Four months and five days

On May 9th I will be boarding the Queen Mary II for the cruise from New York to Southampton.

CANNOT WAIT.

On board ship there is a pretty strict dress code in the evenings. Three nights will be formal (evening or cocktail dresses) and four will be informal (cocktail dresses). Two nights will be themed balls (themes not yet announced). I do not currently possess suitable wardrobe for this extravaganza. Oddly, my life does not have much call for evening or cocktail dresses. I should change that.

Anyway, I have plans. I have been buying fabric and pinning things to a little private Pinterest board set up for the purpose. Wanna see? Okay, then.

 

I plan to make a cocktail dress similar to this, using this stunning silk devore fabric, underlined in red. The print is huge – the roses are about a foot wide! It will certainly be dramatic.

Second up, this gorgeous skirt and top, which I actually might make into a dress:

I’ve got some beautiful old gold embroidered taffeta which I made into a dress to wear at my brother’s wedding. I can use the skirt of that, shorten it a bit and add a stretch velvet top. Maybe in burgundy. I made a belt for the dress too, which would work well with this look.

And finally for the cocktail dresses, this fabulous fringed number. You can’t see it brilliantly in this photo, but it has a wrap style top and a fringed skirt. I would love to have this dress, but nice fringing is really expensive and I’d need a lot. So, we’ll see.

 

Okay, now for the full-length dresses. I bought a dress in the Monsoon sale last year which has a very peculiar shaped bodice that doesn’t fit or suit me, but the fabric is so stunning, I decided it was worth it. It’s a mid blue with large pansies printed on it. I’ll take the bodice off and make a new one which I think I might add some beading or sequins to. The end result should be something like this:

Then there’s this. I’ve got several metres of a pink/ivory/tan satiny fabric (fabric content unknown) with appliqued bands of lace. I  think it might make a flowy skirt, not very like this. But I want to get some sequinned fabric to make the bodice a bit like this. I am least sure about this dress and it might end up being completely different from the inspiration.

Current shopping list:

3m each of red lining and underlining

1.5m burgundy stretch velvet

Stretch fabric and fringing

Beads/sequins

1m sequinned fabric

Four months and five days? No problem. *eyes up sewing machine nervously*