Some of My Highlights from 2012

Bias Dress Hits the Red Carpet

It's always a great day when someone like Amy Sedaris is spotted in one of my dresses, especially on the red carpet or the David Letterman show. This has happened periodically since Amy first showed up at my store "The Dress" in the early 1990s.

When Sarah Jessica Parker invited Amy to the New York City Ballet fall gala event this year at the Lincoln Center (Valentino designed all the costumes). Amy purchased this dress for that event and here she is walking the red carpet. She told me later that it was a real show stopper and everyone wanted to know about the bias dress. 

People are always really surprised when they see that those are individual strips sewn on. For this one, I actually cut up another dress I had made. I took it all apart and cut bias strips out of it and made this dress instead: it's very similar to the dress on the cover of my book.

A Summer Dress for Brandon Holley of Lucky Magazine

Brandon Holley is the editor-in-chief at Lucky Magazine and I've known her since she was in college and hanging out on the Lower Eastside where my store, "The Dress" was located. For a while she worked at the famous Max Fish (the first bar in the area) and look where she is now! The last time I saw Brandon we were fitting her in a darling brown cotton apron dress I had made for her wedding rehearsal dinner. 

We reconnected when I had my editor send over a copy of my book. A lot of the dresses in the book were familiar to her from walking past the windows of "The Dress" on Ludlow Street. 

Brandon at the fitting.

Anyway, one thing led to another and before I knew it she was at my new studio and we were discussing summer dresses. We talked about style and fabric and after trying a few things on we settled on this style. I did a sketch of the general idea with some fabric swatches which in the end were all beautiful Liberty of London cotton prints with a cotton organdy petticoat underneath!




 

















Creative Sewing Lessons at Josephine's Dry Goods

A major perk of visiting my family in Oregon twice a year is that I teach creative sewing workshops at this great fabric and sewing shop in downtown Portland. Everyone is always a little surprised to see how much sewing goes into making one of these party dresses regardless of which techniques they use!  

Click here to view more images on my Facebook page of projects that some of my students worked on in classes in 2012. If you have a shop that could accommodate a class like this, click here to learn more about workshops.

Here is one of my students putting her own creative spin on the scrappy skirt:
lots of assorted black silk scraps, silver thread, and lots of top stitching.

The Girls Club Learns to Make Aprons


I thoroughly enjoy teaching these girls to sew. Beginning this fall we started making aprons of all kinds. Aprons are a perfect project to learn sewing skills. The cotton aprons were made to sell at The Girls Club Store: La Tiendita. 

This is the crew of girls who were working on the aprons.

 
The fancy pinafores were made by the older girls for the younger girls to wear to a performance of the Mad Hatter at Thompson Square Park.