Eirlys sent me this fantastic Etsy skirt, by deciduoussoul:
I love this skirt, but I don't wear wrap skirts (that is, I haven't worn a wrap skirt since about 1977) so I have put this on my list of cool ideas to steal someday. Banding alphabet fabric (of which I have a gracious plenty) at the bottom of a plain A-line skirt? Genius.
Ktbb sent this link, in a comment a few days back: 
I've done rickrack on skirt hems before, but not on midriff bands. I think I see a Duro Jr with this effect coming up …
And Lisa sent a link to this eBay auction for a terrific rocketship sundress … the dress itself is a bit banged up, but the fabric is so darned great I see another Spoonflower order in my future:
I don't feel bad about this at all — we get inspiration from everywhere, and there's a bright line between inspiration and slavish imitation. (I was going to throw in the Picasso quote "All art is theft" here, but I've looked that up in both the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
What good ideas have you wanted to steal lately?
A Dress A Day 
Nothing at the moment I want to steal…but if you do order that rocketship fabric from Spoonflower, I might want some…
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I wanted to steal someone’s brilliant idea for writing a story from the POV of a dress. So I did… twice. But I gave credit and apologies for my efforts being very pale imitations of the originals. Sorry, Erin 😦
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I like that first dress. Sort of disco on top and flapper on the bottom.
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now the picasso quote I’m remembering was stolen by Steve Jobs: “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.”
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Igor Stravinski “Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.” Golly I love that rocket ship dress and I’d be proud to wear it, flaws and all. Now if I only had $125 of expendible income!!
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Love the rocketship dress! Surely there are similar prints available? eQuilter has a lot of neat novelty prints, maybe they have something similar.
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What good ideas have you wanted to steal lately?Everything Tracy Porter does.
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I am delighted by this painted dress from Project Runway and would love to wear it:http://www.seenon.com/project-runway/season-5/photo/project-runway-5-episode-514-kenleyand039s-final-collection/kenleys-final-collection-look-7/I am trying to paint a similar vine design on a pair of jeans (and let me say that vines and flowers are pretty much the only things I can paint decently) and am finding it somewhat more difficult than I might have hoped!
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That could be an ideal dress for the holiday.
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My latest blog entry deal with just this topic. I saw an image of a beautiful coat from Afghanistan that I probably would have bought, if someone else hadn’t beat me to it. So, I grabbed the images; the cut was perfection. I do wear wrap skirts and I am likely to use this idea somewhere along the way. Maybe not alphabet fabric, though…I remember reading an interview with Paloma Picasso in which she told a story about as a child doing drawings of some of the art that hung in her father’s house. She says he caught he doing it and angrily told her to not copy others, but to come up with her own ideas. We all know that art is theft on some level or another. He apparently wasn’t going to tell his daughter that, though.
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I do do wrap skirts and I don’t do sewing, maybe I should buy? I love it!
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I do mostly costuming–everything I do is theft of some sort…isn’t it flattery?
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How about I steal someone else’s cooked turkeys so I can have an easier week? Not what you were looking for? I steal dress, top and skirt ideas from every catalog I get. Plus, I saw a movie recently where in the pivotal scene the female protagonist was wearing the most beautiful green satin evening gown ever! I see that in my future (if I ever have a place to wear it…)
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Picasso: “Bad artists copy. Good artists steal”.He also said: “Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility.” and “To copy others is necessary, but to copy oneself is pathetic”.I love the look of the wrap skirt, I haven’t worn them in years, but I should try one on to see how the style looks on me these days.
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There’s a quote going around blogland, “All art is theft, but not all theft is art.” Not sure who said it first. Love that rocket ship fabric!
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Oh dear oh dear I steal delicious ideas all the time! And sneakily make them mine so no-one (I hope!) catches me in the act.Latest one: small bow brooches on the wide round neckline of my top…
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I just bought a dolman-sleeved, twisty bodice dress from a seller on ebay and I’m looking forward to eyeballing it a good long while before I do it over again in black – or maybe purple. Or green. . .
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This was on my bedroom floor for about a week. I used a number of things to get the pattern JUST SO but I’m not paying $2300 for anything.http://www.net-a-porter.com/product/35188Other then that, everything I do is a rip off of something, even if I wind up using that something as a base and tweaking it to make it look better, IMO.
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Oh, so glad you liked it! I’d like to steal back the time I’ve wasted worrying whether it’s right to steal other people’s ideas 😉
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Funny you should mention this. I’m 100% stealing this design for my holiday dress:http://buzznet-00.vo.llnwd.net/media/jj1/2008/06/kidman-vogue/nicole-kidman-vogue-july-2008-04.jpg(the dress, not the cows)I’m doing a more standard straight skirt, though. Probably shorter, too, since the last cheongsam I made was floor-length and I didn’t wear it very often.So…how do you ease the straight design of the alphabet fabric onto the curved edge of the A-line skirt?
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“So…how do you ease the straight design of the alphabet fabric onto the curved edge of the A-line skirt?” I have no idea. 🙂 Probably attack it with an iron until it submits.
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Then again, there’s Orwell:”All art is propaganda.”
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“So…how do you ease the straight design of the alphabet fabric onto the curved edge of the A-line skirt?”I’d hope, hope, hope for a design on the bias. But, it can be done on the grain. I’d wash the fabric first. Depending on the weight of the fabric, you could approach it in a couple of different ways. If it were heavier and not so likely to give (stretch) at the lower edge, I finish the lower edge, gather the upper edge with tiny stitches and and ease it to the correct curve. If it were lighter and more inclined to give, I’d do the opposite. I’d finish the upper edge and stretch and press the lower edge into place.If the curve of the skirt isn’t too extreme, either method would lay fine in the end. I’d do a test run first, though!
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The rocketship dress idea is genius, and I LOVE the first dress!For an upcoming Christmas party I’m going to, I’m wearing my gorgeous diamond necklace my fiance bought me from http://www.idonowidont.com and wear a black chic dress.My idea is to make the dress a lot bigger than it is, and have it flowing to the bottom so it’s more like a runway look than just a simple black dress!
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http://www.istok.net/church-product/angel-brocade.htmlI was just roaming about on the net when I ran across this site. It’s a bit different, being a supply storefront for traditional Orthodox church fittings, but there is a wonderful angel brocade for sale there. I saw it and thought of you.
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um, yea!!! this rick rack skirt from tim burton’s alice:http://www.costumersguide.com/alice/bluecoat13.jpgi'm so going to do something like this, it’s just a matter of when! 😉
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I walk past French Connection in London every day, and whenever I see that rick rack dress in the window I always think of you. xx
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Erin I think the alphabet is printed on the cloth after the dress is completed.
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That dress is great ! , I love the hem and the way the simplicity of 2colours work together to make it stunning.
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Gee thanks Jen, now I have to add the blue coat from the Alice movies now.And mind you, I live in Tennessee/Texas where I really don’t need coats all that often (and aside from that raincoat, don’t OWN any coats).:D
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i own a dress in that rocketship fabric, only mine has a dark blue background! i got it on ebay sometime when it was still the ’90s and ebay prices weren’t sky-high. it doesn’t fit quite right so i’ve always planned to remodel it somehow.
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