The Big Dress II
The Big Dress is complete with blurry pictures... I know... I’m not
really doing the dress much justice but I promise better ones shall
cometh soon!
Sewing the bodice to the skirt was really tricky, I had to unpick
it apart 3 times and unpicking silk has to be such a delicate and
careful operation or you’ll accidently rip the fragile paper-like
silk and Ooops! Oh and how the silk frays so easily....
there was a side zip facing that I forgot to cut (because it wasn’t
in the cutting instructions) and it was never sent to be sergered
and it was fraying and fraying.
After several unpicking dramas and other mistakes... and wondering
how women in the 50s dealt with the same problems, I am pleased. I
made my own vintage dress! I doubt though I will be making a
petticoat for the extra Ooomph.
This was actually fairly easy to make, it only has a few pieces to
be assembled. The other dress was a little more complicated - one I
will leave for another occasian to attempt.
Will take better pics of me in my frock (and matching shoes) on the
evening of my cousin’s wedding and post it up in all it’s deserved
glory!
Another Blouse
Made this cute little blouse from this
Japanese pattern book. It was the simplest one to make of
the lot and after some attempts at sewing clothes, it is easier to
understand the illustrations.
Bought this cotton fabric with little flowers from People’s Park at
$7/meter and only used about 1½ meters. Cheaper to make your own
clothes in light of unfavourable turn of events in big world of
money and dramatic losses.
The Big Dress
Thought I might start documenting my most ambitous sewing project
ever! The Butterick 7617 aka The Big Dress.
It’s been a busy busy week and finally found some time yesterday to
buy some super glamourous fabric. Among the rolls and rolls of
lace, chiffon and silk on Arab Street, I found this beautiful
silvery olive with yellow and blue embroidered silk fabric in this
shop called Princess! Not too fancy but fancy
enough...
According to the pattern it said I
needed 4½ yards, so I bought 5 meters then the salesman at the shop
said better to be safe to get another meter, these big skirts need
a lot of attention! So I bought 6 meters at $25/m. So after laying
the pattern, turns out i only needed a little more than 3 meters
for this. The whole skirt is about 3 meters long. So I am now left
with 2.77m of this gorgeous fabric... A Qi Pao
maybe?
The pieces are cut and ready for sergering at the shop and if all
goes well at work, I’ll be free next weekend to sew it all
together!
My Vintage Patterns are Here!!
Some of these are quite fragile but
well maintained. They’re so beautiful and I can’t wait to hit the
fabric stores and make one! Very exciting times for
wannabe-dressmaker-me! Woo!
The plan is to make a dress for my
cousin’s wedding dinner early next month. This gives me a enough
time to very slowly and carefully pore through these patterns and
constuct something that will make all my aunts proud. They used to
make such frocks for themselves and for Mum.
Fabienne Shirtdress
I made a dress! 0505 FABIENNE Shirtdress by Fitzpatterns. My
first dress, this was easier to make after 2 attempts at sewing
clothing.
I love this dress (really just a very long shirt) and received
quite a lot of compliments for it. This was made with a
linen-polyester blend and took me 2 days to complete. One day to
cut and serger, another day after about 2 weeks to put it
together.
I’m suddenly obsessed with 50s dresses and can only think of Erin
of Dress a Day
and Trista of Sugardale or watching Mad Men to blame for all the
rage. I recently just bought 3 (and got 1 free) patterns from
Antique Doll house of Patterns (Anita, the owner was
extremely helpful through her chat helpline on her site) and I
cannot wait for them to arrive!!
Reversible Wristlet Tutorial
This is My first tutorial. Been sewing a bunch of wristlet bags for
friends with
grab-and-go-moments-when-I-just-need-a-small-pouch-for-my-wallet-and-keys.
Ever had one of those?
This is very easy to sew and you can make 2 or 3 at a time. You
don’t need alot of fabric for this so it’s perfect for those left
over scrap farbics!
Download this tutorial here.
The Western
This was part of Sew-U by Wendy Mullin. I actually was quite
surprised how quickly I completed sewing this together - 1 day. The
trickiest and hardest part of this project was the collar - always
have a problem with the collar. But I managed to wing it and make
it look somewhat decent looking without making it look like a
disaster.
Now I want to sew myself a dress!!
Sophia Carry All
After many weeks of prepation and sourcing of materials, my most challenging project to date is complete and not without a lot of frustration and abundant mutterings of swear words. It is my first time using a zipper foot, making piping and sewing in piping. For the record - I really suck at piping.
Along the way also pushing the limits my old Singer sewing machine
- which really didn’t help the already frustrating situation. It
really isn’t used to sewing many thick layers of interfaced fabrics
together. And in demostrating it’s irritation, it stubbornly
refuses to pick up bottom bobbin thread and or tangling itself and
spitting out mini thread ball disasters.
I am glad I made it. It’s a pretty bag and I get to use it tomorrow! I will have to make another one for Dixie but after that... not again!
