The other day when writing the post for Sunday Sevens I realised that there are many of our dance dresses that we have not blogged about. I thought I should try to change some of this (and I should do this for clothing too but baby steps!)
I looked back through my phone photo back up (you have to love google) and it turns out we made this outfit in 2014! It doesn’t seem like that long ago, but it is almost 2 years to the day. So a few days before the second competition of the Uni year Nikki decided that she needed a new outfit as the partner that she was dancing with had a red outfit and she didn’t have anything to match her. Queue some manic sewing.
Nikki made a red skirt with black crinoline edging the same as her Leopard skirt but needed a top to go with it.
The top started off being modelled from one of Nikki’s scoop neck tops, the outline of this was used to cut out a top front from thin red Lycra and tan Lycra ‘lining’.
The two layers were sewn together around the edges and neck line. This neckline was then cut out and the whole top turned inside out.
The whole top was then top stitched around the edges to reinforce it slightly and stop the tan lining layer from showing out under the red lycra.
The back of the top was just constructed using Lycra covered elastic straps. These were produced by sewing thin elastic to the edge of the Lycra, with a small over hang on one edge, this is then folded over the elastic which is then folded over again so that it is entirely enclosed in Lycra. A zig-zag stitch is then sewn down the elastic again securing all layers. The excess fabric is then removed.
I cannot for the life of me remember what I did to my finger to warrant the finger guard that I am wearing , but it might have been when I sliced the end of my finger with the bread knife!
The more complicated bits came when trying to turn this bit of fabric into a human shaped piece of clothing. We made life easier by just using a strip of black elastic for the band at the bottom of the top (this also linked in with the black crinoline in the skirt). I resorted to just pinning this round Nikki over the top of the top fabric and then worked out where the straps should go at the back to provide some support.
Then came the technical bit of trying to work out how to place the lace motifs that we had bought (with the crinoline from
Trim It)
We fixed boob cups onto the top to add security, here is an inside shot taken at a later date when I was either replacing or adding extra securing to them. You can see how simply the top is secured to the elastic, simple but effective.
This appears to be the only photo we have of the outfit from the back.
You may be able to see that Nikki added a few rhinestones to the motifs on the top, black onto the lace and red on the Lycra to finish it off.
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