2010 - Page 39 of 43 - Handmade by Carolyn

Teal dress and, er, white lacy thing

04/02/2010 1:10 am \ 4 Comments \ Carolyn

I apologise in advance for the appearance of a yet another white lacy number. I actually made this about a year ago and don’t wear it very much, especially not since I became aware of and then started feeling embarrassed about the glut of white lacy clothes in my wardrobe….

I wish I could say I made this teal dress, but it was a birthday gift from my darling husband who wanted to buy me some clothes so I wouldn’t suffer from the creative burden of having to sew my own, without perhaps considering how much I love said burden…. like an addict loves the drug that enslaves them. My friend D first coined this metaphor as it applies to creative types and I relate, really I do. No sooner am I putting the finishing touches onto one project than already my brain is feverishly planning the next sartorial experiment… and I’m really making an effort to slow down and plan more carefully for economy, practicality and versatility!

I do adore this dress, like I do nearly all Metalicus for its spectacular ease of wear combined with intense beautiful colours. With varying degrees of success I’ve tried at times to reproduce some of my favourite items but the difficulty is, as always, getting hold of fabric…. The usual seamstress’ complaint. This dress is from the wool range, and amazingly it’s incredibly cool to wear in summer.

The bag I made about two years ago and first posted about here.

Details:

Dress; Metalicus

Top; my own design, white cut-out embroidered linen

Bag; my own design, cream wool

Shoes; Sandler, op shop

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: accessories, Fabulous fabrics, Knitted, own design, Spotlight, top

Kreativ Blogger Award

03/02/2010 2:25 am \ 5 Comments \ Carolyn

Thankyou so much Yoshimi for giving me this Kreativ Blogger Award! So today instead of my usual sewing and fashion post ( I did have something planned , but I’ll do it tomorrow) I’ll try to dredge up 7 things about myself…hmm this will be tricky as I’m not particularly interesting…

1. I have a degree in chemistry. I started out studying veterinary science, but my brain is mathematically wired (plus being an animal lover, this made some of the assignments we were given in veterinary science traumatic for me) and I switched over. I’m ideally suited to being tucked away alone in a laboratory, not talking to anyone, working on a problem, which is not unlike when I’m sewing actually!

2. I’m painfully shy, and when people first meet me I come across as aloof and stuck-up. I’m not really. If I have a drink I turn into a garrulous party animal, embarrassingly.

3. I have a crazy obsession about not using my car as much as possible. I think my friends think I’m insane when I rock up at a swish cafe, on my bike, with my fancy shoes stashed in the basket.

4. Our household has four pets. And three teenagers. Yes, we live in a menagerie.

5. I’m very sentimental about trees and get very upset when old ones are cut down. Yeah, bit of a hippy aesthetic there. Probably why so many of my photos have a tree, or at least some sort of greenery, in there somewhere…!

6. Unlike just about everybody else in the world, I can’t bear the smell and taste of coffee. Actually the smell I can cope with, just. Once I tried to force myself to get over this and drink the stuff, be an adult, for heaven’s sake. Then my friend A pointed out, why take on an unhealthy habit unnecessarily? Yeah, she had a point. So I abstain.

I consider this to be a useful dye, rather than a consumable…

7. Hmm, struggling to think of anything else about myself not too personal or weird here….

I saw snow for the first time in my life when I was 27. Well, I do live in one of the hottest and driest states of one of the hottest and driest countries on Earth, and Perth is possibly the most isolated capital city in the world. When I was growing up we didn’t travel much. As children, my friends and I considered we were going overseas when we went to Rottnest Island (small island about 10km away from Perth). Maybe this is why Aussies have that wanderlust to the nth degree and as adults we all aim to travel. A lot. My husband and I love travelling. Since reading “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” I really want to go to Scandinavia.

Now, the rules are that I should nominate 7 people, but I’m going to take a leaf out of Yoshimi’s book and just name 3.

So, the very creative people who get my award are;

Lauriana; whose tailoring skills are faultless, I would love to see her outfits every day!

