A blessed new week to you all dear lovely creators on Hive, I hope you are all doing great wherever you are, feels good to make it to another Needleworkmonday, and I sure have an interesting project to share with you all today.

It is common for us Africans to celebrate every moment of our lives, even at death, especially when it is the passing of an elderly one, of course, no one celebrates the passing of a young person, my friend had lost her grandma, may her soul rest in peace, and as our culture demands, we must pay her the last respect in form of a proper burial ceremony.

Though Muslims bury their deceased immediately, they still organize a celebration in honour of them, and often times, this ceremony involves family being dressed uniformly, especially in the same fabric, as a way of honour and distinction, I don't know when this culture started but it has been in existence for long, and I don't see it ending soon, during these ceremonies, there is a proper display of our rich culture through our dressing, foods, and other burial rites in this case.

So my friend sent me an invite alongside her fabric to help her design something beautiful, and I did as expected, giving it a unique design using a velvet bias. it's a straight gown with long sleeves and key hole on both shoulders, it was supposed to be an easy-to-make dress, but somehow, the neckline gave me another result from what I had expected, you know how you have something in mind and created it only to get a different result, so yea, I had to loosen out the upper side to get my desired outcome, the life of being a perfectionist can be that stressful, especially for a seamstress as myself.

Without further ado, let's get right into the making process,

Cutting And Sewing Process

• I started by drafting a bustier pattern for the upper side of the dress, and also a basic back pattern.

• Next, I drafted a straight skirt pattern for the lower part of the dress and joined the upper to the lower part by the waist

• Here is the favourite part I was looking forward to before making this dress,
  

using this velvet bias of about five yards which cost less than a dollar, I marked out where I wanted it placed with chalk first before sewing it on the dress

• Moving on, I joined the front and back sides of the dress, before drafting the sleeves pattern, which I cut and joined to the dress armholes.

• Here is the before look of the dress before the keyholes, My first attempt on the keyhole and neckline wasn't to my satisfaction,

• This is the final result of the neckline after giving it a second trial, what I did was trim out the shape I wanted for the keyhole, then using a black bias, I piped around the keyhole shape, and that gave this beautiful result.

My friend was very pleased with the design of her dress, and it fitted her perfectly too.

Thank you for reading.❤❤