Yes! I want to sew dresses!
Two months ago, hubby bought me a Singer sewing machine. It was a gift, yes but the truth is I asked him to buy it. Why? Because I want to sew beautiful dresses. I want to make my own dresses and for my little girl too. Convincing enough right? As a hijabi, I have limited clothing choices as compared to other girls who don’t wear hijab. But that doesn’t play villain on my love for shopping clothes though sometimes buying expensive beautiful dresses seems impractical when in the end you have to bring it to sewer to adjust the length, sew in some openings, close the slit and so on. I think many hijabis can relate to that especially when you shop online and would have to alter the entire dress because you can’t return it back. So, those beautiful dresses on the mannequins, can I just sew them to tailor fit my frame?
Why not make my own dress then? Bright idea right? But how to? This is the hard part. Dressmaking is harder that what I thought. It is not just cutting the fabric and putting it all together. I browsed through YouTube to check on some tutorials to get some ideas on how to start my first dress but I had trouble understanding the terms, measurement, and patterns used in dressmaking and so I had to take many doses of paracetamol to get my headache off my system. There was nothing wrong with the channels and their tutorials, I am the one having problem comprehending the whole thing. Poor me!
Am I giving up?
No, I am not giving up on this. I still want to sew beautiful dresses for myself and my baby girl. It will be practical to sew some other stuffs too like curtains, quilts, bedsheets, etc too. It would be a very girly thing to be engaged in such hobby. There are many great websites and blogs that cover sewing basics and advance. I just have to mention these sites which inspire me to try harder. The Sew Chic and Unique by Mayyaa an Omani hijabi, Sew Can She and a dozens more out there. If you know a very good website that cover sewing tutorials, please send me the links.
In the meantime, here are some of my wishlist which I wanna make in the future.
A Moonsoon girl’s dress for my little girl.
A Mango combi maxi dress.
A gold shimmer abaya from The Abaya Company.
Hijabified outfit ideas
Hijabis might seem to have limited clothing choices taking into consideration the Islamic dress code for women which are loose and long outfits. The good thing is, you can explore fashion infused with modesty given the right choice of “mix and match” and “layering” of outfits. I just want to point this out, hijabis around the globe nor women in general don’t share the same fashion taste. After all, adherence to modesty is an individual judgment. It would be better to occupy ourselves in noticing our flaws than pointing on other’s. While abayas and long sleeve long dresses are preferably recommended to be worn by hijabis, modesty is not only limited to wearing those. You can find ways to hijabified an hijabi-unfriendly outfits to make it look modest. If you want some hijabi outfit ideas you can read it here and here.
So to answer the title of this post, can I sew beautiful dresses? That, you have to find out. Till here beauties! Can’t wait to show you my first sewn dress. When? We’ll have to wait.
