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Me-Made Midweek: The Parisian Dress

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Front 1It’s been a long time since I’ve posted a me-made midweek outfit, but I’m going to try to do them more often. I’ve seen me-made midweek done on many German sewing blogs (they call it “Me-Made Mittwoch”). Inspired by them, I started doing doing my own me-made midweek a couple years ago. I fell off the bandwagon long ago, but I think it’s high time to hop back on.

Back 1This simple dress is the absolute first thing I made after moving to Germany. When I arrived here in August 2009 to do a student abroad year, I had just two suitcases – no sewing machine. I had no plans to get one either. After all, when I moved back to California at the end of the year, I’d have to sell or toss everything that wouldn’t fit back in those suitcases.

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However, I travelled to Paris during my first month in Europe, and there I discovered the fabric district at the foot of the Sacré-Coeur. They have a five story fabric store of drool-worthy fabric, called the Marché Saint-Pierre and surrounding it are small fabric shops, as well as stores specializing in notions, and lots of stores selling coupons, discounted remnants that are three yards or smaller.

I bought loads of fabric.

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Back in Berlin for the beginning of the school year, I now had a stash of beautiful fabric I couldn’t sew. By October, I broke down. I walked into a sewing machine shop and asked them for the cheapest machine they had. Ten minutes later I walked out with a Brother JS-23,  a new pair of shears, and a box of straight pins. I was ready to sew!

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When I got home, I pulled out this Parisian fabric. Since I hadn’t bought a sewing pattern, I decided to make a simple dress from a series of rectangles. It could be worn loose or belted, and layered over shirts and thermal leggings in winter.

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I used elastic in the back for a forgiving fit and put the straps right next to each other so that they’d never slip off my shoulders.

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In the five years since I’ve worn this dress often because it’s versatile and pretty. It even made during appearance in Me-Made May this year, masquerading as a shirt.

 

Me-Made May, Day 14

Would you ever take part in a me-made challenge? If you did, would you prefer me-made May, where you go all out with outfits and pictures for a month, then take the rest of the year off, or something like me-made midweek, that goes on year-round but isn’t every day?

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Comments
  • Virginia

    I love this dress and your whole outfit. The necklace and turtleneck with the dress look amazing!

  • Kait

    The dress is cute and looks comfortable! I love the floral fabric! And I am so jealous that you got to fabric shop in Paris. In two years of living there as a student, I sometimes regret that I never took advantage of the fabric district, but I lacked the cash and space for fabric and a sewing machine. But oh, if I could go back! You obviously had your priorities in order!

  • Rhonda

    I like the once a week thing best. Much less stress 🙂

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