Little Black Dresses

I have made a number of little black dresses over the years. They are wonderfully versatile. I confess to having favorites among the ones I have made- here are three of them.

A couple years ago, I made a little black dress that was inspired by a grey Vera Wang wedding gown. 

The long, many layered gown was cropped into a knee length skirt made of georgette and taffeta. The strapless bodice gained gently curving halter straps. Draping and pattern making for this dress was somewhat challenging, but I was quite satisfied in the end.

Another dress- and a sleeveless over coat- was inspired by an AlexanderMcQueen ensemble. The base dress was a 1950’s style black taffeta number with lots of tulle netting under the skirt to make it poufy. 

The coat was fun to make- I had to call up a blend of my design and tailoring skills.

Dress number three made its’ debut in December 2011. A friend and I had attended a concert by Charmaine in August. Her dress was the inspiration.

The dress she wore had layers of zipper trimmed tubes overlaying the skirt. Katie really liked it, so the journey to create a unique version of it for her began. We played with several different design ideas and several different bodices before we settled on this one. 

We decided to add a shrug that could be worn with the dress in cool weather, or with jeans, or anything else. The shrug is available as a custom made item in my Etsy Shop, where there are more detailed photos.

Long live the little black dress!

The Celtic Shrug

Every now and then I make something that I really love. The Celtic Shrug is one of those pieces. The idea grew out of a black shrug in a similar style that I made for a friend. Both shrugs were made of high quality pleather, and both featured specially made lace embroidery that I created with my embroidery machine. That is where the similarity ends. The brown shrug was destined to be the Celtic Shrug from day one. In my mind, I could already see the rich brown pleated taffeta on the ends of the lace sleeves.

I knew what color threads I wanted to use for the Celtic knot on the back. The hardest part was locating some really nice brown taffeta for the pleats and lining.

I started by making the embroidery on a piece of netting.

Once I cut out the shrug pieces, I sewed the embroidery to the center back, and cut out the pleather behind it ever so carefully. 

I added an inner layer of netting for stability. Once it was all assembled, I cut a hole in the lining behind the embroidery and turned under the edges. 

The sleeves are my favorite part, I think. Or then again, maybe it's the back. The shrug lasted one whole hour in my Etsy Shop and seems to have found a happy home.  J