitch, which doesn't have the best results on fine fabrics, but it did the job. I did accidentally sew the lining hem on the outside, so will fix that in the near future.


Whilst I don't think chiffon was on the list of recommended fabrics for this dress I think it worked really effectively, especially with that skirt drape. Next time I will definitely underline though.

Finally, check out my new "goes with absolutely everything" shoes! It took me a LOT of online browsing to find these, and they were an absolute bargain too, and comfy enough to wear all day :)