Summer Date: DIY dress

Now I saw the idea for a top like this whilst searching for embellishing ideas. (Here) I found some fabric just lying around in my house that I thought would do the job, and would make a nice dress. However, the original design used a knit fabric while the fabric I had was satiny and very slippery. This meant when I was trying to sew it (as a very amateur user of sewing machines/overlockers etc etc) I had a lot of trouble making it. The fabric was also prone to fraying very easily, which meant a lot of extra work neatening the edges/stopping them from fraying. So in the end, it was basically my mum that made it while I helped :) But overall I'm pleased with the results. The only thing was that I decided after I had made it that it would look quite nice with the front part high, but because the sides are the same length, and only connected through the sash part, when I did this the back hung really weirdly and was also then longer than the front. I also didn't allow enough fabric to do this so it also became really short. So it looks better with a lower neckline and belted.... And I know the sash is a little too long, but I haven't got around to redoing the end. I wore a variation of this outfit when I went out for a friends's party, and also on my Valentine's date!

Without the belt it looked a little pyjama-ish, I think due to the pattern. My tips to you are if you want to make this dress/top, and you are a beginner, make sure you know what you want to do with it before you start, and choose a non-fraying, easy-to work-with fabric. 

P.S whenever you are wearing any kind of top/dress that has straps (or no straps) that will not cover those of your bra, make the effort to wear a strapless! It makes your outfit so much cleaner and tidy looking. I also have a pet peeve about being able to see the back of a bra either through or above the backline of a top. I just think that it looks so tacky and trashy. Stay classy!

Nicola's Birthday - DIY T-Shirt x2

Recently it was one of my close friends birthday, and as I have been on a bit of a tshirt-embellishing craze recently, I thought I would post the DIY tshirts I gave to her for her birthday. One was a simple design that just involved buying trim and then half machine/half hand stitching it on. The other was an idea I saw on the internet...  Here... however I used a slightly different process. Both were initially plain tshirts.

These were the finished products:

This is the back view. The doily actually has the centre cut
out so you can see a subtle hint of skin underneath. 

On the birthday girl!

I hand sewed the trim around the neckline and the doily on this shirt, but if you are crafty with a sewing machine then that would work well too. I initially stuck the doily where I wanted it with some iron-on hemming tape, which basically is has a light adhesive on both sides when heat is applied, which meant the doily stayed in place whilst I was sewing it. I then cut the tshirt around the part of doily that I wanted cut out, leaving about 1.5cm of fabric from where I had stitched in case the fabric frayed.

Both these shirts were $5 each from The Warehouse on sale (normally 10), and were fairly good quality for the price. I bought the doily from a local hospice shop (like a thrift/secondhand store), and overall these nice gifts cost just over $20 for everything.