African Violet--Project Run and Play Week 4

This week was color week over at Project Run and Play and I went with VIOLET...African Violet to be exact.  The inspiration actually came from Africa, the continent, and not the Flower, African violet. 

 When my husband had his dream job and got to travel to Africa a lot, he saw the vivid colors and prints and decided to bring back some hand dyed fabric for me.  He went with hand dyed (I'm guessing something similar to batik dying) instead of the vivid prints, because it was supposed to be used for something for me to wear...actually the lady that sold it to him said this is typically all they use for a wrap around skirt... and I don't usually go for bold.  However, I have hips and the wrap around never really worked, plus I already had a couple of skirts from Africa he had brought home before.  This fabric has just been sitting around until now.  This is what the full piece of fabric looked like (I still have about half of it left...I'm actually thinking a shorter skirt for me now.) 

 Here is what I turned it into.  Can you see the African Violet inspiration?  I had decided to call the outfit African Violet before I had even made it, knowing that the fabric was purple.  When I drafted the idea, I decided that it needed a nice pop of brighter color as contrast and went with yellow.  Then I noticed my violet in bloom right now and saw the little pop of yellow there as well.

I came up with a simple wrap around dress with a nice contrasting pop of color in the bias tape.  I decided to make the dyed pattern go 2 different ways for a little contrast as well.

 The top part is a self drafted pattern.  The 2 front pieces are identical.  The skirt is just selvage to selvage and then gathered to fit the bodice.  The bias tape is one continuous piece to form the ties and go up and around the neck.  This is what I taught myself this time around, how to make my own piece of continuous bias tape.  I used Katy Dill's tutorial and found it quite simple.  Oh the possibilities...no more drab, plain, store bought colors.

 The yellow fabric is from the Lisette line found at JoAnne's.  The 1/2 yard that I got made double the amount of bias tape needed for this project.  Katy wasn't kidding when she said a yard made a lot.