Knowing my love for costumes, you will not be surprised to learn that for my second competition (first in Advance Beginner) I decided to make myself a dress. I didn’t like how I looked with the white shirt and green blouse, and besides, most of the girls in my class had dresses and I didn’t want to be left out. Since then thought, An Coimisiún le Rincí Gaelacha has decided that Beginners and Avanced Beginners have to wear either their school dress or a skirt and blouse.        I have to admit thought, that I am not proud of myself on this project, mainly because I used the wrong kind of interfacing. Then again, I knew there would be some problems with this dress as I made it to learn to make solo dresses, so I’m (sort of) ok with it. But I’m not about to wear it again. Material        Raspberry coloured Polyester in a Dupioni Silk imitation kind of finish        Black Silk charmeuse (which is so soft and has a watery feel to it).        Black and gold ribbon        The stiffest interfacing I could find. That was a mistake. The one I used was like cardboard and it did not keep it’s shape right. Pattern       I used Irish Threads dress pattern Advice        Here is what I should have done different: use a different stiffener, follow the pattern’s instructions better – I had problems with the skirt because there are 2 types of skirt back pieces – stiffen the pleats and use another type of fabric because polyester doesn’t BREATH!

I like to play with colours on Photoshop to better imagine the result.

This is the dress as I wore it for the 2004 Ville-Marie Feis. See the weird way the skirt pulls? That's why I hate it.

This is the dress with a bit of design added to the bodice, as I wore it at the 2004 Albany Feis. It still looks like that now, as I decided not to add the design on the skirt as I had planned. Instead, I made my First Solo Dress.