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Women Shirt dress (Bell Sleeves-Buttoned Shirt)

February 26, 2018 by Harshitha 2 Comments

Maxi Shirt Dress:

Women shirt dress looks like an improvised version of a men’s shirt. This was the first idea I had, looking at this Nellore silk material with swans printed all over.

Women Shirt Dress:

There are various styles when it came into women’s fashion like a collar, a button front, waist belt, or cuffed sleeves. Usually, the shirt dresses are made up in fabrics including cotton or silk, much like a men’s dress shirt would be.

I’ve made the shirt dress with a pink Georgette cloth. These shirt dresses often have a looser fit, usually using a belt to get that perfect look of the body. And the immediate sketch was this, with bell sleeves…

This was one of the coolest materials I had, with a breezy look.

Making this dress to a women shirt dress model had the advantage of wearing it in different styles, which you can see in the pics coming up in this post.

The bell sleeve pattern take a little more cloth than ruffled addition like you can see in my previous post for the hands I’ve used. The bell sleeve pattern is cut in the way that it has more length on the outside than the inseam length. The inner hemisphere shown in the image below is supposed to be attached to the hand at the elbow level. So the circumference is taken according to the circumference of the hand just above the elbow.

After cutting the bell sleeve pattern as shown in the image, the in-seam mentions are stitched together to get a look like this flared sleeve pattern look…

Coming to buttoning up, it is something I’ve done for the first time. It was exciting to check for references to match the buttonhole to the buttons distancing, which is the key point. It took a little math obviously.

The collar, collars are actually of different types! which I discovered after a long research on how to make it perfect. One of the YouTube videos helped. Although the video is about sketches, it definitely gave me an idea of a perfect collar.

And the waist frills are kept as much less as possible. It was only 1:1.5 cloth measurement taken to make frills unlike 1:2 taken for my kalamkari Kurta design dress.

Women Shirt Dress Design:

Finally, TADA! The outfit is complimented with chunky heels from Ajio.

This was an interesting pic, just wanted to share!

Unbuttoned look

And added a waist belt

Lehenga Choli Design (Saree Turned Lehanga Choli)

February 18, 2018 by Harshitha Leave a Comment

Here’s an admiral blue pattu saree with gold colour peacock pattern zari turning into a lehenga choli design.

Lehenga choli design, the traditional Indian 2 piece attire comprising of a top bodice and a bottom lehenga. The lehenga being a long skirt pleated or gathered and choli is a cropped top wear. As this design is without a dupatta, I’ve made the choli to boxy styled and not so cropped. The sketch looked like this.

I’ve modernized the choli a little making it a boxy styled top, maintaining the old styling of elbow length sleeves and a simple hook at the back.

I’ve used the grand pallu for the choli. The double border is used to add grandeur to lehenga. This time the ruffles are used to enhance the lehenga border.

Finally, the sketch turned out into a beautiful lehenga choli.

Wrap dress

February 12, 2018 by Harshitha Leave a Comment

Worried about how to tie a wrap dress? That can be done, but have you ever thought of a wrap dress look without actually turning and twisting your body about ‘how to tie a wrap dress’

Here’s how I made a wrap dress imitation Aline kurta. This kurta, just gives you that perfect look of a wrap dress, but at the expense of just wearing it on like your normal dress

Aline kurtas are simple and beautiful for any occasion. The side slit I’ve improvised, adds waviness to the kurta giving it a flare of fullness.

Wrap style dresses are good looking in the way it is wrapped around. They are easily adjustable to different kinds of body types and be comfortable. I’ve made little changes retaining the comfort. The change is that its not adjustable, but gives the wrap dress image by freely falling over the body.

A bagru print cobalt blue colored symetrical pattern printed material must be apt for the design from Ajio.

There are no knots or tie ups, it is an imitation of the wrap style. The sketches looked like this.

An overlap of the two pieces below form the front pattern. And the back pattern is as normal as for any other aline kurta. Usually the inner pointed edges which are present at the waist level in the image below are facilitated with ties for a wrap dress. And one of the ties is fed through the eye-hole on the opposite side of the bodice. Bringing the ties behind your back pulling them around the sides and tying in a bow makes a wrap dress, which gets us to how to tie a wrap dress.

