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Showing posts with label Ball Gown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ball Gown. Show all posts

Dec 7, 2013

Little Princess Turns 7 - Sleeping Beauty Princess Aurora Inspired Dress






Adithi's Birthday is the special event of the year for us and we plan for it a couple of months ahead. Making the dress has been one of the important things to be planned and executed as it takes lot of time. Last year we had relocated just a month before Adithi's birthday and i missed out on making a dress for her and wanted to make up for this year and hence roped her in the design stage itself.

She is growing up fast and states her requirements whenever i make a dress for her and so the timing was just right to let her decide and choose the design for her b'day dress. Opened up PInterest for her and let her search for b''day dress designs, since we had planned a HongKong DisneyLand trip as her b'day surprise, i told her to chose some princess dress as she is of course our little princess.

She searched and zeroed in on Princess Aurora dress , the next day !


Now that the design had been chosen, i didnt quite like the collar shape of it and to my pleasant surprise found that the new dress design for the disney princess had a much softer pleated off shoulder collar, which Adithi also liked much and we finalized this design.




The fabrics as is the case with most of my outfits are Indian to the core. Banarasi Brocade, Kancheevaram silk, where else can you get such rich , luscious fabrics which stand up for the special occassions !

So with the just the design of sleeping beauty dress, we decided to use Indian fabrics and make a dress of a kind, Indo-western as is the style mantra for Adithi and Me.

I had earlier done off shoulder design for her. Check her 3rd Birthday outfit .


so the design part should'tn be difficult, or so i thought. Guess what making and draping of the off shoulder collar took a day.

The bodice itself is 3 pieces at the front and are embellished at the seam joins that form a "V"

The skirt part is enormous and twirls a LOT. Made use of 7 metres of fabric and gave it a double shade effect by using fuschia and gold tissue fabric for the skirt part and it has been lined using a full circle skirt in golden color satin fabric. The outer layer skirt actually is made of 6 circle skirts !




The Flower petal layer on the skirt also went through lot of brainstorming sessions as i initially planned to retain the sharp edge close fitted petals and then realized, it wont'be comfortable for Adithi and hence decided to do gathered loose fit Petal layer and glad i chose to do as it drapes far better than the sharp edge one on the Disney princess!


Made her try the dress and then altered the hem after letting the dress hang on the clothesline for a day so that hemline gets stabilized and all the bias edge of the curve hemline gets sorted. I do this for all the birthday ball gown type dresses so that the dress hangs beautifully even after washing.

The pleated collar drape has been handstitched (Oh yes i dont 'like to handstitch much and this dress tested my patience !) Somehow it felt little incomplete and decided to add tissue fabric handmade flowers and it took me a day to make those 4-5 flowers and chose the best ones to be hand stitched onto the beside 
 and

since the neck was deep at the back and it is an offshoulder neckline, decided to add a Dori (tie-string to tieup the back and hold the dress in place) with beaded hangings..perfect Indian touch i must admit and i just loved it :)


Now that the dress was complete, or so i thought, realized that i need to have those full sleeves which Adithi wasn't comfortable with so made a removable sleeves using net fabric.


The dress had taken a cool 3 weeks to complete and was well worth all those hours that went into making it.


Adithi was absolutely thrilled when she got to know that it is DisneyLand that she is going for her b'day celebration ! She got to know only when we boarded the Disneyland train and was jumping for joy!

We also had a session at Bibbidi Boutique to give her the princess makeover and i opted for the package without dress as she would of course wear her Amma made dress. It was surreal for her to be getting the princess makeover litereally !



Though the experience was enjoyable for her, as an adult, i could make out the commercial overtones at the botique and the staff werent actually that friendly considering their clientele age group. They were just milking money from lovestruck parents who wouldn't mind on their loved little one's special day!

The dress that boutique had to offer for  the princess aurora one was nowhere near the one that i have made, not saying this to boast, but really after checking the fabric, the design and the finish of the dress they offered and the one that is handmade by me, i can say with confidence that please opt to make one for your little ones or get it custom made, the one with the package isnt as comfy for the little ones.

