Sewing Room Redo

School starts again here in a few days so I've been spending the weekend trying to make Zoes (my sweet blue heeler for those that don't know  who Zoe is) room into a working sewing/craft room as I have been doing projects in my front room until now.

Her room has been a mess for the 3 years that I've lived in my house.  It was always intended to be my office/sewing/craft space but up until now has been a junk/storage room that Zoe also lives in since she doesn't get along with the little dogs and needs her own space.

I should have taken some before pictures but didn't think about it until I was mostly done.  But here is my progress so far:

I put up some of my design boards that I did in school however many years ago for inspiration and to give the room a fashiony feel.

A little more work is going to happen in this corner once I get to Ikea to buy more storage furniture but so far it is my inspiration board and dress form area.

My uber cute sewing machine is under the sketches.

My bookshelf still needs some organizing love but the boxes hold notions, fabrics, yarns, etc.  And I wanted to show you the cute jewelry holders I picked up from Hobby Lobby some years ago.

My serger/cutting table is a mess and most of what is on there is also waiting for the shelves from Ikea.  The bags all hold fabric for projects that are in the works.  Once I get the shelves, this table will be spic and span.

Some of my travel photos from around the world.  More to be added very soon.  I just need to print and frame them.  These are to help remind me of the beauty in the world and of all the experiences I have encountered and enjoyed.

I still share this room with my big, beautiful girl (above) and love that I will have more contact with her while getting my design on.  She is a self decided cave dweller and makes her nest under anything she can find, tables, desks, my parents pool table, etc., so her bed is under the serger desk.  I'll post final result pictures when the room is done.

Baby Sweaters Everywhere!

I recently found out that my best friend is having a baby.  I am so excited for her.  Unfortunately we live about 1,600 miles away from each other so I don't feel like there is much I can do to help her get ready for this big change in her life so I decided I could use my skills and make her a bunch of baby clothes.  I am having so much fun doing this.  Baby things are tiny, quick to make, and can use such fun textiles.  I'm loving it!

So far I've made a few sweaters (all patterns were found on Ravelry, I believe...)

I LOVE shawl collar things.  I think all sweaters should have a shawl collar.

Hard to see but there is a cable up the side of this one.

This one has a cute bow that attaches at the neck.  I'll post more photos when I get it sewn together and the bow attached.

I still need to sew seams together and put buttons on but this is my progress so far.  I have a huge stack of fabric to sew into adorable little things too.  I can't wait!

Turquoise Lady

Lucky me got to attend 2 weddings this week.  It is always fun to see what the bride chooses for her dress.

On Thursday, my cousin Shanae got married and her gown was beautiful.  It was very elegant and had a vintage flair to it.  I of course, was not in blogger mindset and didn't take pictures of her beautiful gown, or of her well dressed guests (including myself - got to toot my own horn every now and then since I don't have many occasions to dress up these days).

On Saturday my moms cousins grand niece got married (we had a debate at the wedding about what that makes her relationship to me and my sister, but were inconclusive).  She had a small ceremony and reception and once again things were beautiful.  Something that she did that I hadn't encountered before was, she had a color dress code for her guests and during the reception they took extended family photos with the bride and groom.  That was a clever idea.  However, her color request was turquoise and I didn't feel like I had anything wedding appropriate that was turquoise so I decided to make my dress for the occasion.  My inspiration was Trashy Diva.  I do so love Trashy Diva but can't bring myself to afford they beautiful dresses, so it seemed like a good occasion to make a knock off.

This is what I came up with:

I made a necklace to go with.

Lucky me had matching shoes in my closet!

The dress is actually made out of outdoor decorator fabric, which I personally am loving for my projects this year because it provides weight and body that would require more inner structures if I used a lighter fabric.

What do you think?

All Saints - Chicago

I'm in Chicago on vacation with my parents and the shopping here is a world different than it is in Salt Lake.  There is a street of high end shops called the Magnificent Mile and you could probably buy anything you'd ever want there.

One store in particular caught my attention though.  We were walking down the street and all of the sudden there were huge windows with shelves of vintage sewing machines.  That was very cool.

At that point I had no idea what the store was but the display got us in the store.

The store had a feel of an old factory crossed with a Hollywood Studio from the decor.  It was cool.  It took a while to take all of that in before I could even start looking at the clothes.

The clothes were cool.  Picture a modern day Billy Idol.  I think that is the best way to describe it.  Modern, Punk-Rock.  Lots of metal, mostly monochromatic, simple silhouettes.

The product was a little higher priced than I expected but not completely unreasonable.  I am much more of a fan of the womens clothing than the mens.  Overall I found the store to be interesting and there were a few items I could see hanging in my closet.

Check them out at www.us.allsaints.com.

Sewing/School/Busy

This has been quite a busy spring!  School and work have kept me very busy but it's finally over so hopefully I will have time to be more diligent with my posts.

Short post today but check out one of my final projects!  I'm really happy with how it turned out.  I had to go to Target to take a picture since I don't have full length mirrors at home.  I'm feeling motivated to keep the ball rolling and make a lot of summer dresses for myself.  More to come...

Would You Order Your Wedding Dress Online? I Did....

Earlier this week I posted on the Untraditional Fashionista Facebook page a link to wedding dresses for sale on Groupon and asked the question if you would buy your wedding dress online and promised to share my experience this week on the blog.

