DIY I Do : Flower Girl Dresses : Muslin

Well, as I promised in my last post, here is my muslin for the Flower Girl dresses. Please excuse the MESS in the background. And try and look past the fact that it's pinned to a ladies mannequin - the dress is obviously for a little girl, so it won't fit around the 'boobs' of the mannequin! The neckline will be lower because 1. it's not lined yet and 2. my niece asked for it to be lowered. I've just pinned some tulle roughly under the skirt to give you an idea of the shape the skirt will eventually be. It probably won't poof out as much directly below the waist but will be more of a tapered effect. The stripes at the waist are a sash (which I may end up basting in place as this fabric is pretty slippy).

But all in all, I am really pleased with how the dress is looking! I LOVE the contrasting stripes at the hem and the sash, it really takes the dress to another level and adds a nice bit of interest.

So now is the hard bit…when do I start making the real dresses?!! With the girls growing it's hard to know what size to make them. At the moment I'm thinking I will make them in May (my Wedding is at the beginning of July) - do you think that would be close enough that they won't grow too much between then and the actual day?! I guess with having a sash I can make the dresses a little bit big and then just tie the sashes tighter if needs be.

On another note - I actually really like the dress on the mannequin…for ME!! If I ever feel like sewing again after this wedding (!!!) I am tempted to make a dress like this (Colette Macaron anyone?) for myself!

DIY I Do : Flower Girl Dresses : Inspiration & Planning

Right, I realise that there are an awful lot of ‘Inspiration & Planning’ posts at the moment and not a lot of actual projects, but I have a lot of balls in the air at the moment and, to be honest, I need to spend my evenings sewing rather than setting up the camera, putting on make-up, doing my hair and posing with my projects! Yep, there’s the truth of it! But hopefully I’ll get myself sorted shortly. In the meantime, I’m catching up with my wedding blog posts.

So, as I mentioned in a previous post, the ‘theme’ for our wedding is a hybrid between ‘tying the knot’ and all things ‘nautical’, which all started from this image:

This in turn dictated the obvious colour theme of Blue and White. I knew that I wanted my Maid of Honour to be in blue, but I wasn’t sure what route to take my Flower Girls (it’s a small Wedding Party: 1 Maid of Honour, 2 Flower Girls, 1 Best Man & 3 Page Boys). Here are some of the images I collected early on in the decision making (all photos found on my Pinterest here):

All lovely cute classic white Flower Girl dresses. And then THIS picture caught my eye:

Ooo! STRIPES! I love stripes…I actually think I have a bit of an unhealthy obsession with stripes. I’m drawn to them like a Magpie is drawn to sparkly things! So the seed had been planted for stripes…

  

      

It’s an unusual request to have bridesmaids in stripes, and apparently even more unusual to have flower girls in stripes, but hey – it’s my wedding! I didn’t have a lot of luck finding any appropriate girls dresses in blue and white stripes in the shops – so I was loosing hope…until I came across the PERFECT blue and cream stripe poly satin in our fabric shop. Looks like I’m going to have to make the flower girl dresses!

In my next Flower Girl post I’ll share the fabric and my first muslin – I’m excited!

DIY I Do : Honeymoon Style : Inspiration & Planning

Ahhh the Honeymoon – I CANNOT WAIT! We are jetting off to Indonesia, and I am so excited. For those of you who don’t know, I actually spent most of my childhood in Jakarta, Indonesia, but I haven’t been back since I was probably about 18. We will be spending a couple of days in Jakarta itself – when I will be dragging Robin around all my old haunts (can’t wait!), then a quick stop over in Yogyakarta to visit Borobudur, before jetting over to Bali and the Gili Islands. And then we finish off with three days in Dubai on the way home. If you are particularly interested in more details, I have a Pinterest board with links to our hotels and some activities we will be partaking in (we aren’t the lie-on-the-beach-all-day types…so we will be diving, surfing, kayaking, white water rafting and hiking a lot during our three week break!).

But, this blog is about sewing, not travelling, so let’s get back on track. Actually – after saying that, I’m going to go a little off track. You may have gathered that I am doing a LOT of DIY for my actually wedding, and although I would really like to sew my entire honeymoon wardrobe, it’s just not going to be possible. But I would like to perhaps sew one or two things to take with me, and I am hopeful that I will find the time to do so. I thought I would, however, talk a little bit about the honeymoon wardrobe that I’m planning on. I’ll be away for three weeks, and I’m packing a lot of different activities into those three weeks, so I have to be quite smart with my packing. Before I share exactly what I’m packing and how I came to pick these things, I thought I’d share some inspiration photos, just to give you a flavour of what I’m aiming for (please see this Pinterest board for image sources).

Cute shorts:

       

Sophisticated but relaxed dresses:

             

Light tops / kaftans:

         

Versatile Scarves:

 

Extras:

     

Colour Palette:
Although I did intend for my inspirational images to more be about the general look I was going for, I think I have subconsciously been attracted to certain colours. It’s always smart to pack with a small colour palette as it ensures you will have items with you that will match and coordinate well together. Can you guess what my chosen colour palette might be? Yes, bright pink is my key colour, and I’ll be bringing in white, navy & electric blue and perhaps some black as well. I had planned on embarking on making my first pair of shorts, in bright pink linen that is in my stash – but I happened across a pair in the H&M sale for the handsome price of £3! And when it comes down to deciding whether to buy or make something, when I can get the item for £3, I’m afraid that wins for me! I also picked up a pair of pedal pushers in the same bright pink fabric at the same time for about £5 I think. So those two pieces will definitely be key players in my honeymoon wardrobe.

Fabrics:
As well as a colour palette, it’s important to think about the fabrics that my clothes will be made of. I was away in Thailand a couple of years ago and I had brought a couple of very light floaty tops with me that I thought would be perfect – but in such high heat and, most importantly, humidity, they started to stick to me and make me feel uncomfortable quite soon after stepping outside. The reason for this was that they were not 100% cotton, or other natural fibres. So I am being very conscious of this when picking my honeymoon wardrobe – if it’s not cotton or silk or linen, it’s not coming!

For my next post on Honeymoon Style I have the coolest wee tool to share with you – honestly, you are going to LOVE it. It’s a fantastic way to plan a capsule wardrobe and ensure you get a million different outfit combos!!