When we were young - Week 11: Do Guincho

August 21, 2013

This week for When we were young, I have my friend Marta, from Do Guincho, guest posting from Portugal. Marta kindly tested my Debbie's birthday dress pattern so you may recognise her gorgeous daughters, Teresa and Ines, from the blue gingham dresses she made for my blog tour. I first found Marta's blog when I stumbled across her awesome 3D dress tutorial at Project Run & Play. I have used this tutorial here - it is brilliant!!

Marta makes GORGEOUS clothes for her girls (the pink seersucker shorts above were self drafted by Marta). She is a busy architect so can only fuel her sewing passion at night. Her sewing skills are amazing and I love that she often takes her daughters on location around her local area to photograph them in her creations. Marta lives near Lisbon in Portugal - where it looks like it is summer all year long. I want to go there for my next holiday!!! Marta writes in Portugese and English at Do Guincho and is super friendly so make sure to say hi over at her gorgeous blog!!

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Hi! I’m Marta from DoGuincho and I’m thrilled to be at sewpony sharing with you my “When We Were Young” project! Thank you Suz!

Where were you born/where did you spend your childhood?
I was born in Lisbon, Portugal. I spent my childhood in Miraflores, a suburb of Lisbon.

Who did you grow up with?
I grew up with my parents and my younger sister Ana.

Did you have a childhood ambition?
When I was a child, I don’t think I had any of those crazy typical ambitions… I think I only wanted to be a “maker” and maybe that’s way I became an architect and then a seamstress.

What did you like doing when you were little?
I liked making things more than playing with dolls or other toys. And I loved being outside riding my bike with my friends!

Do you see any similarities between yourself and your child/children?
I definitely do! Teresa and Ines are really crafty. Teresa is only 5 (almost 6, actually) and she already knows and likes to make embroideries!

Do you live far from where you grew up?
No, it’s a short car ride from my parents home to where I live now.

Where do you live now and who with?
I live near Cascais, a nice fishing village just outside Lisbon, with my husband and our two daughters: Teresa and Ines.

When Suz invited me to be part of this amazing series I thought it would be super easy to choose and remake one of my childhood dresses. I couldn’t imagine how wrong I was! My mother was great at keeping my dresses (my daughters wear lovely vintage dresses all the time), but not so great at taking photos with me actually wearing them! Looking over my old photo albums, all I could find were fancy smocked party dresses or terrible every day clothes that I didn’t feel like remaking!

Then I came across this red and white knitted dress my mother knitted me...

Here I am with my uncle, who was also my godfather.

My mother doesn’t like to sew (back in the 70’ we had a professional seamstress coming to our home once a month to sew our clothes), but she loves to knit. Since I don’t like knitting, I thought it would be nice to remake my old dress using fabric.

I picked some plain red fabric from my local store and decided to make the stripes with white cotton ribbon. This way I could choose where I wanted the stripes to be and, at the same time, have a more textured look. For Teresa’s dress I’ve sewn 12 meters of ribbon! Can you believe it?!

As for the pattern, I´ve used Carla C’s Precious Dress. I loved the pattern and its clear and accurate instructions. (Thank you for the help, Ana Sofia!) I made two major changes to allow the dress to fit Teresa nicely (who is a lot older then I was when I wore the original dress). I made a longer bodice and added a big sash at the back. But I was able to keep all the stripes!

Teresa loved her new dress! Hope you like it too!