MAGAM March ideas - Red Carpet Dresses

The March theme for MAGAM (Make A Garment A Month) is 'Movie Makes'. I am interpreting this as a grand dress for movie premieres, red carpet, etc. I have been itching to make a grand dress but I have nowhere to wear this type of garment. This MAGAM theme gives me a good excuse to make something completely useless but fun! :-)

I have been gathering special occasion dresses pictures on Pinterest. There are just too many beautiful dresses that I want to make!

As much as I would love to make every dress I see, I have to have a look at my fabric stash and pattern stash to see what I actually have. I'm not buying anything new to make this grand dress that I have no occasion to wear! Also, considering that I will have lost a good 2 weeks of sewing time this month (1.5 weeks of March break with the kids), I probably won't have a lot of time to draft new patterns and do muslins for the gowns. All of the above dresses will require me to learn something new with this project that is not a straight-out-of-the-pattern type sewing. Some require more drafting and alterations than others. Some of them require more fabric than others. Time to dive into my fabric and pattern stash to have a look.!

Wardrobe Sudoku Garments - RTW prices

Since I haven't shopped RTW garments/accessories for a long time, and I used all stash fabrics/notions/patterns to make all the Wardrobe Sudoku Contest garments, I thought it might be a fun idea to find out approximately how much I would have to pay for all the garments/accessories that I have made for this contest.

I went online to do a quick check on the sale prices of garments that have a similar look and made with a similar fabric. I concentrated on the items that are on sale because I probably wouldn't have paid full price for those items if I was shopping at the stores. I didn't factor in the 2 pre-sewn garments for this exercise.

1. Red/Green polyester chiffon blouse - approx. $30
2. Red stretch cotton woven slim pants - approx. $40
3. Grey stretch woven slim pants - approx. $50
4. White striped tunic shirt - approx. $45
5. Red floral cotton tunic - approx. $45
6. Large Denim patchwork tote bag - approx. $30
7. Medium Denim patchwork tote bag - approx.$25
8. Large Wool paisley wrap - approx. $55
9. Long green chiffon scarf - approx. $15
10. Grey knit cardigan jacket - approx. $50

So all the items I sewed in the last few weeks with existing materials would have cost me approximately $385 if they were all on sale. That's 2 week's worth of groceries for my entire family! I am just happy that I can make my own garments and accessories. But at the same time, I'm quite embarrassed how large my fabric/notion stash really is!