Frosting is Fabulous!

So wear it, for goodness sake! 

As you are probably aware, Frosting Fortnight has begun.

Disparate Disciplines and 3 Hours Past have put together a fortnight of fabulous, and I am honored to be included as one of their guest bloggers.  You can read my thoughts on Frosting here.

The fabric on my skirt might look familiar.  That is because it is actually this fancy schmancy dress!  Well, sort of fancy.  It is, after all, made of quilting cotton.

I have no issue with wearing Frosting on a daily basis, so I thought it would be fun to switch it up and try to play it down a bit with an outfit that was originally meant to stand out.

But now that I have an extra excuse to pull out the party frocks, you better believe I will!  And I have a feeling that my petticoats and crinolines are going to get a workout for the next couple of weeks.

Thank you for the opportunity to go wild, Mari & Steph!  And I hope everyone else is going to play along!

Dress:  Made by me, Butterick 5032

Sweater:  Ann Taylor Loft

Shoes:  Franco Sarto

Scarf:  Marshalls

Tchaikovsky Times Two!

Because I was volunteering at the Gala on Sunday, I was unable to hear the second half of the concert, so I went back for the final performance on Tuesday.  Now, there was no way that I could compete with my Ceil Chapman gown, however, I was not going to show up in any old thing, either!

The weather has turned wet and cold in Marin County, and in an effort to wear all of my cotton garments one more time before putting them away for the season, I pulled out this dress, which has been feeling neglected.

The pattern I used is Butterick 5032, a vintage reproduction dated 1952.  I previously used the capelet pattern as an accessory for this dress.

My original thought was to accessorize the dress with the cummerbund from the pattern, however, when I lined the fabric (because the reverse side of the cotton did not look great), it made knotting the waist extremely bulky and awkward looking. 

Because I was not thrilled with the fit of the skirt back at the upper hip, I wanted something to cover it.  At that point, I had cut into the majority of my floral cotton, and did not have enough to make the overskirt.  My solution was to use a wine colored cotton sateen as a contrasting fabric.  Because the cotton was not sheer, I decided to leave the skirt front open so the straight skirt was not completely hidden.  With my leftover floral cotton I made a belt and added a bit of bias trim the skirt hem. 

To keep the open skirt front pulled down, I tucked a fabric wrapped nickel into the hem on both sides which works perfectly as a dress weight.  I also added little cap sleeves to make the dress more wearable, and edged them in the wine sateen to use the contrast fabric a bit more.

The weather will probably not let me wear this garment until next year, but I hope to get a lot more wear out of it then.

By the way, the symphony was absolutely fantastic!

Dress: Butterick 5032

Shoes:  Hillard & Hanson “Elisa”

Earrings:  Shadows

Floral Hairpiece:  Made by me.

Fishnets:  Kohl's; Simply Vera, Vera Wang Fishnets