For Lucie

No posts or pictures of this dress when it was still under construction. I simply did not have the time! I've been working day and night to get this dress finished so that Lucie has something to wear at our Oireachtas this weekend. It was finished late last night and I took a quick picture with my phone camera just to show (and I did promise myself no more dresses leaving the house without a picture!). So, a bit blurry and dark and not the best quality, but here is it is from sketch to reality:












Now it is Lucie her turn to stay up all night to glue all the crystals to her dress! I'm sure it will be all sparkly when I see it again on saturday :-)

Dress alterations

Many dresses from a few years ago do not have the elongated bodices everyone asks for nowadays and this usually leaves the skirt too long. The following is an example of a simple alteration that can be done to a (second hand) dress that might not fit in the lower skirt-area.

BEFORE:


In the before pic you can see that the upper body seems to fit, but the skirt is too long. The skirt is also a bit too wide and heavy and is collapsing on itself in the front (which needs to be a stiff, straight panel, not a wobbly one).
I decided to take the length of the hem and re-stitch the hemline in a black satinstitch. The front panel was also re-stiffened when I opened it up at the hem, making it nice and crisp again.

AFTER:




The nice thing about this dress is that is was made "economical". There are ties in the back that can cinch in the waist and the cuffs on the sleeves can be adjusted up or down. This dress was made with growing children and multiple years of usage in mind.

Thank you Debbie, for letting me work on your dress. I hope you will love and wear it for a long time!

FOR SALE

I have just listed 2 new dresses for sale!

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Lovely 4-panel dress, made by Annelies Danton worn by an intermediate/open dancer of mainland Europe. Made of bluegreen silk with holographic silver, blue and pink glitterdot applique. Hot-pink and silverholographic thread is used for the applique. The sleeves are stunning and eye-catching green and silverglitter flowers with white lining. Lining of the dress is off-white. Pleats give a special effect of blue holographic glitterdot when being kicked out. Including hearpiece in blue, silver and hot-pink. Bloomers can be made with the extra lining material. Dress was made for a quite tall, 175 cm, girl of 14 years and has been worn about 8 times.

Measurements ( in inches )
Chest 33
Natural waist -- (please ask the seller for this measurement)
Bodice length from shoulder to waist seam 18
Skirt length from waist seam to hem 17
Sleeve length from shoulder to hem 24
Shoulder seam to shoulder seam across top of back 15
Back full length-top of zip to hem 34
There is let down room in the back near the zipper

Asking €400 shipping included within The Netherlands, overseas shipping extra. Please email the seller with any questions.

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Nice, sparkling turquoise velvet 3-panel dress with hot-pink, yellow, black, white and silver rainbow glitterdot applique. Applique is embroided with silver and hot-pink metal thread. Lining is white with hot-pink lamé. Headpiece with crystals included.

Measurements ( in inches )
Chest 30
Natural waist 27
Bodice length from shoulder to waist seam 16
Skirt length from waist seam to hem 17
Sleeve length from shoulder to hem 23
Shoulder seam to shoulder seam across top of back 12
Back full length-top of zip to hem 30

Asking €275 shipping included within The Netherlands, overseas shipping extra. Please email the seller with any questions.

There is no such thing....

As too much **BLING** !!!

Just to show you the bodice of my new solo dress with the crystals on :-)

Ilse in her new dress

Needless to say, she looks very happy in it :-)

For Ilse

This is going to be a very bright dress for a lovely, sweet and blonde little dancer!

Work is well underway and she will be picking it up next weekend. I promise to take a picture before the dress leaves the house this time :-)

Anita in Vienna

Anita in her new solodress:



Congrats on your 7th placement in the Trophy Competition!

For Sale on the sidebar

I have added the dresses currently for sale on the right sidebar of the blog. When you click the "more info" link it will take you to the original post with all the details and pictures of that particular dress. You can also click on the pictures to see a larger version.
Currently, we have 3 secondhand dresses up for grabs!

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Purple, Copper and cream adult solo dress for sale -750 euro

Click here for more info

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Lilac and turquoise (adult) solo for sale - asking 380 euro


Click here for more info

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Cerise solo for sale -asking 400 euro


Click here for more info

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A little update...

All that needs to be done now is the installment of the zipper in the back skirt. I do hope that today will be a merciful day and that process will be just as smooth as the attachment of the skirt to the underbodice (it went like a dream...baste, baste, baste!). Sewing in zippers is not my favorite thing- and sewing them in velvet is my least favorite thing :-) I'm sure that with a lot of hand sewing I will manage though.

For those who cannot wait to see Anita in her new dress in Vienna (or those who will be at the All Scots instead), here is a little update on what the dress will look like when finished. I cannot stress enough that the velvet looks so much more vibrant in real life and is a very intense raspberry-reddish-cerise color. It is just that my old camera cannot capture the true color and richness of it!


Anita came in yesterday to make a puffy headband to go with the dress and to put crystals on her dress. It looks so beautiful with all the sparkles! I am deliberately not taking a picture of the finished dress on the dressform as I feel she first needs to "debut" it in Vienna this weekend. She told me she might get some professional photos taken of her in it and then I will of course place them on the blog.

Best of luck dancing this weekend Anita!

For Anita

Anita's dress is going to be all new style: Velvet bodice with buttons and 5 panels with knotwork embroidery. What I really love about the design -made by Anita herself- is the collar and the double lines of stitching. The design is really suitable for an adult dancer and very classy and the color of the velvet is so rich and it looks really gorgeous!
As I mentioned before the metallic silver thread is difficult to work with, but very worth the trouble. Now that I have finally worked out how to tame it, this dress is coming along just fine. Anita will make her debut in her new outfit at the Vienna Feis the 11th and 12th of October.