I am honored to be a part of the Duchess Skirt Release Blog tour by DIBY Club. I am not much of a skirt person, mostly because I am so short and it is hard to find a pattern that fits me well. Also, my kids are finally getting old enough that I feel more comfortable wearing skirts and dresses again. Before kids, I practically lived in dresses. It was store bought dresses, because I did not start sewing till after I had kids (You can read why in my profile). Then came along the Duchess Skirt! It has so many options!
The Duchess is a high low skirt and you are able to choose from full length or midi length. Also you can choose how much between a conservative and a dramatic rise. As mentioned above, I am short. I am only 5’0″ tall. The Duchess Skirt gives instructions how to shorten the skirt to your height, however I took fellow blogger (and fellow short person, LOL) Sewing With Sarah’s advice and tried making the midi without shortening the length. I also chose the conservative rise. I think I will save the dramatic rise for a more formal event. It turned out to be a great length!
It is a perfect length! I am not a huge fan of hemming, however I watched the DIBY CLUB video on how to sew a curved hemline and she knows what she is talking about. I took her advice and my hem turned out perfectly! As much as I love the skirt, I am going to move onto my hack. I am not really sure if it is called a hack or not, as I did not actually change the pattern in any way, I just had an idea. Let’s start off with I have a Mom Bod. I have really started working on it lately and am actually down 14 pounds since February, but still have a nice pouch for a belly. (Notice you do not see it in this skirt, woot woot!) For this reason I choose the Yoga waistband option. I can fold the yoga waistband over or pull it up to help hold in my pouch a bit. When I was trying on the skirt, I had a quick thought. Remember how I said I lived in dresses before kids? I wondered, would this skirt pattern work as a dress too? So I pulled up the skirt and Voila! Its a dress too!
Yep! A strapless dress! I am in love!!! This is going to be the new dress I am going to live in! It also nicely hides my Mom Bod. Are you as excited as I am? What do you think? Great idea for a dress?
I mean I am REALLY excited! Now I have my new favorite dress in my favorite fabric! The Mandala centered in the middle of the “top” aka waistband was completely by accident. The Fabric is from one of my favorite shops So Sew English. It is a soft double brushed polyester in a pink and green medallion design. Pink and Green are my two favorite colors and I may have bought A LOT of this fabric. I also need to give some props to my photographer.
I loved how these pictures turned out! It is the first time, since having kids, that I am starting to get back to me. I did have to crop and center the pictures a bit, but Little Dude did an amazing job! Yep, my 5 year old took these pictures! I took the skirt picture, however he took all of the dress pictures! I think he has a talent for photography. I actually ask him to photograph me rather than his Dad, as he takes way better pictures! He is much shorter than me, and I was not as happy with the upward look of the photos were coming out, so I had another idea, of course he took a photo of me in action.
I brought over his sister’s little slide, that we kindly received for free from our neighbors, and let him stand in the middle. It gave him the perfect height. I am always amazed at how well his pictures turn out. I think this makes up for him saying I looked like a Grandma when I had the curlers in my hair. LOL. Btw, random thought. I chose to put curlers in my hair for two reasons. The first reason is I went to bed with my hair wet the night before and my hair was a mess and this is the easiest fix. The second reason was from movies. Have you ever noticed in movies how the actress’ hair is straight and then she falls in love and then, bam, all of sudden her hair is always curly? Kate Hudson, Cameron Diaz, Reese Witherspoon… I have noticed it in several movies. Since I fell in love with this dress, I thought my hair should be curly. 🙂
So…. Have you downloaded the Free Skirt AND DRESS pattern yet? Run, do not walk, and get it now, before she changes her mind on the offering this pattern for free. You can get it HERE. This pattern is absolutely amazing and will be well used in my home and should be in yours! Please visit all the wonderful ladies on the The Duchess Blog Tour:
The Duchess Blog Tour Schedule
July 25th – Sewing With Sarah | Diskordia’s Curvy Sewing
July 26th – Kainara Stitches | Wonderfully Handmade
July 27th – Seams Sew Lo | Mermaid Mama Designs
July 28th – Swimming in a Sea of Estrogen | Cookie on The Loose
July 29th – On Wednesdays we Sew | The Crunchy Mommy
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