Frock Stars

Next up was the Mackenzie Frocks Stars competition.
"Your mission is to take one of our icky old frocks & give it a new lease of life in whatever way you can! Unleash your creativity & cut it, dye it, adorn it or completely reshape it - in fact ANYTHING you can to make it gorgeous again!"

I collected a frock - not my first choice - and had a think. My frock was black brushed cotton, with with sprigs of multi coloured flowers (red, white, khaki-ish green and purple). Having been reading Marisa's blog New Dress a Day I knew that something reasonable could come out of this! It was clearly a handmade dress, and had an interesting row of buttons with loop closures. My first thought was to make a jacket to keep the interesting buttons, then came across the Nadine jacket on BurdaStyle - a plan was beginning to form...

During Husband's birthday weekend away to Christchurch, I dragged dragged him to a fabric shop I had been told about, called Bolt of Cloth. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but very quickly found a bright 'tomato-y' red fabric that would go with the red flowers on the dress. Having bought the red fabric and obtained some samples of other fabrics for possible future projects, I then had to tackle the dress. I had decided to use the Nadine pattern as a basis for my jacket, and wanted to use the red fabric as a statement. I used the collar, sleeve ruffles and and peplum from the Nadine and cut them out of the red. I cut the dress horizontally just below the last button and set about attaching the extra pieces, leaving the collar to last (this was the trickiest bit).

Having done all this I found the piece I had left was just big enough to make a skirt. I used the Burdastyle Kasia skirt for inspiration and again used the red fabric to highlight the hip yoke section.


The entries were judged on Wednesday 28th July (I think) and who knows what people thought of my creation. The Fashion Parade t00k place on Saturday evening and and I will be modelling my outfit. This is not usually 'my thing' as I am not keen on people watching me, but I will have to tell myself that people are looking at the clothes rather than me and get on with it! I forgot to take pictures of the finished clothes so will post something after the Parade.