Stephanie, who is a very talented lady who can make her own leather bags! as well as lovely clothes; I’m so impressed by this I can’t begin to express my admiration……

Ruta, another gorgeous creative lady who along with stunning clothes also makes her own bags, and leather skirts, again, very impressed…

I would add the very creative Lily, but she just did something similar recently; and I also went to Trudy and Ann, but they both had this award already…

The Rules
1. Copy/paste the Kreativ Blogger Award picture onto your blog
2. Thank the person who awarded it to you and post a link to her/his blog
3. Write 7 things about yourself we might not know
4. Choose 7 other bloggers to award
5. Link to them
6. Notify your 7 bloggers of their award

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Blogger award, random life stuff

The grey light of day

02/02/2010 12:09 am \ 6 Comments \ Carolyn

The crispness that is in the air these last few mornings has been a very welcome respite, my senses seem fresher and sharper and I feel more awake and ready to face the expectations of the new day. The light in our rear lane-way is almost lemon-yellow at this time of the day, and even the patches of moss and rust on the old fences seem to glow. I love the shadow of my shoe, it looks like a sort of grotesque, deformed parody of a foot….
This little cardigan was made recently as part of my autumn sewing plan, but I feel its high time I starting wearing some new items to inject a little freshness into my wardrobe; I’m getting tired of some of my summer clothes, and no less the heat! It feels like a long time to go still before autumn….

Details:
Pants; Burda 7944, gunmetal blue linen
Camisole; Country Road
Cardigan; Mauve and white net, cream crotchet lace and grey velvet ribbon, own design
Necklace; Jorgen Jensen of Denmark, gift from my parents (in the 70’s)
Shoes; Sandler, op shop

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Burda 7944, cardigan, Fabulous fabrics, own design, pants

Sunday picnic in the shade of the gum trees

01/02/2010 4:39 am \ 4 Comments \ Carolyn

Yesterday was such a nice cool change from this awful heat wave, we packed up a light picnic lunch and headed out to Kings Park. In the shade of the gum trees, we munched on smoked salmon and salad on corn thins, nibbled on nectarines, and sipped homemade lemon cordial, whilst laughing at the undiluted delight of small boys whooping at the pioneer women’s fountain, which used to fill me with equal excitement when I was a toddler. We wandered through the bush and made the resolution for the umpteenth time to remove all the exotics from our garden and replace them with natives… we looked out over the river from Mt Eliza at the tiny specks that were small boats and canoes out for a Sunday afternoon splash … we gazed on the boab trees and marvelled at their strangeness as a tree form… and vowed we should get out and do this sort of thing more often.
For our picnic rug we took an old patchwork thing I had made when expecting our eldest son, and it served as a bunny rug for all of our three in their infancy. Purist patchworkers would recoil in horror at its 100% machine construction and cheap cotton fabric (we didn’t have much money at the time), but obviously it now holds great sentimental value for me. I remember very little about where I bought the fabrics, or its construction, but it’s held up well, for sure.
Looking at my outfit, I’m reminded again how much of my “bought” wardrobe is purchased as souvenirs to commemorate some sort of holiday or event in my life; my skirt I bought when we holidayed in South Africa, my cardigan when in Sydney with my Monday morning gals for a weekender, and my horsey necklace when in Melbourne with two of my close friends. It was just prior to Melbourne Cup, and window displays everywhere were horse-themed, or hat-themed, or both; I got this little mirrored necklace as a memento of our trip.

