One of my favorite pieces of clothing is the shift dress. Its comfortable, cute and very forgiving. Also for some of us non "curvys" it hide's that very well, not that I am saying it's anything to be hidden. Anyways I have been playing around with different styles of the shift dress and I recently made one with Vogue 8897 pattern using a Java Wax African Print fabric here. Well I was at it again and this time I decided to add bell sleeves. Anything bell sleeved is trending right now and I was wondering how I could incorporate that into my sewing. So my shift dress it was.

From the sleeve of the pattern I cut it short and added a gather bell to the end. The pattern is really dress length but somehow I cut it short to about tunic length. I am sure this still can be worn as a dress but that removes the comfort-ability for me. So cue the jeggings. Can I safely say I LOVE THIS TUNIC. I will be definitely making more and watch out for some in my Etsy store. One of my friends suggested I start to name my clothing (Ok I laughed at this) but yeah, I think its a great idea, so I will be calling this bell sleeved tunic, the Thabo Tunic. Thabo simply means Joy or happiness and that is definitely what I feel when I wear it.

Its's been a while, hasn't it?

It's been a busy time and it doesn't help it's already the end of the year, the holidays, the busiest season of the year. I have been sewing but haven't been sewing much for myself and that is not entirely bad, but I do want to whip up a few things for myself. I am working on a few things but my most recent project led me to one of my most favorite style of dresses. The shift dress. I just love the way shift dresses fall especially for some of us that have not been blessed with curves. I decided to make my version in an African Wax Print Fabric using  a highly modified Vogue 8897. I took mine in a few inches, shortened it as well as the sleeves and lessened the V opening. Don't look to hard at the pattern. I had no intention of lining the pattern but it kinda worked out. It's winter so I can definitely pair this with some tights and a coat. I love it. How did I do?

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I must say I have fallen in love with this off shoulder trend. Please pray for me because I feel like my whole wardrobe will soon be taken over by this trend.

I decided to see how this would look with the dashiki leftover fabric I had. This was an easy project, not more than an hour and all you need is one panel of the dashiki. I love how it turned out and will definitely be making more.

I do not have a  passion for thrifting. I think it's mostly because it is a time consuming "treasure hunt", depending on your definition of treasure. Anyways I try to avoid it unless I have the time, but I rarely do. In this case, I needed something to wear for a home going service for a friend of my husbands. Like many times, it never fails that when you have something to go to, you never have anything to wear. I didn't want to spend money on anything new and I didn't feel like making something from scratch, so as I was driving back home from running my errands I said maybe I could stop by the Goodwill store and find something to refashion.

With an open mind and a bit of patience, I went through the dresses and finally found 2 polka dot dresses. I looked at them and said there was no way I would have ever bought this, but I said there is enough fabric to make something else. I paid for them and headed off. I inspected them to see if there would be anything that wouldn't make it work and I threw them in the washer for an extra clean.

Pinterest is your best friend, at least I know it's my best friend and so I typed in polka dot dress and all this inspiration came up.I picked something I could work towards and this was it.

Inspiration from Pinterest

It's the holiday season and without fail, all things sparkly and festive are here. I have kind of stayed away from working with sequin and glittery fabric because I am too scared to mess up such pretty fabric. I happened to go to the fabric store and spotted some shiny remnant fabric that I thought I could work with. I picked McCall's pattern M7047 and it was the perfect easy pattern to go with the fabric and it can be warn three different ways. I loved that added versatility.  Sadly I have no red carpet, or fancy events to go to, so I will be dressing up to go no where LOL. Here is what I came up with. How did I do?