Copycat Challenge!!

So as you all possibly may have gleaned from the endless copycat posts, I absolutely love designing garments from things I have seen. Usually on a tv show or in a movie and immediately want to recreate it. Maybe I never grew out of playing dress-up. Who knows?

Anyway, the lovely Erin from I Heart Fabric and I will be hosting a Copycat Challenge starting next week and lasting throughout the summer, or winter depending on where you are in the world. If you haven’t already checked out the submissions from Erin’s latest Copycat Challenge, you should! People made some gorgeous stuff over there.

The rules are pretty simple.

1. Choose a garment as your inspiration. Make sure you reference it and acknowledge where you found it. Pick several if you want!
2. Make it the way you want with your own touch and style.
3. Blog about it! Tell us what pattern(s) you used, what inspired you about the item you chose, how you styled it, whatever you want!
4. If you don’t have a blog and want to participate, send us an email and we’ll add it to the submissions post for you.

Of course, to make it extra exciting, there will be a prizes drawn at the end. We will explain how we will choose the winners in an upcoming post and hopefully have a few categories. Each finished garment will count for an extra entry and be judged seperately so don’t limit yourself!

Start thinking of what you’d like to make, look around for fabric, and think of patterns you would like to use. Erin and I will be posting on our individual processes, as well as tips we find helpful as we go along.

We will run this challenge from today until the 30th September 2013 so that’s almost three months to create some unique, fun and creative stuff!

Please contact us if you’d like to participate! Or post a comment below.

These are the projects I’ve chosen. I can’t decide if I’m being overly ambitious or if I’ll finish these in a week and then twiddle my thumbs for the rest of the summer.

1. I absolutely adore everything Jess wears on New Girl, but this dress is basically the most adorable thing ever.
2. If I’m hosting a copycat challenge, a Dear Creatures dress for my inspiration is basically obligatory.
3. Still on the fence about Clara. Still obsessed with her wardrobe. This outfit is from the 50th anniversary episode, which hasn’t actually aired yet (November 23 wheeee!), but luckily it’s available here to be closely examined.

For more inspiration please see my Pinterest board.

1. Victora Beckham Slim fitting white and black dress from my Pinterest board.
2. Long sleeve DVF shirt with bow again from my Pinterest board. This top looks very similar to a Vogue top I have been wanting to make!
3. I found this Alannah Hill ‘The Secret Of Secrets Coat’ on pinterest which I really want to use as inspiration. Also, the BurdaStyle handbook has a really cute jacket which I have been dying to make!

For more inspiration on Erin’s outfits please see her Pinterest Board.

Mr Darcy’s going to love my new bonnet

top: f21 // blazer: self-made // skirt: self-made // shoes: Seychelles

I’m going to make a confession. My recent desire to delve into the world of blazer-making can totally be blamed on a New Girl episode. I’m really not expecting anyone to be surprised. There’s an episode where she goes shopping for weird starfish lingerie and wears a gorgeous bright blue blazer with turquoise lining and zippered pockets and my lusty heart was lusty.

I looked at some screen caps and eventually decided that a blazer is a blazer (well, to a beginner anyway), and bought B4610. I used View A, but left off the pockets.

Since this was my first foray into the world of super fitted semi-professional attire, I made exactly zero pattern adjustments. Except for the part at the end where I had no idea how to close the whole thing up and ended up improvising and handstitching almost everything. I kind of feel like that wasn’t supposed to happen.

Oh well, I’m mostly happy with how it turned out!

For the record, I had every intention of putting the zippers in, but the only black and silver zippers I could find were black and gold and far too heavy and I was afraid they would pull too much at the fabric and look funny. Also I was lazy.

And yes, I briefly considered wearing white lace panties on my head as an accessory. I do value authenticity when it comes to costume replicating.

Who’s that girl?

You know that awesome feeling when you make a goal for yourself and you actually do it?

dress: self-made // capelet: Apostrophe (thrifted) // boots: Nine West (thrifted) // tights: F21

It feels pretty good.

I have a confession. I’ve been in love with Zooey Deschanel ever since I saw her in Bridge to Terabithia (which has always made me bawl like an infant, by the way), and when I got my Bon Look glasses a few months ago, my roommate asked me why on earth I didn’t watch New Girl. I didn’t really have an answer, so the next Tuesday, I snuggled on the couch with her and it was pretty much the best half hour ever.

Are you shocked that I was immediately inspired to make a dress from the show?

I used pretty basic pattern frankensteining for this one. I used Simplicity 1873 for the pleated skirt and then used Burda 7309 for the bodice and Burda 7739 for the sleeves, which I elongated to make them end just above the elbow. The dress itself is made of red cotton sateen and is super soft with a tiny bit of stretch. I might be wearing this on Valentine’s Day for whatever Boyfriend has planned that he refuses to divulge.

Still need to work on the lack of photo editing skills. We’ll get there.

Happy Monday, guys!