Inspired By: Azzedine Alaia Planning

I need a little favour ladies ( and guys). I am on the hunt for some leopard sweater knit fabric to sew a dress for an upcoming meeting. Those of you who follow me on instagram will know I made a denim dress last month for my high school alumni meeting. I recently joined the Midlands regional branch because we moved to Northampton and they meet every other month. Each meeting has a theme, last meeting was "Denim Dress", and the next meeting in November is "Fur". A couple of months ago it was "Animal print" I think, and they even had "Onesie" a few months back. Needless to say, that meeting was hilarious.

I found this Azzedine Alaia dress on Pinterest, worn by Giovanna Battaglia.

 I have looked for a sweater knit on Ebay and my usual shopping joints, but nothing has caught my eyes yet. So, can you help? Have you seen a similar fabric anywhere? It does not have to be in the UK only. I won't mind shopping from foreign stores. The meeting is at the end of November so I won't mind waiting for the fabric to get to me from distant shores.

I really like this dress, and I am planning on using faux fur for the lovely collar. I have already seen some faux fur on Ebay that is the exact colour of the collar on the actual dress. All that is left now, is the leopard print fabric.

What are you all working on now?

Industrial sewing machine Advice

Source

Does anyone have any experience with industrial machine sewing? I decided my life would be made so much better if I had an industrial sewing machine and I have been looking at the various options out there. My budget is tight, simply because I won't be able to justify another sewing machine purchase to Mr. Dibs not long after I bought my Pfaff Ambition 1. I currently have two Pfaff machines, the Select 4 and the Ambition, and I love them to bits. However, I want another machine. My blog name is Dibs and the Machine after all. I can't help it, I love machines. You know how the uber geeky people go gaga over gadgets? That is how I feel about sewing machines. The only reason my house is not overflowing with machines is because 1) I cannot afford them and 2) Mr. Dibs has threatened divorce and 3) Mr. Dibs is not impressed by my dismal sewing output.

I am a Pfaff girl through and through, but unfortunately, I can't seem to find affordable Pfaff industrial machines, and, if the internet is to be believed, Adler and Juki are the business in the industrial sewing world. Do correct me if I am wrong please.

I cannot afford an Adler, so Juki it is. I know Brothers also make good machines, but I have not really looked at them. I suppose I should since my budget is quite small for this type of machines.

So back to my question. Any word of advice on industrial machines? Do you have one that you love or know about that you think I should take a look at? I am leaning towards the Juki DDL 8700 but I would be grateful for any other suggestions.

Blog Hop!

Ah, and so it came to pass that Dibs resurfaced after a long spell away from her blog. My friend Mela over at Pincushion Treats nominated me for a blog hop. Those of you who have been reading my blog for sometime will have seen mention of her round these parts. If I ever visit the US, Mela would be one of the reasons why......oh and the various garment districts. Come to think of it, there are many US bloggers I would love to meet. I am looking at you Ginger, and you Nettie (peeps how cool is this woman?), and not forgetting Carolyn, and oh, I want to be best friends with Renee (even though she already has a sewing bff, but who cares, emperors have been dethroned before)....but I digress.

I am not exactly sure how to answer some of the questions as I think they would require me to actually think about stuff, and most often I don't know why I do somethings. Anyways her goes....

Why do I sew?

I don't know. I suppose I sew because I like sewing. I like learning new things. 

My mom started sewing bed linen and curtains as a hobby, then later started selling them, while maintaining her day job as an accountant. I hated sewing at that time because it involved my aunt and I unpicking thousands of stitches with dressmakers pins. Either my mom did not know that seam rippers existed, or she just plain hated us. I hated it. Then she decided she wanted to sew clothes, enter Burda. That again, was totally unwelcome as I was responsible for tracing off the patterns she wanted. I had a HARD childhood people.

I suppose what really got me into sewing was wanting my university room to look like those in the glossy home magazines. I told my mom I wanted my curtains to match my bedspread, and I also wanted a strip of fabric round my room as my wallpaper. My mom told me to make it myself. I did, but my room looked so cheesy. I did not care. I loved it. 

When I came to the UK, sewing was not at the top of my list, but a couple of years later, I discovered Burdastyle. I started reading some of the blogs attached to the Burdastyle profiles and when I moved back to London after my Masters, my husband bought me a sewing machine. Searching for fabric shops in London led me to Karen's blog, and my first sewing meetup. The rest peeps, is history.

What am I working on?

For now, nothing. 

The last thing I made was a denim dress which I did for my high school alumni meeting in Coventry. Unfortunately, when I was finishing off the neck, my needle broke, and when I tried to take the needle out, it fell into the machine. I need to take it to sewing machine repair shop. 

We recently moved from London to Northampton, and I now work in Birmingham. Which is not good for me as I work in the city center, fabric shops. Not good. I have a sewing room to myself now but I still need to kit it out. I have high plans of enticing Claire out to Northampton to plan it out for me.

