Dressmaking

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Angel
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Dressmaking

Post by Angel »

My daughter was born tall. She was in preemie sizes until she was nearly walking, but when she did start walking she was the same height as kids twice her age. She's around the height of an average 5-6 year old these days...she's 3 and can still fit her waist into a size 12 month, so when we were facing our first winter together I realised that I had no way of keeping her warm! Anything long enough practically drowned her in fabric, and nothing that fit her chest was anywhere near long enough! So I grabbed a sewing pattern from a department shop (john lewis) and rang my aunt up with "Home Ec and sewing and stuff was still being taught when you went to school right?" and then I asked her to teach me. We went to a local fabric shop and she spent a day explaining how to read a pattern. My kid was around 3 months. She's now 3, and still having the same problems but I now sew virtually all the clothing in our household as it just fits us so much better and so much truer to our taste rather than following current trends...so I'm currently sat here in velvet trousers :P But here's a sample of things I've made this year for us.

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Podolyanka
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Re: Dressmaking

Post by Podolyanka »

When I was in the last two years of school, we studied sewing for 2 hours every Saturday. Dad even bought me a sewing machine. And to his last day used it, I never even tried.

Your creations are amazing. They prove that there is more to sewing than just knowledge and some practice. One has to be an artist and to have imagination and sense of style. Very well done, Angel. :applesauce:
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Angel
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Re: Dressmaking

Post by Angel »

Awww thank you ^_^ I love making our clothes, they're so much more comfortable than the stuff we can buy and I seem to have a natural ability to pick it up and understand it.
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Squirrel
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Re: Dressmaking

Post by Squirrel »

WOW what a lovely array of clothes you have made Angel and all very colourful too. Well Done. :applesauce: :applesauce:
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Angel
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Re: Dressmaking

Post by Angel »

Thank you :) I really love these ones for various reasons. For example... The doll is wearing my daughters baby dress that I couldn’t bear to let go :wub:
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Podolyanka
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Re: Dressmaking

Post by Podolyanka »

I took the doll in the red dress for a kid when I first looked at it. :D
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Angel
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Re: Dressmaking

Post by Angel »

:lol: To be fair, Mary (doll in red) is usually dressed in scaled down versions of my kids outfits and carried in a dolly sling on my kids back and referred to as though she was real.
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Mabel Figworthy
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Re: Dressmaking

Post by Mabel Figworthy »

Beautiful and useful, what more could you want? You're a sewing genius, Angel!
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Angel
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Re: Dressmaking

Post by Angel »

:wub: Thank you
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Re: Dressmaking

Post by Roland »

Absolutely beautiful.

Not sure if I’ve told this here. My mom used to make my dresses. I thought it meant we were poor, so I was always embarrassed.

There was a girl at school that was always bullying me, teasing and making me feel bad about myself. I wore one of the handmade dresses to school. That Sunday after church, her mom asked my mom where she had bought my dress because her daughter wanted one and she couldn’t find it anywhere. My mom replied, “That dress is from House of Angie”. And the other mom said “Sounds expensive.” And told her daughter no.

Mom & I both loved that. The bully was jealous of me, and her mom had just paid a high compliment to my mom’s work. I suspect the daughter learned the bullying behaviour from her mom.

House of Angie.....my mom’s name was Angie. :lol: :dance:
Angel
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Re: Dressmaking

Post by Angel »

That is AWESOME! I think that's my favourite sewing story!

My kid loves that I make all our clothes and will tell everyone it's because "they're the best. They fit better and look 10!" (everything is marked out of 10 at the moment)I don't think she'll ever think it's the cheap option because she's been raised in fabric shops and has learned basic math skills through them. So she knows making them costs more than buying off the rack but she fully believes it's worth it. I also do commissions so she sees how much people are willing to pay for my work.
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Serinde
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Re: Dressmaking

Post by Serinde »

I really love those outfits, and the red Christmassy dress with the matching doll's outfit is fab. What a talent to have!
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Re: Dressmaking

Post by Angel »

Isn't it lovely? They're stretch velvet with glitter tulle over the second skirt and a glitter tulle pettiskirt underneath. Both layers of Kids skirt are finished in horsehair braid so they have volume to them even with only a small pettiskirt, although my kid has asked to not have the tulle pettiskirts anymore because even the softest tulle is now too scratchy.
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richardandtracy
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Re: Dressmaking

Post by richardandtracy »

Interesting jobs you've done. My mother used to make many of my clothes when I was a kid - I hated jeans and loved corduroy, so I have an inkling of how much skill and effort you have put in. You have done really well on the dresses.

My eldest daughter is a bit big, she started as 10lb 6oz, and now at age 22 she's 6ft 1in and weighs in at 16 stone (ish). Not a small lass.

We always had to buy clothes for double her age, which meant we started paying VAT on her clothes when she was 7. She also has size 10 feet, which is more of a problem than her clothes size. Fortunately she is not a 'girly' girl and prefers trousers & goth style T shirts, in large men's sizes, which partially solves the clothing issue. Shoes, she currently has lace-up men's Clarke's shoes of a style identical to my ones, just 2 sizes smaller. That causes problems if I'm in a hurry, because I invariably put on the smaller ones and they get jammed...

