Sometimes you need a new dress for Capital City Film Festival

After finishing my weaving ("She was Lost in the Woods and Followed the Sound of Your Waves") I needed a creative detox.  I popped into East Lansing to Grove Gallery, Saper Gallery and the Broad Art Museum.  Then over the Beggars Banquet, one of my old haunts from when I lived over that way.

I started doodling, thinking about the red carpet event for the Capital City Film Festival and how to show off my new tattoo (a large pair of sewing scissors).  I know I had been looking at a lot of red carpet fashion online from Hollywood and there's always some level of pushing the line of classy/decency.  I decided to try it.

I went home, found fabric that I already had from who knows where...I know the sheer black is from a 1920's themed dress I made in college for Art School Prom, back in 2003. I draped half the dress with this heavy bright salmon stuff that I have a ton of (again, from who-knows-where) and went for it.

I decided if the dress wasn't pretty much done by Tuesday night it wasn't going to be finished. For something like this I like to have a time limit.  I need to make something for myself every once in a while, but I remind myself that I have many other obligations.  Other rules for myself was that I had to use fabric from my current stash, so outside of my time this dress only cost me $5 for the gold zipper I put in the back.

The zipper was in on Tuesday night, which meant I just needed to put in a bottom hem and trim loose threads.  I'm really happy how it turned out.Thanks so much to Facebook and two of the photographers posting for Capital City Film Festival (I pulled photos from their facebook page).

Lansing is full of awesome people! (Photo by Matthew Dae Smith for CCFF) 

(Photo by Matthew Dae Smith for CCFF)    (Photo by Khalid Ibrahim for CCFF)

(Photos by Khalid Ibrahim for CCFF)

(Photo by Matthew Dae Smith for CCFF) 

And, it goes to show that a dress that fits your body correctly (I have a long waist, my dress form doesn't account for), well-placed darts keep things in place.  I did have fabric tape as backup in case I got nervous.