Miss 17 needed something to keep her warm, something around the shoulders that was unstructured enough to balance the very structured dress. I tried to buy her a black velvet wrap but she decided the price was too high and that “you can make one for half that!”

We bought one metre of 150 cm wide black velvet jersey. It is quite heavy and has a lot of stretch. One metre was too wide, but half a metre was perfect. I spent almost an hour getting the material folded into an accurate rectangle of 50cm by 150cm.

Eventually I did it.

I tried to sew it on the sewing machine but the stretch combined with the velvet pile made that impossible. That is 45 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.

I got out the overlocker and it was a dream sew. I left a small opening, pulled it right side out and handstitched the opening.

There is a short video on instagram.

Here she is with the new dress, wrap and shoes, but no head. I’m not allowed to show her face on a blog about clothes.

This was taken the day before the formal. On the actual day she also had a new leather clutch, beautifully arranged hair and had borrowed some of my jewelry.

All done!

Costs & details:

Pattern – Self drafted rectangle. Does that qualify as a pattern or careful measuring?

Fabric – 1 metre of heavy velvet knit from Rathdowne Remnants. $25.00

Thread, broken needle, bent pins & recovery flat white – from stash.

Total = $25.00

Do it again –  only in a different colour.