Last saturday I attended my cousin’s 21st birthday party held at her parents beautiful farm in northampton. I arrived at the party after flying back from a week’s holiday in Tuscany that morning, luckily the weather was just as great as it was in it had been in Italy. Back in February she had asked asked me to create a fabulous turquiose dress for her to. She wanted a long silk gown with an empire line and a low back. I wanted the dress to hang beautifully – to cling to the body in the right places and flow out at the bottom to create a striking silhouette. As I had never attempted a dress like this before I opened up my pattern cutting books to find out how to start. After looking in the lingerie and eveningwear sections I was able to draft a great pattern that elliminated the use of darts. The fabric was sourced from a shop on goldhawk road – I bought four metres of silk satin, which was enough for me to cut the entire skirt on the bias and leave enough for the top section too. The dress was fairly easy to construct, I did notice the fabric puckering in a couple of places so will have to try sewing with tissue paper underneath next time I use satin. Initially I wanted to bead the dress along the empire line, however I couldn’t find any beads that I liked so I decided to use buttons to add an extra elegance to the dress. I put twelve buttons along the left hand side of the dress with only a fraction of fabric in between each one, which gave an extra detail to the dress.

The party itself was a great success, with loads of beautiful dresses including a floor length silver gown with 20 turquoise buttons running the length of the dress that I wore. The brillant turquoise of Amy’s dress certainly made her stand out from the crowd and the beautiful 1930′s feel of the dress gave her a beautiful elegance perfect for such a wonderful party.