DARQ: Don’t I look FABULOUS in this Erte recreation? It amazes me how Catherine started with this sketchy illustration —
Erte Dress Illustration
and figured out how to make the dress for me!
CATHERINE: It’s not a dress. It’s a two-piece outfit – tunic over a wrap skirt.
DARQ: Semantics, Catherine, semantics. And, hey, you didn’t spend as much time sewing this wonderful outfit as you did on the other Erte creation, my New Year’s Eve cape-stole-dress, now did you?
CATHERINE: True enough. Still, I put in two hours just figuring out the pattern and coming up with a prototype.
DARQ: Let’s not talk about that prototype.
CATHERINE: Why not?
DARQ: I still have puncture holes from the pins you used.
CATHERINE: All dress designers pin things on their models.
DARQ: I’m not a model. I’m a Wysotti starfighter pilot.
CATHERINE: Semantics, Darq, semantics.
DARQ puts hands on hips and huffs: Change of subject. Happy Valentine’s Day, Catherine.
CATHERINE: And Happy Valentines Day to you, Darq, and all who read this blog.
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*****STOP BACK St. Patrick’s Day when Darq will wear a new outfit, but maybe not an Erte one–unless, of course, you cast your vote for another (see the poll).
CATHERINE: As I mentioned in last month’s post, I like Erte’s designs because of the simplicity of the styles, and yet that simplicity is often deceptively intricate — for example, it wasn’t until I figured out that for the “hem tails” in the illustration to drape, that is, to hang down, the way they did was recalling that I’d once sewn a wrap-around skirt that did that. I did a test wrap skirt and the hem matched the illustration!
Another time consumer was figuring out the dimensions of the white square for the tunic’s top–which isn’t a square because Darq’s got a very VERY long waistline.
NOTE TO SEWERS: The fabric for this outfit is a very fine boucle knit (it’s nubby-textured). The tassel I made from leftover trimming yarn from the Erte New Year’s Outfit (you might want to scroll below and take a look at that outfit). And, of course, there were the shoes. The illustration didn’t show the “bling” as being substantial, but you know Darq, she loves her shoes, and the more bling they have the better. LOL
NOTE TO AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHERS LIKE MYSELF: I spent a day coming up with (and fussing) over the background for this photo shoot. The sun was very bright coming into my dining room (where I do the photography) and so there were deep shadows when my camera’s flash went off. And no, I do not own any of that fancy lighting stuff the very serious-serious photographers use. As a matter of fact, there were shadows with the natural light, so it was a losing battle of shadows. After a couple test photos, I decided to use the natural light settings of my Cannon T31 digital and that’s what I posted here.
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JEWELS OF THE SKY 