Then there was the photosession which was cool as she was made to pose in myriad styles and she started the session with Oh My Goodness i am a celebrity mood to ending it with please I have had enough snaps, no more, i quit attitude !

The boutique obviously was charging sky high prices for physical copy of the photos and we chose to taken soft copy of the photos for which we paid HK$100 for each soft copy !




After the photoshoot we had a late breakfast and in the hotel lobby those who were around checked with us asking where we got the dress as it is very beautiful and different from the one the boutique had to offer, i was thrilled and tried being modest while saying I Designed the Dress.. it was a yes I have made a mark moment for me as a designer :)

Princess Adithi enjoyed her outfing in the dress until breakfast and then got changed and went to play in the disneyland Theme Park. She had loads of fun, especially at the Toy Story part of the park and also during the Disney Characters Parade at noon.

Much more fun was in store in the evening as we had booked dinner buffet and had ordered for custom made cake to be cut by the bday girl in the Enchanted Gardern Restaurant and the food spread was also good and extensive. The disney characters roamed around the restaurant and posed for snaps at each table and little one did have nice time. After the cake cutting, we headed for fireworks at the theme park and it was indeed a memorable birthday which i will cherish forever.



May god bless my little princess with all the love and happiness that she deserves . God Bless.







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Dec 6, 2012

Falalalalalalala- Christmas Celebrations @ school

Deck the hall with bows of holly
Falalalalalalala !
Tis' the season to be Jolly
Falalalalalalala !
Don we now our Gay Apparel
Falalalalalalalala !
Troll the ancient Christmas Carol
Falalalalalalala .




Yes! Its time for Christmas Cheer as the school closes officially tomorrow for X-mas vacation and they have a gathering for singing Christmas Carols. Dress code is either Red / White / Green to symbolise the festive season.

Adithi does not have a Red dress in the recent past, the last one i made in Red and white was for Pongal 2011 (January) which can be seen here in this post. Actually quite surprising, because she loves red, but had recently drifted more towards purple and pink! We had left the red and white dress back home in India and will be bringing her heavy dresses / ball gowns back when we go home during holidays!

Hence i had the right excuse to make another dress for her, this was made in limited time (my sewing hours has shrinked a lot ever since we relocated to KL. This outfit was made in 2 days (read 5 sewing hours)

The bodice design using lace was the only clear design i had in mind, when i started and the skirt was the quickest to make being a full circle skirt. I had got 1.5 metres, which used to enough earlier for Adithi!, surprisingly this time it didn't fit, for she has grown tall and i forgot to get extra fabric and hence instead of ball gown, this will more of 3/4 length gown, which actually suits the occasion fine as she will be able to move freely in school.

FRONT VIEW

BACK VIEW

The neck design was last minute addition. Actuallly wanted to add the ruffle lace at the frock hemline as well but did not have enough to cover the circle skirt circumference of 3.5 metres! Also a white belt was also in mind, in fact she already has one made for the Back to School Dress (but i guess we have left it back home as well!, need to pack a lot of her wardrobe this time!) , the belt had to be missed as i did not have any interfacing. But the end look is just right to be worn at school !

So how do i feel after having made the dress in a hurry! - well to be quite honest, exhausted, alongside i am also elated as it was well received by Adithi, she was so excited, that she tried it on the moment she saw it after coming back from school and asked me to take a photo shoot (hence the unkempt hair!) and willingly stuck lot of poses! Quite a rarity these days...

God knows if she will be so generous tomorrow as she will be in the "Oh i need to go to school, please no..." mood in the morning tomorrow! Hmm she is used to wearing color dress in her earlier Montessori school and after having moved here, she has to wear Uniform daily, which does not go down well with her, this is the second occasion after Deepavali, wherein she gets to wear color dress to school, i hope that is reason enough to keep her in good spirits tomorrow morning, she has gone to bed early, as i type this post, as she wants to wash her hair and set it free, to set the tone for the color dress !

So the dress shots and the impromptu action shots as of now ...



