Handmade in Manhattan: the Bicycle Dress

First I want to apologize for the long silence. I went on a two-week vacation to New York and left for a long weekend in London almost immediately afterwards, so there was little time for writing blog posts! I felt terribly spoiled for spending so much time travelling, but I truly enjoyed every single minute of it.

We had around twelve days in New York, and could really take our time exploring the city. It was my first time here and I loved it, even though it was very overwhelming the first few days. On our second day we took a train to Coney Island to visit Marie Roberts, an amazing artist and overall great person whose family history has been tied to Coney Island since forever. She showed us around in her studio and took some time to chat, after which we went out to enjoy the great weather and see some sights.

I happened to be wearing an undocumented dress at the time, so when we reached the boardwalk we decided to take a few pictures. The wind was blowing like crazy, but a few pictures did come out ok!

 

This dress is a bit special to me, as I made it with one of my own fabric prints! The design is available on Spoonflower and is one of my personal favourites so far. Both the dress and the print are very simple: the dress has a basic bodice with a gathered skirt and a heart-shaped cutout in the back:

The print started with a small pencil drawing of a bike. I edited it in Photoshop to make it white on a bright green background and voilà! Pretty fabric. It's a very comfortable summer dress, and the wide skirt makes it perfect for riding a bicycle.

By now this dress has gone back into the closet, waiting for the return of summer. You will get to see a whole lot of summer outfits over the next few days, but I'll definitely mix in some autumn and winter-related topics- there's a big project on the way!