Tammy's Reversible Shoulder Bag
Then I screwed it up. First I squared
off the wrong corners so I had to cut off the straps... then after
completing it, I noticed a dirty smudge on the cream fabric so I
thought I'd try to rinse that out. So that got the bag wet and
realised OHNO! The colour from the dark wine-coloured fabric was
coming off and staining the cream fabric!! !@#$%^&*!
Of course I felt terrible so I made her another one with my own stash and to the colour combination she had originally wanted but could not find. She was really happy when she saw the picture message I sent, so we'll see if she is still happy tomorrow when she gets it. Dad actually liked it very much too and Mum said she would like one in black and white - saying it would be perfect for traveling.
PSP Quilted Case Prototype
Will also be working on Nintendo DS
cases too. Coming to my etsy store soon in many colours!
girl*e is stocked!
New bag designs are coming soon! So bookmark my etsy store and keep checking in!
Le Sac À la français
I made the Frenchy Bag! Eeet ees sooo
preeeeety!
I finally bought the Amy Butler Frenchy Bag pattern on ebay after
weeks of consideration and I am so pleased I did because I am so so
happy because I now have a bag that fits all my stuff and more
should such capacity was required. *Heehee!* Now that I've made
this, I'm really eyeing the Sophia Carry-All Bag.
I sat myself down for 4-5 hours and was determined to complete the
bag and I love it! I have a pretty red bag! I love the colour red!
I have since I was 3 and always owned red shoes like Dorothy from
the Wizard of Oz. I am also a sucker for tiny red flowers against a
white background also found a really nice red cotton drill for the
main body which gives a really nice sheen to it.
After showing it off on the first day,
I've received 2 requests for it! It's all quite exciting. Friends
and family have had been encouraging me to sell my stuff online and
I am begining to consider it... you might be able to find me on
etsy.com
soon!
Fake Sentimental Value
We only just found out about the scam 2 days ago because of the new buttonholer attachment we bought (Woo!). We checked the serial number against our original documents - it's different. My grandmother bought her machine for $460 on 13 April 1958 - in 10 days it would have been 50 years old! $460 was a lot of money then.
I feel really cheated of what I thought was a connection to a grandmother I never knew. This sewing machine isn't so special anymore.
Built by Elena
Quite a few years ago when I was a student living in Melbourne, I
procrastinated. I'm not a very good student. One of the things I
decided to do instead of my assignment was to sew a blouse
completely by hand (I did not have a sewing machine). It was a
black tunic. Needless to say it really didn't turn out well... all
I had was pattern, cloth, scissors, needle and thread. I did not
serger my pieces and oh, did it fray. I had no idea what
interfacing was so of course it really didn't turn out well. I
hardly ironed the fabric. I think I wore it once to humour myself
and that was it.
Now 10 years later I decided to sew myself a blouse. Some months
ago I came across this pattern at Simplicity by
Built by
Wendy and I was inspired to make it for myself. It looked
simple enough. So I thought about it. Then a month later I found
this book Sew U by the very same Wendy Mullin and it
taught me how to sew a blouse. So I went and bought the pattern
online and slowly planned my project.
Jasmine's Purse
So part 1 of my updates... My latest obsession has been learning to
sew purses with purse frames. I started about 2 weekends ago with
plastic frames I bought from Golden Dragon, an experiment I made
for my sister-in-law's birthday present. It turned out not too bad.
I had made one for myself too and realised after a week or so the
plastic frame broke. Then again I am not the most delicate flower
in the bunch so... for someone like me - plastic frames were not
the best idea.
New Year New Experiments
It's a new year and there are new experiments to be made!! I haven't been blogging for some time now and as much as I love to bake I think I need something new to experiment with. Given my short attention span and impulsive charm I think I might have stumbled upon a new hobby - CRAFTING! I've been reading Craftzine.com on and off for a year now and have always been amazed and envious of the cool things people made. I've always thought... not me... I am horrible when it comes to sewing or knitting or anything of that sort... but maybe in 10 years. Like Mum.
I've been on leave the last weeks and in just the past week I have
made 5 felted PSP sleeves, knitted a little laced purse (a free pattern from Chez Plum) and I am
now working on an Amigurumi. Prior to this, the last time I picked
up a crochet needle when I was 9. I was maybe 14 when I tried to
learn to knit I never got pass my first row of knitting. I failed
sewing in school. So although it's all not great I am a little
pleased with my impulsive accomplishments.
It all started when I received a PSP for Christmas from my
incredibly awesome bosses at Blackmagic Design. Being a girl, I had to get the
right accessories for my PSP and I could not find a case that I
liked. So I decided I would make my own. How difficult could it be
right? It was a bit tricky... but managed to wing it. Turned out
people like it and I made 4 more!
So... I think this will be a year (or for the next few months at
least) of crafting experiments!