My Dress.

This dress means everything to me. Not because it's the most beautiful dress I own  (It's certainly not that well made!), or because it's by a top end designer, or because it cost me an arm and a leg. This dress means everything to me because it is all mine, and it's the first dress I ever made that was all mine. I enjoy sewing, but mostly I just use premade patterns, and towards the end I tend to lose a bit of passion for the item I'm making. This dress was different, I drew sketches and sketches until I knew what I wanted, all my exercise books at school were filled with drawings of variations of this dress. Then I made a calico mockup of the dress, so I didn't stuff it up. I poured over fabrics until I found the ones I wanted, and then I made my dream dress a reality.

Originally, this dress was for my year 12 formal, it didn't have the beading at the base of the straps it now has, but I hadn't even thought of that yet. I wore it, and every time someone complimented what I was wearing I felt the satisfaction all over. It's always lovely to be complimented, but when it's on something you created, the compliment has much more power.

I took these full length pictures a bit over a year ago. It was the morning of my interview for the fashion design course I wanted to get into, and I'd just looked through my folio and realized I didn't have a full shot of the dress with the wired beading on the straps - an addition I had made a couple of days before, to spice it up a little bit.

The interview went well, and I got into my course. I deffered for a year, and am set to start in a couple of weeks, which is why I have come back to this dress. I've only worn the dress once more since then, the night of the Dreaded Treehouse Incident. In a silly alcohol induced moment, I decided it was a good idea to climb up to the treehouse in my friend's backyard, not stopping to think about what that would do to the organza skirt of my dress. When I woke up the next morning, I was devastated to see the damaged fabric, filled with ladders which couldn't be fixed. I vowed to give my dress a new skirt soon.

It never happened. I put my dress away and only thought about it occasionally, never bothering to fix it. I decided yesterday, over a year after the Dreaded Treehouse Incident that it is time to give my dress a new life. I've been a bit slack on my sewing/creating in the last few months, but I finally have a couple of weeks to myself so I hope to get lots of projects done! I purchased some new organza, this time in a paler grey, with a slight blue tinge, and this afternoon I plan to sew a new skirt for my dress. Wish me luck!!