Seeing Double!

Today Millie (storytelling partner) and I gave tours in our latest dresses.

Christine and I had a marathon sewing Saturday last weekend and we managed to complete two dresses.

Christine made Millie's dress and I made mine:).

You may recognize the frogs on my dress as those from the dress I bought last week at Goodwill.

This fabric was a bit pricier that what I usually buy but I found it on sale at a nearby quilt shop on the $15 per yard rack marked down to $5 a yard.

It is some of the most wonderful fabric I have used for a dress in that it is cotton but feels like silk!

The vintage lace collar was a fun find just under $5 during one of my antiquing sprees.

The blue braided trim on the bodice was found at Hancock's for .99 cents a yard

(it took about 7 yards).

Although the dress is costlier than some of the others it was fun to make and to wear.

Every once in a while I splurge with the money saved on all the other dresses:).

Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Gone With the Budget!

Gone With the Wind is one of my favorite movies!

I am actually fluent in GWTW being that I can quote most of the film:).

In addition to being a fan of the movie I also enjoyed reading the book as well as reading books about the making of the movie.

Aside from being a big fan I also love the dresses.

Of course, my favorite is the BBQ dress.

So I decided to make the BBQ dress.

 Reproduction fabric is available but at $35 per yard with 18 yards needed another option had to be found.

And so the search began for a fabric close in appearence to the original. I decided to find a comparable green and white fabirc and cover it over in sheer white organza in hopes that it would have the same effect as the original dress.

I finally found a fabric that would work at Joann's on sale for $5.60 a yard.

The organza was also on sale and I chose to use dark green crushed velvet for the belt instead of real velvet (a difference of about $20 a yard:).

The boning was leftover from a dress I purchased at a thrift shop for $1.

I used a bodice pattern from an old Simplicity ball gown pattern and made the skirt without a pattern.

This allowed for only about 7 yarrds of fabric as opposed to the 18 yards required for the actual BBQ dress pattern (yes I have the reprint pattern which can be purchased at the gift shop at the GWTW/Marguaret Mitchell museum in Atlanta).

It took some creativity but I think the overall effect is very similar to Scarlett's BBQ dress.

Instead of spending $600+ to make an exact copy, my dress came in just under $100.

Frankly Scarlett, I saved some money!

What's your favorite GWTW dress?