When I first saw this dress on one of my favorite fashion influencers Blair Eadie, I instantly fell in love. I saved it on my Pinterest board and of course began to see other variations and some of my other favorite fashion content creators in the similar dress. I found a designer Mara Hoffman and absolutely fell in love with her work. Her fashion designs are definitely the style that I love and embrace for my lifestyle.
I was on the hunt for the past year looking for fabric to recreate this look. I couldn’t find anything that I loved. When Jo-Ann Fabrics reached out about trying their new customizer fabric making app I knew this would be the best opportunity. I’ve used the app before and enjoyed making the fabric of my own. They have thousands and thousands of designs and many fabric options to choose from. But this time I didn’t want to enhance a fabric that they already had, I wanted to create my own. I was so excited to use this app again, as all my creative juices were flowing. I love to paint I love art and it brought me back to one of my first love before sewing.
I got out my tablet and began to recreate. As a creative as an artist when we put out our work, we truly want people to enjoy it but at the same time be inspired. I personally was inspired by the dress, as well as the fabric, however I didn’t want to make it the same. I believe that it is important to have integrity in this creative space. And that’s important to me!
To create the fabric I started from the basics that I learned many many years ago in school. I drew some shapes and freehanded some of the shapes as well to create the look that was going for. I used various brushes to give the fabric depth. I knew I wanted bright and bold colors that made a statement. I chose very high pigmented colors when I was designing my fabric. The design process was fun and while I was painting and sketching that fabric, I ended up doing many more. And I’m hoping to order those later.
The website is very easy to navigate. I uploaded my design and test it out the scale as to how big I wanted the fabric to be. I realized instantly that I needed to scale it larger so that I would have a larger print size. I went in on my design tool and scaled it to the largest available size and that fit perfectly. I decided I wanted to go for a lightweight linen as it would hold a little bit more structure for the sleeves and also give the fabric some weight, I was so happy with the results when I received my fabric.
The colors popped they were so bright, and I was instantly in love. I will be using this tool more often to create personalized Fabrics. You never know you may see a collection from me very soon.
For the sewing pattern I decided to go with Vogue 9253 which is also known as Vogue 1735. This is one of my favorite patterns and it has served a base for many of my makes. I hacked this pattern to create the look.
Here is what I did:
- Lengthened and widened the sleeve
- Added elastic to the sleeves for added volume
- Added tie to the middle portion of the front piece
- Cut a V in the back pattern
- Shortened the length about 1.5 inches
- Omitted the blouse on the front bodice
- Omitted the waistband area