Coco Beach Spring Party, Day 3

Finally, Raine's dress is complete and Jeannie can serve the Mai Tais!

This dress is made of linen-esque blue fabric with light and dark threads woven in, giving it a canvas-like look. It is really three separate peices; a halter vest with an extended waist, gathered mini-skirt, and short capelet.

I think this may be my least favorite of the three, but is also the most unconventional, so the design risk was a nice challenge to face. Raine is a bit difficult to design for because she has scoliosis, just like me! Her spine is "S" shaped, her left shoulder is higher than the right, one arm is one inch shorter than the other, and her hip sticks out to the left. All this makes for a sexy-looking pose in certain outfits, but it also means that she is limited to garments that are not incredibly structured. No corsets for you, girl!

Still, I love her and she remains my "edgy girl" that can pull off the unsusal outfits.








I did not originally design the dress to have a capelet, but I am glad that I added it. I think it gives it another layer of interest. I think the capelet should make a comeback! Look for them to pop up at least a few more times in the near future!
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Show and Tell

I have to admit that Raine's Beach Party capelet has a function other than looking lovely draping off her shoulders. It also conceals mistakes!


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One Day Coco beach Party Dress 2

Okay, so technically this dress was started and finished over the span of two days, but it was done in less than the course of 24 hours, so I am rationalizing that it still counts as a one-day dress!

Trina is wearing an avocado green faux-linen-canvas sleeveless dress accessorized with a matching bolero mini-jacket.

She says it is "Simply Adorable."

(You may also notice that the quality of these new photos are significantly different than my previous ones. I finally broke down and got a new camera, and OH is there a difference when I use it. Just like when you get a new car and put it next to your old one, I didn't realize how much I NEEDED a new camera until I used it the first time.)






Dress without jacket.
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Flash/No flash

Here is a close-up of the bolero jacket. I was aiming to allude to Jeannie's little pink harem vest with it. I have never done this type of "almost sleeve"before. Things that don't lay flat to the body usually scare me, but I can definitely see using this type of shortcut again in the future.

Additionally, while having fun figuring out my new camera, the picture above was taken with a flash, and the one below was taken without. I'm liking the natural lamp-lighting picture much more!

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But where did her hair go?



I put it on the table, of course.

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1 Day Dress Week

The Palm Springs Ren Faire is coming up the week of the 20th and I am going to be making at least one new nice noble garment for which I am budgeting 2 weeks of work.

So I decided that I am going to challenge myself this last free week before I start that project to make three "one day" dresses that will take less than 24 hours each to design, construct, and photograph from start to finish. Making something on the fly is a weakness of mine that I definitely have to work on, for obvious reasons, if you know what I mean.

The speed excercise for me means simplifying the design of the garment (no sleeves, no complicated mathematics, straight hem skirts) while still hopefully making something good-looking that stays within my style.

This first dress I made I really like. I caught an episode of "I Dream of Jeannie" the other day in which Maj. Nelson threw a dinner party. (Jeannie's sister, Jeannie, arrived and chaos ensued, of course) All the guests were wearing really groovy clothes like this one, so this collection is going to follow a "Coco Beach Spring House Party" theme.

The material in this dress that Leonora is modeling is vintage 60's from a garage sale and I think may have originally been meant as uphostery fabric. It is double-sided, blue on one side and small-checker on the other.
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Un-Phail!

Among the pickings of one of my garage sale finds, I found this green-lame' fabric with see-through cutouts in it. Very Hideously Gorgeous! I wanted to make a strategiacally see-thgough dress and ended up hating it, so this picture is of the unfinished result. A lot of people, however, are saying that they really like it so far and don't see a cheezy ice-skating outfit like I do, so perhaps a re-thinking of trashing this dress is in order.
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Turn the Wigs Around! No, really, Turn the wigs around!

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The wig that Nora is wearing is on backwards, and it really looks much better this way than front-ways. "It's sophisticated lookin!"
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Laugh-In mini-collection



One of my FAVORITE old TV shows is Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. Almost every episode, they showed a "party" scene in which the guests would dance and have a good time, but they all froze when the music stopped, two people would tell a joke, the music would resume and everyone would unfreeze. I LIVED for that scene. The following is another mini collection of outfits I could see fitting into a party like that.
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Laugh-In Collection - "Goldie Hawn"

This outfit may seem a little clown-like, but I can really see Goldie wearing a dress like this on the show.

Goldie always seemed to have messy hair and poorly-applied makeup back then.

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Laugh-In Collection - "Barbara Sharma" EDIT: "Pamela Rodgers"


I think it's Barbara Sharma, but I'm open to corrections if any of you can tell me if that's the name of the pretty actress who played the ditzy long-haired redhead girl was in the last Season of Laugh-In.

Edit: I have found out the name of the pretty redhead was Pamela Rodgers. Thanks Hilly_Blue!

This dress was kind of an excercise in ruffles and gathers and layers. This hideous-gorgeous seafoam green material with stitched-on flowers and vines is almost see-through, much to Raine's delight.
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Laugh-In collection "Judy Carne"


Judy was, at least to me, the apparent tomboy of the group with her short brown hair, but she still dressed like a lady. I remember her wearing a lot of oranges and browns.

I was surprised to find that I LOVED making this outfit. I only had one yard of the yellow fabric that I discovered in a box at a garage sale. It is from the 60's and is made of actual silk. Of course, being used to working with cheap polyester, I got frustrated sometimes with straight pins continually slipping out while I was sewing, but I really like the result.
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Cheapness

For those of you who may not know, I am very thrifty when it comes to what I spend on materials. It is not unheard of for me to find a couch abandoned on the side of the road and go back at 1:00 on the morning with some scissors and cut the fabric off of it. Sorry, mom! I know it's dirty, but it's FREE FABRIC!!!

Anyway, I realized that this particular outfit is composed of all bargain basement stuff and perhaps because of that fact, it is one of my favorites to date!
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Raine is a Freak


Raine doesn't look like this when you see her in real life.

She "makes faces" when I take pictures of her, at least while she is not working at modeling an outfit, that is.

Seriously, she's either a fun goofball or she's possessed.
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Close-Up Far-Away



I only am posting this photo because I think I look a little hot in the reflection...
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Avenger 99, at your service


Is she from "The Avengers" or is she simply "Get Smart"s Agent 99 in a blonde wig?


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