My Secret Dream - in a Dress

Do you have a thing that you’ve made, that means something extra special to you?

It doesn’t even have to be your best work – rather, a personal favourite?

Here’s the story of THE favourite thing I’ve made…

After my first attempt at serious sewing, I merrily went down the path of making dresses out of store-bought patterns, occasionally hacking them for various reasons – not enough fabric, for one – but mostly because I found the designs a bit boring.

Then I saw this pattern….

So naturally I had to make it.

At this point of the story, let’s take a quick detour….

Beside sewing, my other passion is dancing. Unlike sewing or crafting, I never had a natural gift to dancing. A ballet school reject, I was that awkward, clumsy kid with two left feet and always a tad too tall and too wide.

Dancing was frown upon in my family. Apart from perhaps ballet, other kinds of dancing were unseemly and just ‘wrong’ in my parents’ eyes.

But that never stop me from dreaming.

I dreamt of learning to dance, and becoming great at it too.

The late 80s and early 90s were full of dance movies – and I lived my life through the dreams, struggles, set backs and eventual success of the heroines. I’ve never wanted anything else.

My chance came when I started uni, in the city. The long hours at fashion school gave me the perfect cover to be out in the city for all hours. So I joint a dance school in secret, and paid for the lessons with my pocket money.

Of course, I sucked. For the longest time I was the slowest and the worst. I watched my friends from the same class going up a level – and allowed to participate in shows – I would be kept back, doing the basics still.

But I made that dress anyway. 

It was a promise to myself that I would wear it, I would dance til the wee hours in it. And I would be good.

The dress was made in a soft floral polyester blend, lined in cool bemsilk, with paper taffeta on the reverse side for extra whoosh in the flounces. I added straps, and hand-painted a length of silk to make a large scarf as a cover up.

I felt like the dancing queen in it – but I knew I couldn’t wear it until my dancing lived up to the dress. I waited. And dreamt.

That day didn’t come for a very very long time. My dancing journey ended up being a complete adventure and nothing like I’d imagined. Though the day did come (sorry about the grainy photo)…

Needless to say – I did enjoy every millisecond of it. This dress was my personal favourite – on so many levels. I still have it and I think it still fits

xoxo