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Making a tiered dress in shimmer salmon crepe de chine part 2

The shimmer salmon crepe de chine fabric that I ordered to make a tiered dress has arrived. It actually arrived earlier in the week. 8 yards of it. That’s a lot of cloth. At least next time I’ll know I don’t need 8 yards of cloth to make one dress unless I am planning to make a very detailed and many layered gown that sweeps the floor with it’s tail. But the fabric is a nice fabric. The color is vibrant and the material has a pleasant feel.

shimmer salmon crepe de chine 1

Okay so what now?

Now that I have the fabric I’m not sure about attempting a tiered dress. It was easy enough to do it in photoshop. But I’m not so sure it will end up being quite as easy to do for real as it was to do in photoshop. So I’m trying to think of other possible styles to attempt. For now I have cut out some pieces of fabric to play with.

shimmer salmon crepe de chine 2shimmer salmon crepe de chine 4

I won’t say I have no idea what I’m doing. That wouldn’t entirely be true because I’ve made clothes for myself before and worn them out and about. But technically I don’t really know anything about making clothes. I can sew by hand and I can use a pair of scissors and I have basic drawing skills. That has been enough to produce a few wearable dresses and skirts in the past. I haven’t really made anything I could wear out in the past few years. Over the summer I made a skirt dress out of fabric I designed and got printed at spoonflower.com but I’ve only worn the skirt-dress around the house. I’d like to try to make a dress that can be worn out into public. Whether I can or cannot accomplish this remains to be seen.

Before I can begin…

I have decided to make an adventure of this so I am going to invest in a either a full body mannequin or a dress form mannequin and a sewing machine and some other basic sewing supplies. I’ve been looking at mannequins and sewing machines.

Mannequin Tanya

Tanya Mannequin
Mannequin Female Standing Model Tanya (Plastic) image via amt-mannequins.com

Tanya is my dream mannequin. But she comes with a $108 price tag and a $50 shipping fee. But for the fact that I don’t have $158.00 that I can afford to spend on a crazy whim mannequin purchase at present I’d have bought her; but since this is a crazy whim I have to pass on Tanya for now because she’ll take me over the budget I have set for the mannequin and sewing machine purchase. So I have bought a mannequin named Anna instead. She was still expensive for a whim purchase and not really knowing what to expect upon receipt of merchandise. I can hear those voices in my head chastising me for what I’ve just done and demanding to know if I’ve gone stark raving mad.

Mannequin Anna

Mannequin Anna
Mannequin Female Standing Model Anna (Plastic) image via AMT Mannequins

I’m not sure when to expect Anna to arrive. She’ll come to me bald but I have a couple of wigs around so I can work with those and then once I have paid off for this purchase I can buy her some new wigs. She’s been purchased for the purpose of being my dress form and my display model. I hope this won’t turn out to be a wasted purchase because I seriously am not in a position to spend $100 on something I end up not using. Although those boots I wrote about the other day (A day of hell in a pair of H&M black leather ankle boots) were $100. And they’ll be going into a pile of useless things I spent money on but was never able to wear for one reason or another. Truth be told that’s most everything I buy. So maybe this can turn out to be the start of something transformational after all. Like me coming to realize that I need to make my own clothes because “affordable” clothing usually come in the same basic styles to appeal to what looks are trendy with Juniors at the moment. Let’s face the facts. Clothing manufacturers are usually more focused on appealing to Juniors. Affordable “Misses” clothing is usually terribly unflattering. To find clothes that are flattering you have to go for high end brands. And I am not yet at a point where I can afford to shop high end designer labels. So my options for finding clothing that works for me are very limited. Trying to shop online for clothes usually ends with hours wasted and nothing found. So learning to make my own clothes might be the solution.

The sewing machine

Brother HC1850 Computerized Sewing and Quilting Machine with 130 Built-in Stitches

I haven’t exactly put this Brother HC1850 Computerized Sewing and Quilting Machine with 130 Built-in Stitches, 9 Presser Feet, Sewing Font, Wide Table, and Instructional DVD in the shopping cart yet. I’m afraid. I’ve been wanting to buy a sewing machine for a while now but every time I get set to do it I chicken out. I read the reviews and I worry that I’ll waste my money. I can’t afford to spend $150 on a sewing machine only for it to not work. And there’s always something with all the sewing machines that makes me afraid to buy it. I tend to read the 1 ratings and of course everything is going to have a few 1 ratings so you’ll end up not ever buying anything if you let yourself rely only on the 1 ratings. But for $150 I can’t afford to get a machine that’s not going to work. Even so, I think I’m going to go ahead and take a chance this time. It’s going to put me $250 in debt. That’s $100 for the mannequin and $150 for the sewing machine. Those voices in my head are really doing their level best to stop me from buying this machine. They think I’m spending money I don’t have on something that’s going to turn out to be just another waste of time. After all for what purpose am I doing this? What is going to be the greater benefit that justifies putting myself deeper in debt? But sometimes you have to tune out the voices in your head and take a chance anyway. The big question is, what exactly am I taking a chance on here? All of this just to make a dress? Do you know what I could have purchased for the $300 I will end up having put on my credit card to make a tiered dress in shimmer salmon crepe de chine?

Monica
Monicahttps://adelamonica.com
Singer songwriter Adelamonica AKA Avenue Sixty editor in chief. Writing as Monica for The Monica Archives. Writing has always been one of my passions. In fact, when I was a teenager, I used to tell people they should remember my name, because I was going to become a famous author. I used to live to write and write to live--not in the sense of writing for income but writing to combat depression and to feel a sense of purpose. I've written novels, poems, articles and essays that I tried unsuccessfully to get published over many years starting in my teens. When I discovered blogging several ages ago, I turned to that avenue as a means of doing what I love without having to worry about publishers and their rejection letters. Modeling is also something I have always enjoyed and something I wanted very badly to do as a teenager. So badly that I used to lie and tell people I was a model. I would carry around a large portfolio style photo album and claim it was my modeling portfolio. But, as with my writing, the people with the power to make my modeling dreams come true saw nothing in me that made them stop me in the streets of New York to offer me a modeling contract with their agency. So when I discovered the ability to photograph my own self (before cell phones and selfies) I took up a hobby of pretend modeling at home and that hobby has remained with me throughout my life as a form of self expression and self therapy. I ask that you kindly excuse my lack of worldliness and any instances where I demonstrate lack of tact or lack of knowledge and even lack of basic intelligence in my writing and posing. I'm just here trying to have a little fun doing the things that make me happy. I'm just an average human for whom writing and posing and singing and dancing and the other things I do are ways I express myself and keep myself going on this ever challenging journey of life. I hope you will find something even remotely useful or interesting in the things I share.

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