Details;
Shirt; Butterick 4985, white cotton, overdyed with coffee and blue dye
Skirt; Old Khaki, Capetown, South Africa
Cardigan; Country Road
Necklace; some little shop in Melbourne
Thongs (flipflops); Mountain Designs
Picnic rug; made by me

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: own design, patchwork, quilt

Tea Cosy, specimen 10

31/01/2010 1:35 am \ 3 Comments \ Carolyn

Here is the tea cosy I made for my sister-in-law A for her birthday last year, photographed in her kitchen amongst some of her adorable knick-knacks. She has their house full of beautiful things, so wherever you look is yet another beautiful vignette of lovely objects arranged just so. I think if she chose she could have been an interior designer, or a photographic stylist as she really has the “eye”. I chose these warm earthy colours for her cosy as they are very indicative of her warm, earthy personality; she has a big heart and a caring, friendly demeanour that impels people to warm to her immediately. The pattern is a Roly Poly, from the book “Wild Tea Cosies” by Loani Prior.
The little blue milk jug at the back is also made by a family member, but I’m not sure now which one. My father, my aunt and my brother have all made beautiful pottery pieces, which are treasured by all of us, so it is the work of one of them, must make it my mission to find out.

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Knitted, Spotlight, tea cosy, wild tea cosies

Inspired by nature; gold and aqua

30/01/2010 1:52 am \ 3 Comments \ Carolyn

At this time of year the sky is this intense ultramarine blue and the grasses are dryly yellowing until they are crackling underfoot, as always the landscape is everlastingly fascinating. Nature has a perfection in her colour palette that is daily an inspiration, those of us drawn to colour and its myriad changing faces in the shifting path of the sun are compelled to express themselves somehow, for some it is in the medium of paint on canvas, for me in my insatiable love of clothes, I choose to do this through my apparel.
These garments I’ve worn before in other combinations, but when I put on this intense lime top with my golden silk skirt and my newly made silk chiffon scarf; this bright yet somehow relaxed palette made me wonder why on earth I hadn’t thought of it before…
When I first made this top, on a whim, I felt a little intimidated by its brightness, and only wore it sparingly and with safe neutrals such as white, lately I’m feeling more adventurous and wanting to pull it out more and more.
This magnificent gum tree must have seen a fire in its day, with its old battle scars of charred bark still visible; my daughter and I ventured into the bush to take these photos and when I minded her to look out for snakes she took two photos then turned and marched straight out…. Perhaps she’s the sensible one and I’ve got too much my head in the clouds contemplating the beauty of nature…. but I didn’t see any snakes!

Details:
Top; NewLook 6252, green linen
Skirt Davida, second hand shop
Scarf, turquoise silk chiffon, made by me
Sandals; la soffitadi Gilda
Bag; Gucci

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Fabulous fabrics, New Look 6252, scarf, top

Wardrobe Refashion, project 4

29/01/2010 1:56 am \ 6 Comments \ Carolyn

When I saw this skirt in an op shop I think I just saw “white” and “kind of lacy” and grabbed it thinking yeah! But on getting it home I had second thoughts about the applique-y pattern on the net overlay; it was too geometric and ordered, or something, anyhow just not pleasing to my eye. I love white and lacy, but I think I like an element of deconstruction, too. I decided I could get a skirt and a top out of it, as it was quite a long skirt, with godets sewn in all round. It also had a nice white voile underlay, soft and worn-in from washings over the years and I planned to make use of this too.
The waistband of my new skirt is the original waistband, with the original zip and button closure, but I re-arranged it so the voile underlay was the outside layer and the original net top part of the skirt was now a petticoat. I also added an extra overskirt of some of the voile, which is wrapped over the front and has its own button closure on the opposite side.
From the lower part of the net overskirt I cut the front and back and two sleeves of the top and fitted them to Bessie, aiming for a kind of loose “stand-uppy” neckline, which I edged with bias tape made from some more of the leftover voile underskirt.
I also, and this was fun, attacked the applique, snipping portions of the sewn-on fabric to try to break up the geometry of the original print and introduce a bit more randomness and unpredictability to the design. I think the applique is now much improved!
The sleeves, hmmm, the sleeves were an entire disaster story on their own; I planned to remove the applique entirely from the net for the sleeves. I proceeded to unpick all the stitching and applique from the sleeve pieces. It. Took. Hours. When I finally finished, a few Top Gears, Man vs Wilds, Wallanders and various foreign films later, I sewed up the sleeves and the top, and was finished? Threw it on for a look in the mirror….. well, dear reader, my hard-labour sleeves actually looked awful. Because I had cut them from the bottom of the skirt, where all the godets were, and of course, what do godets have, yes, seams. The new de-appliqued sleeves had overlocked seams running across and through, and, whilst I like randomness in fashion design, embrace it even, this time it just didn’t cut it. The sleeves let the whole thing down and had to go. But I had my heart set on sleeves now! So I turned to my stack of leftovers and found a little bit of net from a previous project of which I managed to get out some new sleeves; final result, much cleaner and a better foil to the raggedy randomness which is already there in the main body of the top. Much better.
Apart from the sleeves, it’s all from the old skirt, this pleases my sad passion for minimal wastage. I’m pretty happy with the final look of my new outfit too, of course I do have a real weakness for white garments!! But, can you ever have too many white clothes? (pleading pathetically) Reassuring myself, of course not, there’s always the dye-bath if I feel the need of a change… But I like it just how it is for now.

