Feature Me Friday

Until further notice, I will call this feature "Feature Me Friday." A special thanks to Amanda for being so clever! I'm not very good at coming up with titles...I'm sure you had no idea considering my blog is called "Heidi's World" and I didn't even come up with that myself. But that was years ago!

This week--or the last few weeks actually--I have been working on reconstruction. I bought this skirted suit at a bazaar this summer with the intention of resizing the skirt. I love the pinstripes! It was only $1 so if I messed up, no big deal. I didn't have any plans for the jacket. I'm not really a jacket wearing girl. It would probably have looked cute with jeans--if I wore that sort of thing. At the very least I might have resized it to fit me just to learn a few thing about resizing. And then passed it on to someone else so it wouldn't hang neglected in my closet.


A few weeks ago, I finally got to work on the skirt. It had a seam right down the center of it with a pleated slit which I thought was really weird so I decided to redo the entire front as well as resizing. I already figured the whole project would be an adventure because I would need to hem it up quite a bit since it was way too long on me. I should say now that I liked the pleated slit, just not in the center front. I thought it would look better in the back which meant I had to move the zipper and basically turn the skirt backwards. That still left me with a seam down the center.


After what felt like hours of seam ripping (oh, how I loathe seam ripping!) I started thinking about what shirt I would wear with the skirt. I jumped on the suit when I first saw it because I need dress clothes so badly. Having another skirt in my possession would be great but I still don't have very many tops to go with. I have even fewer that I actually like. I started thinking about the jacket again and had an 'aha!' moment. I could use the jacket to make the top to a dress! As soon as that thought came into my head I knew what I wanted it to look like. I would do a classic shape and maybe throw in a little something extra to make it more fun and playful. The pleated slit at the back would fit right in! I made some sketches, which honestly I rarely refer to, but sketching is definitely a weakness for me so I've been trying to do it often whenever I create something.


Right now, I have the basic outline of the top and bottom done. It has been such a slow process because everytime I come to the next step I have to stop and picture the completed project in my head and how it should look. I'm learning and making things up as I go. As helpful as a teacher or a video would be right now, I've been too stubborn to search for one. I know I can figure it all out and I think I'll have a better grasp on construction and sizing if I teach myself with trial and error. When I'm constructing this dress, I'm making it slightly bigger than it needs to be just to get it finished. Then I'll go back and resize it to fit me. If I had a custom mannequin I could be sizing as I go but as of now, I have been holding pieces up to myself to see how they fit. I can always go back and make it smaller but once everything is all trimmed up I can't make it any bigger! The tricky part that I see coming up is fitting the skirt to the top. It's way too wide right now. I know I'll have to do some pleating or gathering and I'm not really sure how to go about doing that just right. I may actually have to google a few things!



That's what I've been up to this week. I'll have to show you my progress next Friday!

Have a super fabulous weekend!