She loves twirly dresses .... 


BTW please do Participate in the Pochee Japanese Sewing Magazine Giveaway which will end on 21st Dec 2012. 


Today's Action Shots - As expected she was moody and hence teeny weeny smile !



She is trying ... and we do see slight improvement, as in she recoups herself after a while say first hour at school, i am not going to drop her these days, her dad alone goes to drop her at school, and she says that is helping her, as she is not feeling so bad to go into the class as she had already left me behind at home and does not feel that sudden feeling of leaving me at school ... oh my little one .. how i wish i could just wipe away her fears, may be this is also for good , as it is helping her learn life skills, which shall keep her in good stead in future. 





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Nov 9, 2011

Adithis B'day Bash more pics!



Kids having fun ! they were kept busy with solving puzzles, colouring etc., 



Tom  & Jerry B'day Cake



Cake Cutting pics ...




B'day girl busy using her B'day gifts ...


Pinata - Tom  & Jerry Coloring pages pasted on to it later (sorry no pic of final pinata!)

All that went into the pinata are ....

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Nov 4, 2011

Birthday Gown Update

Thanks for all those helpful comments / suggestions regarding the Birthday Ball Gown. I started working on the gown right away and reserved the casual dress to be worked upon later (It is half complete! hope to wrap it up today!)

I agree with your input as to flowers or embellishments would only tone it up even further, so thought about it for a while, then it also stuck to me that shorter sleeves would probably bring down the bling (Here also i am happy that many readers thought on similar lines, so atleast i am on right track!), but Adithi wanted full length sleeves (it is her latest dress feature fetish now, long sleeves!) so i guess i can't comprise on that, suddenly it stuck me, what if i add a light colored lace bolero to tone it down!

Here is the dress with bolero, it has cowl at back neck!

                   Front View                                                                                Back Cowl



Here is the Before and After Pictures

With the coat  / bolero                                                                                   Without the Bolero



Still would love it to have short sleeves, make be i can talk her into it, lets see!


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Nov 3, 2011

Birthday Gown - HELP please!

Almost finished Adithi's Birthday Gown, i chose the bling fabric for bodice, as she loves bling, got a feeling if it might end up being too tacky or ala a dance floor outfit, so played with underlining in the front bodice as can be seen below


Here is the skirt portion


Then added another tier of remaining bling fabric to skirt and pinched it to make petals!



Do you see the underlining pattern on front bodice, is this dress looking too tacky? do i need to tone it down? i thought of adding may be euro-ruffles at center or even add fabric flowers ala the Pink Petal skirt's Cowl Top, what do you think, inputs please, i am running out of time, need to finish this today and make a casual dress to worn on her b'day during day time, this dress is for the party later in the evening, need to make party prep tomorrow, so all i have is today, i am now off to make the casual outfit, and will get back to the blog to read your valuable inputs! Thanks.


This is how it looks without the pouffy petticoat underneath! 

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Nov 6, 2010

BDay Ball Gown - Preview


Why is it a preview, actuall BDay bash is yet to happen, (scheduled for coming Friday, so more action pics, later), just wanted her to try to check the fit and the drape of the gown. quite happy with it... feel the center flower at front is bit off center...what do you think...

Feedback most welcome.... this must be the longest in terms of time taken for a single outfit..it has taken me 3 days to complete .... and another half a day today to add embellishments....

This dress was a Godzilla in terms of fabric used for my petite 4 year old (remember she turned 4 yesterday!!!)

total fabric used: 7.5 meters used (will give break up later,.... need to calculate the break up... : )  )

Design of it kept changing as i kept improvising while stitching... overall happy with the end result and she looked like an Angel which was my Objective...so Mission Accomplished .... :)

Here are the pics ....



Swirling Action ....

Back View

Front View

Close up of Pick up Net Layer and bottom ruffle 

Pettiskirt underneath, which gives the Puff Ball Gown Effect



Flowers at Center Front & Back at Skirt PickUps

Flower at Side Pick ups on the skirt

Flower at Center front


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