My first foray into sewing my own clothes

Posted on

03 Mar 2010

I've been wanting to sew my own clothes for a long time now, but I'm... well, let's face it, I'm a clothes-sewing-chicken.

I'm a HUGE fan of wearing skirts to work so when I saw Alli's [onepearlbutton.com] latest One Pearl Button sew-along [onepearlbutton.com] it seemed perfect.

And now I'm signed up, geared up, and ready to go.

We'll be making a pencil skirt, which is one of my new favourite must-haves in my wardrobe. I actually already own 3 of these as my favourite office chic look is a nice feminine shirt tucked into a pencil skirt with a pair of subtle kitten heels.

It's week 3 of the sew along which means we're supposed to be cutting out our fabric... I will hopefully squeeze that into those precious few hours of post-work feverous crafting sometime this week! 

In the meantime here is a sneak peek of the fabric I've chosen...

(You can see my little hutch I picked up at an op-shop for $5! I have plans to paint it a duck's egg blue. And my vintage sewing case from my nanna.)

It's a purple wool flecked with black that I inherited from my nanna's stash, and I'm very excited about having a colourful-yet-still-respectable-for-office-wearing skirt in my wardrobe! If it turns out well and fits nicely and I don't lose too much hair while trying to sew it together I have plans for more - way more! More in brighter colours that I can wear on the weekend  with knee high socks and a t-shirt to make it more casual, but still cute.

I don't have a belt to wear with it so I'm going to make this modification [burdastyle.com]. Everything can be improved but the addition of a bow! And because there are pleats at the back as well as the front, and because I'm a round-butt'd sort of lady, I was thinking of trying to make darts instead of pleats, like this lady's lovely Marie [burdastyle.com]. I also love the lace trim!

Tags:  clothes fashion sew sewing skirt

Wherein I am the slowest sewer ever.

Posted on

01 Feb 2010

I'll introduce this blog by saying that one of the things I like to make are custom plushies for people. I love turning people's favourite anime/video game/original characters into plush and bringing them to "life". However, this isn't a speedy process.

When I take commissions I usually warn people that they shouldn't expect their plush zooming across the ocean in a week. In fact it's more likely to be a couple of months. I don't know why - if I sat down and sewed every night I could  probably have it done in 2 weeks. 

Okay, I guess I do know why.

I get home at 6pm after 9+ hours of work, and then I have to feed the animals and clean up after the hurricane destruction of said animals (puppies... never again!) and then think about feeding the people and then we have to actually eat the food and then by then it's about 8:30pm and I'm on the couch and the half-finished plush is several rooms away and gravity and tiredness are winning.

And if people are okay with that then we begin the custom plush commission journey.

So here is my latest commission, one that has been in the works now for more months than I care to mention in public. Ahem. I'm sorry, Anzhu! I'm working, and I'll work harder.

These photos were taken last night to send to his adopter so they can make a very important decision - nose or no nose?

This also enabled some procrastination as I'd been wanting to try a different image treatment since reading this post [lollychops.com] back in November last year. I LOVE the LollyChops blog [lollychops.com], and Pink Penguin [ayumills.blogspot.com], and both have unique image treatments. Mine was okay I guess - a blue border and my name/date but it was pretty boring. I love polaroids (who doesn't?) and have been wanting to do something like this for a while (-if people are interested I can even share how I made the masking tape in photoshop...). I'm not sure whether I'll keep it in the long term. What do people think?

Would having several polaroids in each and every post be too much? Or cute? You can be honest! I need the feedback. I am a little bit fond of the two cheeses I made for the border though.

So here is poor Aeus (that's his name, you know. Aeus the Night Elf) with the world's worst comb over - just a few strands of yarn draped over his bald melon so his adopter can see the yarn I've chosen for his hair. And of course, those dapper (and temporary!) paper eyebrows.

Tags:  soft toy

My new obsession

Posted on

11 Jan 2010

I'm officially hooked (pardon the bad pun) on crochet. I haven't had a chance to do a whole lot since the night I taught myself (with the help of this post! [craftblog.com.au]), but I've been browsing crochet patterns and tutorials pretty much non-stop. Apparently I was even muttering about crochet last night in my sleep - if we're to believe my partner! 
I'm a BIG fan of portable projects, and I can't wait to get started hooking (is that the right term? Because I feel a little uncomfortable using it! I'd rather use "crocheting" but I'm not sure if that's even a real word...)
and make myself a granny rug for on the couch. I know it's inhumanely too hot for snuggling under a blanket on the couch right now but I figure by the time I'm finished with my squares, winter will have rolled around.

So today on my lunch break I broke into my paypal balance and bought these two books:


200 Crochet Blocks for Blankets, Throws and Afghans book by Jan Eaton

After watching Amy from Badskirt crochet up a few of these blocks, I was definitely inspired. I actually fell in love with this block in particular [flickr.com] and that's what pushed me over the edge.



50 Sensational Crochet Afghans & Throws book by Bobbie Matela

As far as I'm concerned, if this book only contained the instructions for the afghan on the cover, it would still be worth the price. It's simply stunning!

The only downside is now I have to wait one to two weeks for them to arrive!

But then I'll be grabbing my mum (a big knitter and crocheter in her own right) and taking a trip down to the Bendigo woollen mills [bendigowoollenmills.com.au].

Tags:  crochet

A handmade Christmas

Posted on

23 Dec 2009

Shamefully I have to admit that 90% of my presents this year are store-bought. I'm sorry! I've just been so busy with my new, busy, exciting, stressful, full on, adventure-full job and moving into my new digs that I just haven't had time to make any handmade gifts. But there is one person who'll be receiving a handmade present this year.

These handmade, hand embroidered Link slippers are for the "S2BDIL" (soon to be daughter-in-law!) of a good friend of mine. You might remember I made some last year, well it's always good to go and revisit old projects and I'm really happy with slippers v2.0.

This time I played around with some vinyl for the soles - This time I tried a vinyl sole - it's got lots of grip on smooth surfaces (no lino skating with these!) but is durable enough for quick outdoor dashes to the rubbish bin/mailbox.
What handmade gifts have you made this year?

Tags:  embroidery present slippers

Please Sign up or Login to add your own blog.