A couple years before I got married, I was taking fashion design classes in school which had me looking through magazines and online for inspiration all the time.  During that time I found a dress that I completely fell in love with and knew I would want for my wedding dress one day.  At this point in time though, the dress was already from a previous season so it couldn't be bought anywhere then anyway.  It was an Enzoani gown and it was gorgeous.  I loved everything about it.  I am not the type of girl that had her wedding planned out for as long as she could remember.  I was the worst bride at wedding planning so it was out of character a little bit to be so in love with something relating to my wedding before  I was even engaged.  But this dress just did it for me.  See the pictures of it below:

I thought this dress was breathtaking.  It was elegant.  It was simple.  It was unique.  I loved the simplicity.  I loved the long lines.  I loved the finely pleated chiffon.  It was stunning and it was going to be my dress one day.

So when the time came that I was actually engaged (a year or two later), I went and tried on some dresses at David's Bridal but I didn't love anything like I loved this dress.  There were pretty things there for sure and a few that I could have been happy with but I felt like I needed something stunning.  I wanted something different and I felt like I needed to have an extra special dress since I had been studying fashion for so long.

I started searching the internet like crazy trying to find anywhere that would sell the dress.  I found a couple of people that were selling their used dresses but one was a much larger size and I didn't feel like it could be taken in as much as it would need to be and still look good, and the other didn't seem clean and I didn't want to risk spending all that money and being stuck with a stained dress.

I then considered making my dress but pretty quickly decided against it.  I couldn't find the right fabric anywhere and didn't want to buy regular chiffon and pay to have it steam pleated as the pleats wouldn't be permanent and I don't know of anywhere I could get it chemical pleated.  Plus I was working two jobs at the time, and planning a wedding.  I didn't want the extra stress of making my dress and I wasn't confident in my abilities to make those flowers look good.  So back to the internet I went.

I found a place in China that advertised that they would make the dress for some amazing deal like $399 or something, it would be pure silk, it would be custom made, and I would have it within 4 weeks.  This was too good to be true.  I was of course wary of this and the website had mixed reviews but at that price, how could I not do it?  Plus with that quick turn around time, if I didn't like it, I would still have time to find something else.  After all, my wedding was about 6 months out at this point.

After 2 months I was starting to stress.  I emailed the company multiple times to get an update on my dress and was assured it would be on it's way soon.  It finally arrived in June (my wedding was scheduled for August).  I was so excited when the package showed up.  This is what my custom made dream gown looked like:

I am not pulling a very happy bride-to-be face.  My dress was not the wonderful piece of art I had envisioned.  The dress was similar, yes, but it was definitely not THE dress.  I referred to it as a dress inspired by the Enzoani gown, not a replica.  The quality was not there, the pleating didn't look good, and what bothered me the most was they put a waist seam in the middle.  What I loved most about the Enzoani gown was that it had long smooth lines and there was no seaming in the body.  You can't add a seam in the middle with pleated/crinkled chiffon.  It doesn't lay flat and doesn't look pretty.  I was devastated!  I am pretty sure I had a good cry about it and I called my wedding planner panicked about what I was going to do.

Back to the bridal shops I went again to try on more dresses.  I'm not a big shopper so this was a bit of an ordeal.  Trying on wedding gowns at first is fun but it can get old fast.  And many of you may not know this but 2 months is not enough time to get a wedding dress.

Generally wedding shops have a sample dress that you try on and pick out.  Once you do that, they will order the dress for you and the turn around time is generally 6-8 weeks.  After that, you almost without exception will need to have your dress altered.  Depending on the extent of the alterations, you're looking at 2-4 weeks for that.  That put any potential dress I would buy in September/early October.  That would not do.  That limited me even more and meant I had to buy a dress off the rack (i.e. a sample dress).

I probably tried on another dozen dresses, maybe even 2 dozen.  I don't remember how many but it was a lot!  And I think I went to every bridal shop in town.

Finally I went to Avenia Bridal/Nancy Barrus Couture in Provo (roughly a 45-60 minute drive away).  I had interned for Nancy Barrus a couple years prior and I should have had her make me the dress from the beginning but knew her price tag would be much larger than the place in China I had ordered from and I was hoping to get a deal.  I didn't have time for Nancy to make me a dress at this point but lucky for me, she was having a sample sale and I found a lovely Tara Keely dress.  The price tag was considerable more than the $399 but my dress was beautiful and I felt beautiful in it.  It was perfect for my wedding.







My dad even said it was the most beautiful dress he had ever seen and that it was worth every penny.  It turned out great in the end but wedding dress shopping was not one of the highlights of my life and if I ever have to do it again, I will absolutely not be ordering a dress online.

The New Face of Diesel

Nicola Formichetti joined Diesel last year and just debuted his collection for Fall 2014.  Historically I have liked Diesel's look.  Somewhat edgy, contemporary, luxery.  However I'm not feeling this new direction which founder Renzo Rosso is quoted as saying, "This is not just a runway show; this is what we want to be in the next 10 years,” and on to “We want to be the contemporary alternative to the world of luxury— no more frivolous things. We want to deliver a very precise image.”

The very precise image reflected in the runway show, is more like looking at photos of the goth/punk subculture of the 1990s.  It's been done before and feels very dated.  At least in my opinion.  Judge for yourself:











My favorite pieces from the collection are what I believe Diesel has always done best; jeans:





Other than that, I have to say, I was quite underwhelmed.

What do you think?  Would you wear any of the pieces from their collection?  I think it will be interesting to see how their vision for the next decade plays out and if it stays in this direction or if the market takes it to a new vision.

PS. Are you following me on Pinterest?  If not, you should be!  I have boards for everything from children's fashion to street fashion to dream closets, etc.  User: UntradFashion (they limit your characters for your username).