I understand, it is a bit overwhelming thinking of the pattern measurements to match the image. I felt it too. As I was mentioning in my previous post , the three pieces for that pattern were cut matching the pattern cutting image below. The pattern cuttings are the tools for us to make our work easy. The pattern cutting method, i’ve learnt from was described in my first post.

The left part in the above image is the front pattern. This forms a V-shaped neckline. Usually the front and back patterns are cut separately, folding the material to half of the whatever widest measurement we want, so that we get symmetrical shape on the left and right. The left part is used accordingly in cutting the two pieces to form the front pattern.

The sleeves are made elbow length with 2 inch wide ruffles in the end giving it a chicky look. The sleeve patterns is

Coming to making ruffles for the sleeve pattern, i’ve suggested a video while making a gathering for the lower part of the dress in my previous post while making a center-slit long kurta , the same technique can be used here also for this sleeve pattern, but on a 3 inch wide band of cloth that is enough for the sleeves.

The overlap finally looked like this continuing the side slit from the end of overlap and the sleeve pattern. You can also get from these online stores out there for different patterns of wrap dresses.

The wrap dress is overlapped all over, so the slit doesn’t happen to appear, but here only a part from the waist is taken over to the other side for the wrap dress look. So, with the visible side slit I’ve complimented the kurta with an off white palazzo and it looked like this..

60s Look (Mod Pattern | Kalamkari Kurtis)

February 2, 2018 by Harshitha Leave a Comment

Kalamkari Kurtis In 60s Fashion Trends:

Old is gold. Truly! The 60s look recreation is the new fashion. This Cotton salwar tops material with striking kalamkari block print pattern is turned into kalamkari kurtis style.

Elbow length sleeves, high necks, boat necks are styles we follow these days. The elbow length sleeve style is used in this kalamkari kurtis model.

This mustard yellow kalamkari print material in mod dress pattern with 60s look is my idea instead of the kalamkari kurtis.

The mod meant modern, a subculture popular in 60s in London, England. The period of fashion innovation for women.

Unisex dresses blue jeans, button-down shirts are popular. Materials like polyester, nylon, acrylic, vinyl, and PVC were the fashion.

This style is to an extent, like a sheath dress. But here it is made of kalamkari material like kalamkari kurtis. Sheath dress, a straight cut dress with no waist seam. It comes in styles with short sleeves and a knee length.

60s fashion trends from Harpersbazaar magazine is an inspiration.

I wanted it to be a simple multipurpose top that can go with palazzo, skirt or jeans. The high-low dress pattern was an addition which can avoid any discomfort with the short tops in combination with any type of bottoms. This top can be worn like in any kalamkari kurtis combinations you would want to wear.

60s look Design | Kalamkari Kurtis:

The sheath is usually a close-fitting dress. I’ve made this kalamkari kurtis style, a simple, sheath fashioned (mod pattern) but not with many fitting darts.

It falls flat on the body aiding for the comfort of different body types. This is the most simple top to stitch but gives a stylish 60s look as you can see in the images below.

The above elbow length sleeves and boat neck gives a classy look. I’ve combined this 60s look kalamkari kurtis with blue palazzo pants like kalamkari kurtis.

60s look kalamkari kurtis is complemented with blue palazzo pants and a pair of chunky heels from Ajio.

Silk Kurta Design (Pattu Saree Turned Kurta)

January 31, 2018 by Harshitha Leave a Comment

Silk Kurti Designs For Stitching:

It was the border that inspired me to get this silk kurta design. Brick red my favourite colour, with navy blue border combination. Upon which it is a pattu cloth. I’ve tried to use the border a little differently.

Here’s my idea for this silk kurta design.

The patch in the front was the hard part, as it was made with two and a half inch wide border that was attached to the cloth. Decided on the width and height of the patch according to the body measurements. The border is turned to right angles at decided length closing it into a square. Two patches, one outer and other inner combined and stitched up made the patch.