flatter sleeves

Photos from Liebemarine

Sketch by Rhiannon

If you follow me on Facebook, you might have already seen me posting about this, but I recently finished the design collaboration project that I worked with the lovely Rhiannon of Liebemarlene. Like the Strawberry Koi Dress I made last year, I asked Rhiannon to design her “dream dress”  and I made it into an actual dress.

I was thrilled to hear that Rhiannon was up for this project. I’ve been a fan of hers for a while and don’t even remember when I first started following her blog…I do remember she was still on blogspot. I just loved looking at the flickr photos of her outfit. I love her feminine style with a vintage flare to it. I’ve also borrowed some of the pictures she posted on her blog as my own inspiration for use in my inspiration post series.

She came up with this adorable mini dress with flatter sleeves, pleated skirt and cinched waist with detachable sash. The reason why I love working on a project like this is that it challenges me and forces me to try different styles and techniques that I would not do on my own. In this instance, the sleeves. As you can see in my shop, a lot of my dress designs are sleeveless. I naturally tend to go for sleeveless and so can get stuck in a repetition. The addition of flatter sleeves made for a nice change of pace.  I drafted the pattern for regular short sleeves, and slashed and spread the pattern (photo above) to expand the hem. This was the most difficult part of this dress making as I had to figure out how flattery I wanted them to be. I think it took me about 4 prototype dresses to get it right.

I found the small plaid fabric in a gray, black and white color scheme in Nippori. It is  light weight 100% cotton, perfect for the upcoming change of season. The dresses are fully lined. It is available in limited numbers at my shop. Also check out Rhiannon‘s post about the dress here