Pied-de-poule!

This fall/winter, we could see houndstooth fabrics on a LOT of RTW garments. And I love the effect it gives to a dress for example. It becomes suddenly classier and more interesting. Here are a few dresses I really liked:

People Tree (Emma Watson)

Yigal Azrouel

Kate Spade

I particularly thought that the first dress would work for me. What helped a lot is that I brought back some gorgeous fabric from my grand ma's stash that was perfect for this project...

This afternoon, I looked up online the name of the fabric in French, to explain properly to my Grand Ma what I did with her precious stash... and the translation was SO fun! Houndstooth=Pied-de-Poule and do you know what Pied de poule means? Chicken foot! So weird right? In both languages, it is a part of an animal's body!

Now, I wondered where the name came from, and Wikipedia says:

"Houndstooth checks originated in woven wool cloth of the Scottish Lowlands, but are now used in many other materials. The traditional houndstooth check is made with alternating bands of four dark and four light threads in both warp and filling or weft woven in a simple 2:2 twill, two over - two under the warp, advancing one thread each pass."

So where do the animals come from? If you know, I'd love to read about it!

Now, time for my little project. In the last issue of Ottobre, I fell in love with a skirt pattern that is almost the same as the one I used already 3 times from one of their previous issues. And I immediately thought that it would work great with the houndstooth!

The only difference is that my fabric was not stiff at all, and I liked it better that way! I paired the skirt pattern with a basic princess seam bodice, with a round neck. The process was very straightforward and I even made a yellow bow to bring a cute accent to the outfit!

As usual, the fit of the Ottobre pattern was great, and I did not have to change anything. 

Tadaaa!

I used a belt to accentuate the waist, It also works great with a red belt (without the bow of course!)

No, I am NOT jumping, I was just enjoying a bit of the sun!

And the bow!

What do you think about Houndstooth?
Who has ever used Ottobre patterns?