(made from old aprons, table cloths and pillowcases)

Dearest Hive Sew-ists and Needlework Artists...

Here are notes and visual insights into my 'showstopper' dress, which I made for the recent collection presentation - a pop-up shop of the clothing I've developed over the past 2 yrs... An eclectic mix of quality fabrics, outspoken imagination and an artist's spontaneous hands!

Some of these finished photos I already shared, and I wanted now to go more into the process of how the dress was constructed/ how it magically 'appeared' - even if it grew out of my pile of fabrics quite without any design first, per se!

This was the very final stage of the dress; it sat less well with these adjustable straps, so I set them better by taking off the buttons and then sewing a neat square of stitching where the buttons had been. Then a McMA label to finish off: Making Clothing Magical Again!

These are the layers of the skirt, which are from several different garments and linen pieces. I loved piling them on like this! I was going to make a shorter dress, but adding more layers felt better and better; I just kept going until it was suitably 'frufru' 🤭😋🤗

And this was the bodice correction stage, which happened before the end; I used the front of an interestingly-embroidered T-shirt, by cutting it out and moulding it to the shape I wanted: it brought tge waist of the dress in really nicely, and allowed the frilly layers to sit their best.

Above is the moulded front sleeve of the T-shirt that I used for the bodice; pinning it so it would sit right. And below is me testing the straps on the mannequin, to see how long they should be -and seeing which undergarments would sit best under the top in particular.

Now some details of the fabrics involved...

And the actual sewing on the machine of the longer seams...

And now the earlier construction of the dress: you can see the difference between the earlier forms and the final, fitted dress; this illustrates how my undesigning unfolds - feeling into the shapes, textures and structure, and tweaking to the finish-line. 💝💖

The original shape that was forming with an old apron, at the very beginning of the creative process, got a bit lost as I attached skirt to bodice - which is why I made the bodice alteration as described above.

And the very beginning; putting together some layers, and mocking up a general dress shape - which in the end changed a great deal.

I hope that this post finds you well and flourishing, and that it helps illustrate how a new 'showstopper' dress can be made from (relatively) discarded items!

Blessings all, from central Spain!