50s style hand jive dress

First things first I look for imspiration !

Irish River dance style dress!

Well here are some ideas for the Riverdance Irish dress for the 2015 show.

I have done a little bit of research into these dresses and they look quite simple to make!

Here are some pictures to give you an idea:

I love the style and colour of this one

I really like the neck line of this one.

And I like the sleeve on this dress...

Pixie inspired Romantic Tutu

So my daughter needs a dance costume for a routine she is doing at college

She has designed a dark green and pale lilac in colour romantic tutu and has asked me to make it for her

First I looked for a really nice romantic tutu pattern, I notice that the patterns from Tutu that Dance are highly recommended so decided to purchase the romantic bodice and skirt pattern.

I purchased it as a PDF with as little bit of apprehension, which was unfounded I'm pleased to say, as really easy to print off and stick together.

I have also found the bodice really easy to sew together

I then looked at embelisemts but could not make up my mind so started with the sleeves first which In all honesty helped me change the frond to green ribbon.

So now just the other sleeve to add before starting on the skirt part.

Well that's the sleeves done now on the the skirt!

Well it has taken me well over an hour to put the bottom layer of the skirt on this will not show from the top !

As you can see my daughter didn't want the skirt to be longer than her knees so it looks quite short to me...

I have just pinned the skirt to the bodice just to show how 3 layers look (not pressed yet) one last layer to add which I will leave for today... (You can just see my dog trying to get in the picture :)..)

Couldn't wIt until tomorrow put the last layer of tulle on and I think it is starting to really take shape much better than I expected I think the cream tulle really brightens it up.

Now to think about the embellishment...

Had chance to put dress on daughter today to make sure it fitted ok 

Still got to press/steam the tulle but I think it fitted well even if I think the skirt is to short it's her design !

So now I need her to decide on how to embellish it, which she is going to look at over the weekend. 

I think this bit will either make it look fantastic or just make it look ok.. So fingers crossed its fantastic.

Costume Trials and tribulations

So my daughters' dance teacher asked if I would help make costumes for this years show, I helped out last year by making some Spanish skirts for teenagers and quite a few circle skirts for girls aged 6 years up to 8 years which was great fun.

Well this year we were short on time due toy job and other commitments we had about 5 weeks in totals. With lots to do it was a push.

5 sun flower costumes

12 nun habits and headdresses

5 half circle skirts 

12 lion costumes

5 50s circle skirts and petticoats 

12 aprons and head scarves

10 tutus needed extra netting to give them more body

And various other bits and pieces

It was a great sense of acheivemt seeing the kids wearing them on stage.

It was a shame I didn't have the time to make the tutus the dance teacher wanted but there is always next year!

Well news about 2015 show looks like there are going to be Irish Riverdance style dresses to make and hand jive costumes for definite so will have to look into making them how exciting :)