Tag: Teal

Letter Dress

Reading zippers and secure pockets.

For the last big work event of the year, I made a dress with a statement zipper. I found some teal-ish? slightly stretchy fabric on the market last year, and thought it would work well. I chose a pattern for a mandarin collar dress with bishop sleeves from Etsy. I’m currently thinking that it was possibly an AI pattern and not necessarily tested by real people. The image didn’t match the line drawing, very weird fonts, no particular instructions, stuff like that.

Front view of a teal dress
Side view of a teal dress
Back view of a teal dress

I cut out the pattern and put it all together. It was supposed to have buttons down the front, but that didn’t really work as it would become too tight, so I took the leap and made it a zip front dress. I’ve had this letter zipper in the hoard for several years, and have wanted to use it for a work thing forever. I originally put on the bishop sleeves and it didn’t look great. Way too big in this particular fabric. So I cut off the bottom and hemmed them a lot shorter. I also had to take in the center front from about bust up and I shortened the whole dress.

Detail of zipper with alphabet teeth and collar in a teal dress
Detail of pocket in a teal dress
Inside view of the pocket of a teal dress.

The last change I made was to do a completely different style of pocket: Loom & Stars, an Ingenious Pocket. I followed the same principle but made my pocket closer to the front and with a more rounded shape at the top. I really like this pocket. It feels very secure and like you know where your stuff is going to be on you. I also added a little loop in the top of the right pocket to hang my keys.

This dress was very nice to wear, so I’m very happy with the results. It will also be a great dress to throw on when I’m still in bed but the doorbell goes, zip front is quick!

Dress-up Tail

Getting a kid to turn into a dinosaur!

So, I just made the thing that I’ve been sort of vaguely but not really wanting to have for a while now. I’ve not made it for me though. It’s a *children’s* dinosaur (or dragon if you so prefer) wearable tail. With some fleece blankets, a lovely tutorial from Andrea’s Notebook that I only vaguely followed and a few hours and I’ve hopefully made someone’s new favourite item of clothing.

I chose some blue/green fleece that has been in the stash for the tail and some yellow for the spikes. The measurements from the tutorial were loosely followed, although I did sew a tail with a flat bottom and as such had fewer cut offs. The spikes were drawn and cut very loosely and then sewed together to be turned inside out. There’s an overlap on the spikes because I didn’t really measure and sort of eyeballed everything. The Velcro on the waist straps was some blue stuff I had left over and I thought it would look nicer than black or white. For the same reason, I didn’t zig zag topstitch the straps but just used a normal topstitch. I’m firmly of the opinion that it does indeed look nicer.

The last real change from the original pattern was to add a zipper to the underside instead of stitching it closed. I figure if this kid would wear his tail and then run around in the mud, his mum or dad would appreciate chucking it in the laundry. If the innards are removable, then that’s much easier. I didn’t have a coordinating zipper colour, but I did have a coordinating zipper pull. So I stitched in a rainbow zipper with a nice teal pull. All in all, a lovely quick project that was completed in a few hours. It also made me giggle when I put it on the 100+ year old mannequin. Somewhat.. anachronistic. I hope it’ll be enjoyed by the intended recipient!