happy new year!!

after about 3 weeks of sewing, every day, many hours a day, i FINALLLLLLLY finished my december garment (i'm doing a garment a month until i hit 30, a challenge which i made for myself starting on my 29th bday! ack, 8 more to go!). it's a party dress from this vintage teal silk sari that one of my former students gifted me (along with a huge bucket of other vintage fabric- like that ridiculous teal cheong-sam fabric and the light blue lining that i used on this dress). there are beautiful gold flowers embroidered throughout and the edges have a long border of gold. the end has this amazing panel of gold embroidery as well! i saved the border and gold panel, hopefully to be used for another project some day!

originally i was just going to use vogue pattern 1227.

however, when the bustier cups come out like this (i tested things out by doing the lining 1st, not even cutting out the pieces for the top from the silk yet. smartest decision ever!),

i knew i had to find another option for the top (i actually hate bustier tops anyway, so this was all for the better). it was just too hard to sew something on a curve on a structure that ended up so 3d. i knew i'd completely botch it on the slippery silk. So, here comes vogue 1174 to save the day! this bodice is super fancy and has more of a sweetheart neckline. much more demure, much classier.

there's lining, of which i forgot to take a photo, and this "foundation" piece,

which is more like a floating boning structure that is attached to the bodice, yet is loose at the bottom. it requires strapping in! here's the foundation before it was boned. there's even facing at the top so that you can't see the light blue lining!

i'm super narrow up top and my waist doesn't go in like most people's (i'm built like a pole, a muscular pole), so i had to make major adjustments. the exterior of the bodice required me to make my own piping. 1st time i've ever made any and it was sooo cool! instead of buying piping cord, i just filled mine with acrylic yarn, since i have oodles of it lying around.

i just love vogue 1174's bodice. so much detail. it came out beautifully! i made sure there were no gold flowers in the bodice, but couldn't avoid it when making the piping. however, i like how the random peeps of gold from the piping came out!

after the bodice was complete, then i had to mcguiver the bodice's seams to match the skirt's yoke's seams. can we say nuisance? i had to completely redraft a pattern for the skirt yoke so that the top matched the bodice and the bottom matched the skirt portions. i'm crafty like that, and it worked. i added piping to the skirt yoke and at the waistline to continue the piped look from the top. whew. lots of work. the skirts (yes, there are two!) came out soo cool. super flouncy. of course i had to hack off 2 inches from each, because i wanted a really short dress for new years... i mean because i'm really short...

i was super afraid that the dress looked too '80s, as i'm not a fan of this '80s comeback as the rest of the fashion world is, but paired with a sharp fitted black blazer, i think it worked. i forgot to take a pic of the back, so use your imagination. it added a lot of junk in the trunk. hehehehe

and here i am wearing it on nye while out with grace, a friend from swim team starting back in 2nd grade! she also went to brown, so lucky us, we kinda grew up together. aren't we cute? (my eyes ARE open, i'm just really smiley and the pic is small!) after wearing the dress all night, i grew to LOVE it. '80s? psshhh. i spent 3 weeks on this baby! i better love it!

here's a little secret: i styled grace's nye outfit, and made her wear a dress tucked into a pencil skirt. how hilarious is that? she thought it was so weird. all night. she wouldn't stop talking about it. i think she rocked the look!

happy new year!