Thursday, September 25, 2008

Sewing With Local Organic Cotton Part 5

Here is my latest design in local organic cotton, although it is somewhat of a copy cat from another eco designer dress that was mistakenly sent to me by a customer. I really loved the loose fabric neckline and checked out how it was made to copy the pattern, but I added sleeves, elbow patches, and made the dress very tight (for showing off curves!) I used a stretchy organic jersey cotton for this which cost $17 for two yards, but I only used approximately $10 worth for this dress. A $10 locally woven organic cotton dress is a STEAL!!!
This is the first time I have sewn sleeves, and they made me so nervous I actually had sewn one of them inside out at first and had to rip it back off and re-sew it on again. Never-the-less sleeves are not as hard as I had imagined - I just made the dress sleeveless then made two tubes which I added in after the body was finished.
To make the body of the dress, simply take your exact measurements and make a tube going up and then form a tank top sleeve line. Continue the neckline upward by keeping the fabric very wide and long, like a giant cylinder that comes almost to the end of your shoulder.
The elbow patches were something given to me by a creative friend, who had a big collection of appliques she'd collected & made. These are handmade drawings of stripper playing cards printed on fabric, and I hand sewed them on, very tightly.
Yay for local & organic!!!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aww you are so pretty! Your sewing skills are improving by the second!

Anonymous said...

Lovely piece of designer clothing, the colour of the cloth is awesome.

Anonymous said...

Leslie, this is beautiful!!! So creative. I featured this post on The Canary Report, you're my cover girl!!

Miss Voodoo said...

Thanks Impressed Nick and Matthew!
I love the color too, but I had orginally imagined it in white.

Susie- Wowsers, thanks for that super nice article!!! Sewing is really a challenge, but a fun one :)

Anonymous said...

Great article, and the dress looks fantastic. May I also add check for certification and if in doubt try to buy American made 100% certified organic cotton. These guys may be good sources as well. www.brandofthefree.net for organic T-shirts and for reasonably priced organic jeans http://certifiedjean.com/index.html

Megan said...

Awww, Leslie, that is super cute! I'm still needing to learn to sew. Too bad i'm no longer in nc or I might have had to weedle you into helping me make one too. Sooo cute :)

Miss Voodoo said...

Thanks Anonymous for the tip - this orgaic cotton is 100% certified, grown and milled here in the USA, the weaving warehouse is 4 miles from my house :)

Hey Megan -> it's really not that hard, i just make it up as i go along, if you are even remotely creative you can sew. YOu should totally try! Does your mom have a machine?