Details:
Top and skirt; refashioned from old skirt, own design
Grey camisole; Country Road
Belt; op shop
Shoes; Marco Santini, from Marie Claire

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: own design, skirt, top, Wardrobe Refashion

To dryclean or not to dryclean, that is the question

28/01/2010 1:55 am \ 4 Comments \ Carolyn

On the weekend I wore this to a wedding reception…
(sorry, didn’t get a picture with my hair up and my make-up all done, this is the old photo from when I blogged about it previously and I did look more glamourous on the night!)
and my husband and I danced up a storm on the dance-floor afterwards. When I got home I laid the dress aside in the laundry, thinking without thinking (if that makes any sense at all) I would drop it in at the dry-cleaners the next day.
But then I recalled a conversation I had a few months ago with a friend who, along with her husband, used to run a dry-cleaning business. She was telling me how dry-cleaners charged a fortune for evening dresses because of the difficulty involved and the high risk of ruining them, how the chemical process was actually damaging to delicates such as silk and actually shortened their life, and how you are far better off washing them yourselves at home. Hmmm. Food for thought.
After all, garments have survived for centuries without dry-cleaning, the magnificent silken and bejewelled gowns of Elizabethan times were, yes, tended and handwashed without the use of chemicals, just good old-fashioned soap, water, air-drying and a hot iron… That’s when they were washed at all, possibly once or twice in their lifetime! or so I’ve read! Even so… centuries later why have we complicated our laundering process, and is it really necessary?
The cleaning instructions provided with most clothing, and how manufacturers often put “Dry Clean Only” on their care labels, are (I think) a kind of fall-back, fail-safe, laundry-guide-for-dummies, kind of attitude. Some labels are quite mystifying. I have a skirt, bought in quite an expensive boutique many years ago, which has on its label, hilariously, “Do Not Wash” and “Not Suitable for Dry Cleaning”! What the…..?! (For interest, I have always just tossed it in the washing machine on a cold cycle, with no dire outcomes)
So, I looked at my evening dress, and decided to wash it myself. This was easy; light swirling in a laundry bucket, thorough rinsing, blah blah, hung out to dry on its hanger with pegs on the straps so I wouldn’t come out later and see it adorning a neighbour’s tree… The difficult part, obviously, was going to be in the ironing of it. I didn’t include a picture of it before ironing, you’re just going to have to take my work for it that it was veeeeery crinkled…. I consider myself a reasonable iron-ess (whatever), but this dress has a multitude of swirly bits, and an awkward gathered/folded bodice on a formfitting underlining…tricky stuff in the ironing department. However, I recently bought a ham from Spotlight for the purpose of making my life much easier in shirtmaking for my husband. And should come in handy pressing my own jackets and my trenchcoat (if it ever cools down enough for me to wear it); the pressing of the sleeves once set in is always a hideous challenge when you’re working with a standard garden variety ironing board… On a side note I just love its cheery tartan cover!

Although it took some time I was pretty happy at how easy it was to iron the bodice of this dress using my new ham, I simply couldn’t have done it without it.
And after, good as new, and ready for that next glamourous soiree…