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:

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

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

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

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  4. 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 :)

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  5. 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

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  6. 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 :)

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  7. 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?

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