How Does My Sewing Process Work?

I just sew as the sewing spirit moves me. I don't like to plan projects. 

When I feel like sewing, I just pick out a pattern, and then match it to a fabric. I get pattern inspiration from other bloggers. I would see a project on someone's blog and decide I want to make the same thing. Buy the pattern, then never make it. I want to change that though, as I now have many patterns that I know I will never, ever sew. I like sewing mostly from the Big 4, but I recently bought 2 By Hand London patterns ( Charlotte skirt and Holly jumpsuit), to make work related outfits. So watch this space.

I will only plan a project if it is for a specific event, like a wedding or a black tie event. Even then I change my mind countless times.

When I start sewing an item, if I don't finish it, within 3 days, I run the risk of NEVER finishing it. I have a toile du jour dress I started last year. It is almost finished, but I somehow can't cross the finishing line.

What keeps me motivated to blog?

I blog because I want to. I don't blog often, and I don't know if I will get back to my pre-baby blogging levels, but I will see. If I feel I have something to say, then I will say it. I mostly blog if I have a sewing project to show. My blogging suffers when I don't sew. No sewing, no blogging. I am hopping to change that though. I have decided I want to bore you all to death with my life. So be prepared for many non-sewing related posts.

So apparently I have to nominate someone. I won't stop at just 1 person. There so many people whose viewpoints I want to get but for today I will settle on three people I admire. Sandra ( she makes sewing wrap dresses seem so easy.), Vicki Kate(  I still have your umbrella dude) and Ana, who is supa dupa talented and who I used to hero worship on Burdastyle back in the days.

Wedding guest outfit

My friend is getting married next week, and true to form, I have left sewing my outfit to the last minute. How else does one manifest self love than by piling pressure on ones self?

The bride is a Nigerian and, in keeping with wedding trends within the Nigerian community, her family and close friends have to wear the Aso ebi. I found this definition from the Urban Dictionary, and thought I should share it as I could not have explained the concept of Aso ebi better.
    aso ebi

(Pronounced ASHO EYBEE) 
Nigerian outfits made from matching fabric to be worn by a group of people to a party, wedding, or funeral as a uniform. Wearing a certain aso ebi identifies the group of wearers. For instance, at a wedding, all the bride's friends might wear blue and gold, the bride's family might wear white and gold, and the groom's friends might wear black and pink, and so on. Usually at weddings, the various fabrics for the aso ebi are decided by the bride, and are then announced to all the guests months in advance so they can prepare their outfits. Guests are usually expected to buy the aso ebi from the bride, but close friends and family members and certain prominent individuals may be presented with the aso ebi as a gift. Aso ebi for parties and funerals are generally simple, but aso ebi for weddings may involve many complex changes with entirely different aso ebi for different days of the wedding, and for the reception.

The Aso ebi colours assigned to friends in this case, are yellow and red. Yellow guipure lace, yellow silk fabric and a red gele (head tie).

Have you ever been to a Nigerian wedding? If yes, it's possible you might have already seen the Aso ebi in action. Though people start with the same piece of fabric, the finished items are anything but identical. No one wants to be outdone, so women come prepared. Dressed to the nines, fish tail skirts and all. A simple google search should be enough to show you how serious women take the Aso ebi.

Now to the matter of what I will make out of my lace. I spent the last 2 weeks trying to find inspiration, and thankfully, Lizzy pointed me to a lovely dress, aptly called the Majestic Dress, which I absolutely fell in love with. She posted a picture on instagram of her modelling the dress, and I was sold. Hopefully I will look half as stunning as she looked when I am done with mine.

Front

Back

I have never sewn with guipure lace before, so any piece of advice would be much appreciated. I scoured the internet for tips, and came across Carolyn's posts about sewing with guipure lace. I also read a 2006 Threads article by Susan Khalje on sewing different types of lace, which is all well and good, but I still am not sure how to proceed, and I still do not understand the descriptions on how to do the zip area. Dense much?

Copying Carolyn, I intend to work with four layers of fabric. The lace, silk organza, stretch crepe, and silk habotai as lining. 

I did not have the lace with me when I bought the silk organza so I was not certain of the colour to go for. There was a deeper shade of yellow that matched the lace, but I thought a paler yellow would be better. How wrong I was. It kind of ruins the look for me, so I either have to go back to Goldhawk road for the correct shade of yellow, or, sew the lace directly to the main backing fabric, or, horror of horrors, applique the lace to the finished dress, one rose at a time. What do you think?

For the pattern, I am still trying to decide between Vogue 82880, view A, with cap sleeves......

......and New Look 6123, view C but with the sleeves of view A. This pattern actually represents my best chance to recreate the Majestic dress, but I really love the sexy neckline of the Vogue 8280. Which would you go for? 

I have 24 hours to decide before I cut into my muslin later today, so I am going to bed now, to hopefully dream up a choice.