Creme et Noir

It's been ages since I've done a sewing project post, so I thought it was time to bring this one off the shelf.  To be honest, I took these photos somewhere in the January to February '19 time frame.  

Those cold winter months are when I do most of my sewing since I'm trapped indoors and fortunately, the landscape stayed lovely all through the bitter chill, so I decided to save this one for the upcoming autumn and the only giveaway, really is how much shorter my hair was last year compared to this year.

Did you ever search for something and never really be satisfied?  I'm beginning to think that being obsessive is just part for the course with most creative types.  For several years I was completely obsessed with black and cream.  I have no idea why, but in my mind it was the classic combination and proved, oddly enough, very hard to find.  

I found plenty of black and white or black and tan, but black and ivory was a rare duo in the fashion world.  I think this obsession went on for two or three years and turned up very little and not much that was worth holding onto, so I don't have any examples left of that mad time of searching.  

Perhaps “mad” is too severe.  I like having projects, little things I'm working on or hunting for, but this one lasted an atypically long time.  Maybe I'm just that good—I usually find what I'm looking for within a few months to a year—or maybe this was just the illusive white whale of fashion searches—minus the disturbing nautical vengeance element. 

I still like black and cream, but I ceased obsessing years ago and I don't even type it into my search engines anymore.  However, when I was digging through my stacks of vintage fabric, looking for my next dress making projects last winter, I came across this little black and ivory floral print and thought of my years of hunting for something just like this.

I knew exactly what I would make and how I would style it with this ivory eyelet blouse and some cute eyelet oxfords.  It's taken me about a year to actually get the time to make this dress; it got buried under newer fabrics and styles, but as I was wrapping up my sewing for the winter, I knew I couldn't let this one sit another year. 

It would have been perfect for autumn last year, but since I missed out, I wanted to be sure to have it ready for this year.  It could be a subtle homage to Halloween over an outright witch and black cat printed number that costs $80, goes on sale immediately on November 1^st for less than half the original price and only gets worn once a year, but it can also be more than just a Halloween dress.

This dress has lots of months of wear ahead of it.  For example, in autumn I'll pair it with rust and brown.  In winter pale blue or warm red will look nice, and in spring a nice pastel pink with a floral cab necklace will be perfect.  Summer may be the only season it will sit in the closet.  It really is too hot to wear black here in the summer

Shopping Info: Anthropologie top, Wool Cape from Chicwish, handmade dress, vintage cameo