| The story continues ... |
| Wow! What a year 2004 was. It was our busiest year. We made a whole seven dresses! I know to some that is not alot but it kept us busy for most of the year. Between our part time jobs, our families and our homes there wasn't much time left for anything. Here were my thoughts about 2004. When I started our first dress for the year it had been seven months since we had finished Zoe's dress. We had been very slack!!! I also couldn't believe how much I had forgotten in that time. I felt like I was running over to Jane's every five minutes for help! |
| This beauty was designed by Liz Davis. Jane appliqued it and then assembled the bodice while I managed to get away with assembling the rest. We love this dress, it is a real stunner and has now gone to live in Quebec, Canada. Congratulations to the little girl who bought the dress as we are pretty certain she placed at the O. On the Internet we were able to find a very happy picture of her holding a trophy. |
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| This is my daughter Jessica's new dress. It was ready for her to wear for the first time in about April but I originally made the bodice too long. I think that is the trend but somehow it didn't look right on Jessica so I took about an inch off the waist and it made the world of difference. This dress looks a million dollars. It is now early September 04 and sadly it has already sold. She will wear it for the last time at the Australian Nationals and then it will be shipped off - also to Canada. Jessica is very |
| I can't believe how much the white thread really stands out. This dress also has little round pink pieces with applique on each piece. You can see a clearer picture below. It's very short - I guess it can afford to be since I'll make a new dress each year. Don't make the mistake of thinking a long dress will last longer though. If you want it to last longer make it longer in the waist. As soon as it is too small in length at the waist it won't sit right any longer so even if your dress goes right down to the knees your dancer can still grow out of it at the waist. |
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| I was really worried about appliquing these pink/black squiggles but once again Saint Jane came to the rescue ... or rather her Janome Memorycraft 9000 did! Jane's Memorycraft 9000 came complete with a little scanner and memory card and the machine did these all by itself - all I had to do was applique around each one - what a lovely way to spend a few days - I think there was about 50-60 in total, I thought I would go stir crazy sewing around and around each one. The black along the bottom has sewn sequins, not fishscale but side by side with a little gap |
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| This is Jacqueline's new dress. It is beautiful. It was also designed by Liz Davis. Jacqueline is thirteen and is the oldest girl we have made a dress for. It was pretty tricky to get the bodice shaped just right for Jacqueline. In the end we just had to keep on taking it in, in all different places to get the firm fitting our teacher prefers. Jacqueline is also so tall! It was the biggest skirt I have had to applique around the bottom of. Lisa Dance-Again came around to hold the skirt while I appliqued. As it turned out to get the skirt under the foot of the machine Lisa had to be over the other side of the machine and I had to have my head up pushed up against the wall, trying very hard to see but I was so far away could not see a single thing. Lisa and I were in stitches as we tried to get this done. I guess you had to be there but it was hilarious sewing away blindly around the bottom of the skirt. At the time I remember thinking I really needed to have a back skirt the same as the front skirt eg, a centre piece and two side panels. This would be very easy to applique around! To date I have still not tried this but it is definitely on my list of things to do. |
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| This is Elizabeth's new dress. Elizabeth was the girl that I made the very first dress for. Last year Elizabeth had placed on the blocks at the Nationals so I had placed on myself a little pressure for her to have a dress befitting such a high placer at the Nationals. I don't know why but I had been very keen to try some shaped panels. Hmmm, what can I say! I'm not that keen to try it again! I panicked all the way through because I couldn't even picture in my head how to do the shaped panels. In the end the shaped panels themselves weren't all that hard but I am still having trouble getting the skirt to sit well. I've just adjusted the skirt for the third time and I hope that will be the last. |
| It was also the first time I had made a shaped neckline. That was easy. We appliqued around the edge, that wasn't too hard at all. I learned a valuable lesson though when it comes to using Modge Podge. The sequins on the white applique were coming off so easily that I decided to Modge Podge them. I thought I had been very careful to interface all the pieces when I had first cut them out, but in actual fact I had forgotten to interface some of the white pieces on the bodice. They had the satin but it was not enough. When I Modge Podged them it had the effect that the white actually glued onto the blue background and our beautiful white pieces actually became a sickly blueish colour! I was not impressed and in fact I was also a sickish bluey colour! How could I have forgotten to interface these pieces???? Luckily I was able to separate the two layers so the white became white again. This was an awful thing to happen only one week prior to the Nationals. I had left the Modge Podge until the dress was totally finished, so I thought I had actually wrecked the whole thing and that I would need to start again and make a whole new bodice! |
| This dress was designed by Anthony Capon. Anthony was a dancer himself (a former Australian Champion no less!) and is now studying design. Anthony was extremely patient with me, even though he probably wished he had never heard my name! I was very embarrassed to have to go back to him so he could redraw some of the design for me. Ah well, I did learn a lot!!! |
| When I first made this dress we loved the fusion fabric. We have since discovered it frays quite badly and won't use it again. It is especially bad where it rubs against itself eg, the sleeves against the skirt. |
| We also used a very pink satin and a white chiffon type of fabric with sequins scattered over it (great description!!!!). The white was so pretty! But had to be backed with white satin. |
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| This is Shellie. Shellie lives in North Carolina. This was my first attempt to make a dress for someone across the seas. It was very difficult. I'm not a professional dressmaker so giving me measurements doesn't really help all that much - maths is not my forte. I find it easier just to make up some different sized bodices and then find the one that fits best and then adjust from there. Sounds stupid when I say it like that! But anyway, that's how I find it easiest. When someone comes to the house I drag out all my bodices and make them try them all on. They are standard sizes. Then I make one that is just right for them, there is usually a little adjustment needed but I get it right very quickly. Especially now that I have done a few. Shellie is a tiny little size 8 girl. Firstly I sent a mock bodice over to the US but when it came back I was very surprised at how much it needed to be taken in. Nonetheless, away we went and this is the final result. Shellie danced in it at the O and she recalled and placed. It was such a relief for both me and the family when the dress finally arrived and it was okay! I did this dress all by myself! I don't usually make dresses for people overseas but our two families have become good friends and this was something I |
| sad!!! But will be happy enough when she has another brand new dress to wear :-) This dress is very similiar to the white dress above except in it I have used both black and white thread. Jessica danced very well at the Nationals and had her best result in 14th place. She missed out qualifying for the World by only two places. She'll try again this year! |
| between each one. Just to help secure each sequin I hand sewed them all on. I hated appliquing in white. It really showed every little error, things you would normally never notice. There was also ten metres of strip diamantes hand sewn onto this dress. All in all I think it turned out fantastic. Another gorgeous dress design by Liz Davis. |
| The dress itself is gorgeous. We used blue sequinned fabric from Denver Fabrics. Its not fishscale but sequins in single rows with an equal gap and then the next row of sequins. Jane and I were both scared about using the fabric but that wasn't too bad either. |
| wanted to do. Every night I took photos of the dress to show the progress and emailed them off to Shellie. Our family is looking forward to coming to the NANS in 2006 and meeting both Shellie and her family. |
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| This is Bridget. Bridget had grown out of her last dress so quickly that we used the same design again. That was a great saving! The colours were a little different this time. We used the white velour glitterdot as well as both diamond and square holographic sequin fabric. I got so frustrated changing thead in the back of the bodice when inserting the zipper that I decided from now on I would just use white thread and then use a texta or sharpie to make the thread the right colour. I wasn't sure about using blue around the bottom of the dress but I'm so glad I did because it really stands out on stage and is very noticeable. This dress was of course designed by Liz Davis. |
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