I do like the idea of sewing up clothes, but to be honest we can't afford to. Clothes, when home made, tend to be more expensive than shop bought. I have stitched up some fancy dress stuff for my kids, but never managed to succeed with the sewing machine. One 'Red Riding Hood' cape went very well until I discovered I had inadvertently stitched it to my trousers...

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Angel
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Re: Dressmaking

Post by Angel »

It depends on the fabric really for the cost. I made Hubby a pair of star wars fleece PJs that set me back £50! Jays dress, dollys dress and my jeans came to a grand total of a tenner... Market fabric, plus knowing stall holders very well means I can grab some amazing bargains. I couldn't have bought one single item in the store for that, and certainly not at the quality I made them at. So it's all subjective, but to be honest, for DD I would have to buy custom made clothing anyway, she's not just big, she's long. She's in a size 12 months on her waist and a size 5 for height. The most recent top I've made her mashes FOUR sizes; 2, 4, 5 & 7! I can't just go up a size because to get the length she literally goes through the neckhole :roll:

Also, store bought tends to wear out or be grown out of quite fast. My clothing doesn't wear out anywhere near as fast and hers is made to grow with her. She's still wearing clothing I made two years ago because of how it was made, in that way, even the expensive stuff tends to be more economically sound. I may have just spent £20 on character print fabric for one pair of trousers, but... they're only about a tenner in the shop and since we get hand-me-downs from her friends I can guarantee that they're grown out of in less than six months. So when you do the math, over two years that's easily £40 which is double the cost. Same with hubby actually. His clothes are worn out in around six months because the mans a big toddler who doesn't look after his clothes. £12 a pair from Primark. I spend more on his clothes, about £20 because he's large. Primark ones are worn out in months, me made are still going strong. So again, it's a false economy to buy the cheaper stuff because it's cheaper. There's a reason it's cheaper.
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Lulu22
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Re: Dressmaking

Post by Lulu22 »

You have so much talent Angel, your clothes are wonderful :applesauce:
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Mabel Figworthy
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Re: Dressmaking

Post by Mabel Figworthy »

Angel, that makes a lot of sense, but it also reminds me of Terry Pratchett's "Sam Vimes Theory of Economics" (I think he called it). At one point, the character Sam Vimes ponders that a rich man will spend a lot of money on really good boots, and then they will last him a lifetime, whereas the poor man, who can't afford the initial outlay, has to buy cheap boots, and keep replacing them, so that in the end he spends more than the rich man, AND never has good boots!
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Serinde
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Re: Dressmaking

Post by Serinde »

Sam Vimes Theory of Economic Injustice, akshully. But still very true. My mother can't be the only one who said to buy the best you could afford, even if it meant going without something else (particularly in relation to clothes, coats and shoes, interestingly).
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Re: Dressmaking

Post by rcperryls »

Good theory and very true. My father was adamant about car tires being of the best quality (especially for daughters who hadn't a clue how to change a tire and weren't really into learning either). One year he bought me snow tires for my birthday (in August) to make sure I got the ones he liked best. I had asked for these really great boots I had seen but couldn't afford.

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Angel
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Re: Dressmaking

Post by Angel »

That's exactly what it is. And we had a fantastic example yesterday actually. I sewed Jay a whole new winter wardrobe before Christmas (Think french terry, sweater knits, velvet, etc nice and warm) because she'd just had another growth spurt and was getting low on certain items. Yesterday I put a pair of trousers on that I've literally only just made her and she's had another growth spurt since Christmas, they were two inches too short in the leg! I had a friend ring me just before DD put them on saying "I'm just nipping home for a shower and then we're picking you guys up" So I took Jays trousers, ripped the hem stitching out (three rows of it because I've left insanely long hems on her trousers, some are nearly the same length as the actual trouser *looks pointedly at her waterproofs* unfolded them, re hemmed them and she had trousers that fit her before we got the phone call to say friend had set off. If I'd saved money on shop bought, I'd have had to have added flares to the hems and made them into bell bottoms (not great for soft play) or bought the right length and taken them in, very saggy in the ass. If I'd bought custom, I'd be left with outgrown trousers in a couple of months. Because I've made them knowing her and knowing the fabrics, and I've been able to make them in a good enough quality that even after two years my early sews are still being worn, and I usually make them with hidden allowances because the kid never stops growing!

I made her an A-line dress two years ago when she was horse mad...but real horses, not cartoon horses. Cannot find real horses for under 1's! It's just impossible! So I bought some really expensive fabric and made her a dress that while it couldn't grow with her because she was too small to built hidden let downs and let outs into her clothes at that point, I did want her to be wearing it for years, so I made an outfit that would transition beautifully from dress to top and the measurements had to be perfect to get the wide neckline to actually sit on my tiny girl without her going through it as she was doing with shop bought wide necks. Just straight through the neckhole. It was quite funny. She's three and you'd never guess the tunic was actually made as a dress, while everything store bought from the time has been thrown away because it's disintegrated through active use or been given away because it's totally outgrown.Image
This thing is thrown in a 60 degree wash, tumble dried, worn rock climbing, she did parkour in it, she wore it dancing, she's done roly polys (summersaults) across the length of town (I wish I was exaggerating...I'm not!) she attends a very active adventure playground weekly group in it, rolls in mud, puts it through hell... It looks like I made it yesterday! But it's quality fabric and re-inforced seams. In fact, the only thing giving away it's age is the buttonloop elastic needs replacing as it's been worn so much it no longer has any stretch to it :lol:
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