Tutti Frutti

Sherry recently wrote an interesting post about style rules and it got me thinking about how much I dislike any rules which tell people what they should or should not wear. I'm short (or petite as it's now euphemistically called). "Style rules" usually say that I shouldn't wear bold prints and should dress in one colour from head to toe. Well, I say screw that. I love bold prints and usually wear a rainbow of colours. This dress is pretty typical of the kind of thing I wear every day.  

Aside from being a bold print (which I shouldn't wear), the fabric breaks another style rule. The print has both red and pink in it which are not meant to be worn together.

The shoes worn with this dress probably break some style rules too. I wear my saddle shoes with almost everything, though. I like the way they make fancier dresses look more casual.

I used a mish mash of two Burda patterns for this dress. The skirt is made from the Jenny pencil skirt. The bodice is made from a modified dress pattern that I got from a Burda magazine from the library.

I made a pleated inset for the front waist based on one of my vintage dresses. It's pretty much just a rectangle with three pleats that's sewn into the side seams. 

This was a really quick dress to sew up. I started it the day before I went to away for a few of days. I pretty much finished it that same day. I did the hem and a few other bits of hand sewing while I was away, in between scouring small town op shops and visiting my grandma.     

Jenny, Jenny, Jenny, Won't you come along with me

I actually finished this version of the Jenny skirt a couple of weeks ago but haven't gotten around to posting it. This is my wearable muslin made out of $1.99 a metre bengaline. I quite like the pattern but I thought the instructions were terrible (it seems to be a common complaint). Since I've made a pencil skirt before it wasn't that difficult. Like some others who have made this pattern, I made my own waistband piece because I didn't like the fact that it was three separate pieces cut on the bias. I think in my next version I will taper the skirt more. I would have done on this one but the fabric has no stretch and even though there's a back split I was afraid I would have to take tiny steps if I did.