SHANNON'Sdresses

PATCHWORKdress

July 2009

A friend of mine was making a patchwork quilt a couple of months ago, and it inspired me to use the idea in making a dress. This is just a simple dress, the same pattern as used for the rust-coloured renaissance dress, except made shorter (I thought it looked cuter that way). If you are familiar with my dresses, you will notice that all the fabric I have used is from scraps left over from all the other dresses I have made. I think there may have been only two or three dresses where I didn't have any spare fabric left over. The dress has been hanging on my wall for a few weeks now waiting for a photoshoot and I needed to make room for another, so I just thought I'd take some photos of it on the dressform to get it out of the way. Plus, when I tried it on when it was first finished, I looked in the mirror and thought I looked like a rather naughty milkmaid, so it's probably best I'm not actually wearing it.

This dress is pretty important to me because it's also a bit of a prototype for what I want to construct for the World of WearableArt Awards. Just imagine it bigger, better, more intricate, and more awesome, and that's what I'm aiming for. And I have a very strong idea for the meaning of the patchwork theme, and what it will prortray as a piece of wearable art, but I will articulate that in a future update when I have a clearer idea of where I'm going with it.