Sewing Your Own

Laura

Laura

Well-Known Member
lynn said:
Laura, do you sew your own dresses?? That must be really cool!! I had to take a mandatory sewing class when i was in high school and after I wrecked the third sewing machine, the teacher decided that she should finish my project for me b/c the school just doesn't have that big of a budget for fixing sewing machines :lol: !!
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Hahhaha. Oh my. You must be hard on machines!

Yes, I sew my own, I've been doing it pretty much since I started competing. It's cool, sometimes, but other times it's really nerve wracking. I've had people ask me to make them dresses, and if they live near me I'll do it but I'm still not consistent enough with making things work out right to attempt doing mail-order (even though I've thought about it a few times). I'm really not sure how anyone can make custom mail-order work! I guess I'm just really picky about fit and chicken of making mistakes on other people's things. It's a lot easier to sew just for myself because that way if I screw up it's not someone else's money that I have to be responsible for.

So I was working on this awsome dress, orchid purple with a tropical print underskirt. I drafted the pattern way too big, and so I started taking the skirt in. And I took it in. And in. And then when it was right I realized there was no way I could fit it to the top part of the dress any more, but that if I just cut a smaller sized top it wouldn't fit my chest properly, and so I just gave up in disgust. It's annoying because I made so many other mistakes on that dress that I burned through $90 worth of material and have basically nothing to show for it. I do have an idea of how to save the dress, but I'm really not up to attempting to make a corset-style top right now.

Now I'm working on something very basic & simple. I hope I can get it done by Saturday...I guess sitting here posting on DF won't make that happen!!! :) I drafted a completely new pattern, so we'll see how it works out. Sometimes I really hate sewing, but I love wearing new dresses and I hate paying designer prices!
 
:notworth:

Wow....i guess i can just drool in envy..... The only remotely close sewing project I've done was trying to hem my dress pants.... the disastrous ending was definately not worth mentioning.....

One of my non-sewing friend had a brilliant idea, instead of just hemming the pants, he taped the extra length at the bottom and basically ended up with a pair of pants with adjustable length :lol: .
 
yeah, that too, and you can even call them "decorations"! - too bad it doesn't work on jeans

I wonder if anyone has ever used super glue... i always wanted to try that, probably works better than needles & threads :lol: !
 
Laetitia started out, as I'm sure most do, making her dresses out of necessity, because they cost soooo much to buy. Over the last few years, as her skills have increased, it's now also a matter of design preference and quality. When she stresses out about sewing, there have been times where I'll say, "Let's just contact that designer and get one." And she'll say, "I looked at the inside of their dresses at the last comp, and they're not finished as nicely as I'd like." My, how the times have changed.

On another thread, Laura was responding to some questions I had about the legality of flesh tones, so I'm posting photos of a dress that we thought we might need to worry about:
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Either way, Laetitia has another dress in the works for nationals, and she plans on selling this dress soon, but it would be nice to know if USA Dance would accept such a design. She's fully covered and it's not even attempting to be lude or in bad taste.
 
Wow...it's so beautiful!! I can't for the least bit understand why it would be illegal.

I wonder what's the cost difference between purchasing and making your own dress.....*pulling out calculator and starting on cost-benefit analysis :lol: *
 
I have a standard dress which is very similar to the one in the picture. The difference is, mine is red. I am a little concerned about it, too. So please let me know if you get any objection from any judges.

I started to make my own dresses, inspired by Laura. When I first started, I had no experience in sewing. (I was pretty good at knitting, though.) After I read Laura's web site and the fashion discussion on the other board, I bought $ 1000 sewing machine and little less expensive serger and started to teach myself. I still have a lot to learn, but I feel good when people ask me who made my dresses and ask if I can make them for them. I am definitely not going there yet.
 
Dancebug said:
So please let me know if you get any objection from any judges.
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The judges I'm sure will have no problems with it, it's the officials in charge of monitoring the costumes that may.

Another case of this is BYU Nationals, where the judges may think a dress is beautiful and appropriate, but it could be forbidden (to Amateurs) becasue it doesn't comply with campus dress codes - Pro's can wear whatever they want at the BYU comp.
 
Porfirio Landeros said:
On another thread, Laura was responding to some questions I had about the legality of flesh tones, so I'm posting photos of a dress that we thought we might need to worry about:
Click to expand...

Humm, very interesting. Having a nude bodice is the questionable part. The nude shouldn't be used to cover a part of the body that wouldn't have been nude in polite company anyway. Is the nude part of the bodice heavily stoned? If the breasts are heavily stoned and not just covered with flesh-covered fabric then it might actually be okay. This is very much a borderline dress.

That said, the dress will be fine for this year's Nationals, and for NDCA comps. The new IDSF/USA Dance dress code doesn't come into effect until October.

Don't you just love the IDSF? As someone said to me "it's run by a bunch of old Swiss guys." That explains a lot when it comes to obsessive rules.
 
lol2.gif
I was wondering about that myself.


About the hemming using fusable iron on tape. I use this all the time...It comes in heavy and light weight even for denim.....Check it out:

http://www.nextag.com/serv/main/buy...9776B68&OVMTC=advanced&OVRAW=iron+on+hem+tape

About the dresses:
Wow! Such skill! My compliments! :wink:
 
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