I did, however make another practice dress, this one out of a tie-dye blue/purple glitter stretch velvet. The debate over the inherent tackiness of tie-dye glitter stretch velvet is left as an exercise to the readers, but in any case, I have been experimenting with skirt styles, and while I like this one-piece dress for practice, I have decided I won't be using this style for my competition dresses this year. In any case, here is my new dress:
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In the meantime, I almost for sure will have some paying clients for skating costumes! Which is really cool because that means 100% guilt-free fabric shopping! I don't know if I will be able to post any pictures of the finished dresses, since they aren't for me, and I don't know how much non-skating-all-for-me-sewing will happen in the meantime. So, there might be a lot of skating costume posts for the next few weeks at least, but I am sure I will find other sewing things to blather on about as well...
Rambling again - could you perhaps have a centre front seam using the textured velvet and do some very careful cutting on the bias so that the pattern meets at the centre front seam? Obviously, without seeing the fabric I could be suggesting complete rubbish.
ReplyDeleteI have to say I like the tie-die, glitter stretch velvet. My local fabric store sells a lot of "tacky" fabrics and I often stroke them and wish I could find a reason to buy the stretchy, shiny, glittery, gorgeousness. I have no doubt that the dancing, skating, ice-dancing world keeps a lot of fabric shops in business.
I guess for the fabric I want to use for competition you could think of it like a gingham check type fabric? Where I am not sure the pattern is large enough to worry about matching at the seams, but is maybe too large to just ignore? It is a repetitive pattern though, so nothing tricky like a large print or anything. And the pattern isn't something I worry about matching at the center front, so much as where the bodice and skirt seam would be. It wouldn't be like a plaid where a mismatch would be too visually jarring, but since it will be for competition I do want to make the best possible costume I can. I *think* as long as I am very vigilant about the nap of the fabric (and maybe lining up the centers of the bodice piece and the skirt piece) then doing a separate skirt should be ok. Maybe. I think. There is pretty much no way the pattern will match at the side seams, so I am not really worried about that, and I am thinking of doing a sheer mesh sleeve, so I don't have to worry about matching there either. And I would still have the streamlined pointed skirt style like above (for figures the fashion is to be as minimal as possible) but I think when I attach the skirt separately I get just as bit more drape and swoosh when I do turns and things, and I think that would be a much prettier effect than the more static drape I get from the sheath style dress I made here. Even though I have noticed that this style of dress seems to be gaining in popularity, perhaps it looks better on skaters with smaller hips? I don't really know. I think having a skirt seam actually makes my waist look smaller though...
DeleteAnd now I have been rambling on as well, haha! Early skating practice coupled with Daylight Savings time changes tend to do that to me... Anyway, I do think about my costumes a lot before I make them (which is why I sew so many dresses for practice), and this year I am feeling very particular about my designs for some reason. I guess because last year I had to make some of the dresses twice, and this year I want to get it right the first time, so I am pondering and thinking, and experimenting.
That fabric is lovely! Is this a practice dress? I swear here in NZ no one would use fabric as nice as that simply for practice
ReplyDeleteYeah, this is just for practice, but I really like skating in it, and I think the fabric is rather pretty, so I will probably be using it for practice at regionals and other important events where we need to look good even during the practice days.
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