February 2017 - Handmade by Carolyn

the year of handmade, 12

22/02/2017 12:05 am \ 75 Comments \ Carolyn

above are just a small selection of some of my favourite outfits for this month, the entire collection for the year in total can be viewed in my Year of Handmade flickr album, here

It’s over! I’ve worn ONLY my own handmade shoes and clothing for an entire year, and not allowed a single, ready-to-wear item to adorn my body in that whole time. If that sounds a bit melodramatic, well to be honest it feels pretty darn dramatic to me right now! Whoooooo! Chucking a party in my head, right about now!!!! This challenge has been HUGE to me. I think it’s been the biggest wardrobe-ing challenge I have ever set for myself. And, I almost can’t believe it, but I managed to do it. A long term life-goal; achieved. #tick

I’m SOOO pleased, and SOOO very relieved, although, at the same time I feel a bit anti-climactically exhausted too. I can’t even imagine what shoes I am going to wear tomorrow!!

SO. I’ve already discussed the difficulties I encountered along the way previously here on my blog, but just to recap…

Basically all my challenges involved my self-made SHOES!! My clothing? well, I’ve been wearing exclusively self-made clothing for years already so that was pretty easy.

Specifically, shoes to wear in heavy rain and for “dirty” activities like bushwalking were by far the most challenging hurdles to overcome in my year, and the kind of footwear I missed the most. I made shoes for these scenarios and got through it fine; but I always felt quite nervous and insecure about them, like my efforts were a bit precious and not 100% up to the really heavy-duty stuff. Though, maybe I was the one being a bit precious, since most of them did.

I also really missed being able to wear “glamorous” shoes like stiletto heels and dainty little high-heeled sandals for formal events. Again, the shoes I had were actually fine… but you know; a girl likes to feel shiny and glamorous every now and again! and I dunno, there’s something about clickety-clacking along in ridiculously impractical shoes that fills that need PERFECTLY. I never did crack the the glamour glass-ceiling in my shoe-making…. I still think I could do it, but it would be a new shoe-making challenge, for sure.

How has this challenge changed me: well, you know they say if you do something for a year, you will have successfully adopted a new lifestyle. I think that’s true, although I am looking forward to embracing the above mentioned kinds of shoes back into my life again…. Hiking boots!! Exquisite little heels!! Time will tell if I truly revert to rtw shoes… I will continue to make shoes for myself, simply because I have so many plans still!! Also, I’ve really really enjoyed wearing my own shoes so much! I can’t even begin to describe how utterly rewarding and satisfying it is to sashay out feeling nicely put together, and to KNOW that you made every, single component of your outfit. Like, it’s ALL YOURS. Nothing can take the euphoria of that feeling away. However, I’m not going to paint a false picture that making shoes is easy; some types of shoes are but most are not, and it takes time and maybe even a few failures to come to grips, get your shoe-making groove on.

I’ll definitely keep up with the clothing side of things; I’ve been making my own clothes for many many years now and have always found it to be both easy and fun. Now after a year in my own shoes, I do feel like that mental block has been cracked too… however, I will from now on ALLOW myself to wear ready-to-wear shoes, if I want to. As an example: we have a heavy-duty camping/hiking holiday coming up later this year, and I will be taking my big tough ol’ RTW hiking boots with me. Common sense prevails? *shocked gasp*

Likewise, if I want to don a pair of silly vertiginous heels to go out to dinner or parties, I will do so. And will thoroughly enjoy it too… 😉

Just for funsies; here is a collage of my whole year of outfits in two pictures because they wouldn’t fit in one! To better see my outfits properly, they are all in my Year of Handmade Flickr album… along with the links to every component of my outfits for each day. Phew! This feels like a bit of a magnum opus!!

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Posted in: fashion \ Tagged: random life stuff, year of handmade

totally local, totally natural, from head to toe

19/02/2017 5:04 pm \ 55 Comments \ Carolyn

A person could be forgiven for thinking that I had abandoned my totally local, 1 year 1 outfit project, since there has been no mention of it here for months!… *blush* however, it has been plodding along, slowly but surely, and is now FINISHED!!!! Hurrah! At last!

The concept: last year Nicki from this is moonlight conceived the very interesting 1 year 1 outfit project and invited me to take part with her… the idea was that you make an outfit using ONLY local materials and primary supplies grown and/or sourced in your own area. Well you know how weak at the knees I go for a dressmaking challenge! and the more difficult the better! Several of us here in Perth took part last year; Nicki, Sue, Megan and me. Sue, Megan and I met up for a hilarious photoshoot in our outfits one day last February; it was so much fun! and we all had plans for this year too.

from left: Megan, Sue, and me… the links in this post go to everyone’s individual posts about their outfits

So yes, I was all enthusiastic… however! It really is a difficult challenge, far more difficult than you might think! and though I made a good start with dyeing some yarn early, my other challenge, my Year of Handmade, has consequently swept me away with its even higher degree of difficulty … I’m not whinging, ’cause I really do like challenges honestly! however I’ve struggled with everything this year a bit and it’s taken a while for me to get my groove on. Fortunately Nicki announced a March deadline recently, which lit a fire under me. I got cracking, and got finished!!!!

Thoughts going in: I loved my first 1 year 1 outfit project from last year; although I confess I’ve barely worn it at all! Reason being that while I think my embroidered felt is ethereally beautiful, at the same time it is fairly fragile and can only stand up to light wearing on special occasions. So my major priority for this year’s outfit was casual wearability; something that I could toss on and wear on a daily basis without fear of ruining it. I also wanted it to try out some natural dyeing techniques.

What did I make: a simple knitted dress and a matching beanie, showcasing my dyeing experiments in stripes. I just wanted my hard-won colours to shine on their own merits equally without competing with each other, and individual stripes separated by the blankness of the natural undyed ivory just seemed a good way to accomplish this.

My shoes, bag and underwear were all made for l ast year, and also comply with the rules of the challenge.

Sources; I obtained all my handspun merino yarn from Bilby Yarns, which is an absolute treasure trove for West Australians interested in local wool products and supplies. My yarn is from Western Australian Merino sheep; born, grown and shorn right here in the south-west of WA. The raw fleece is transported to Bilby Yarns in Willagee, where local spinning enthusiasts can purchase it, spin it in their own homes, and sell it to people like me back through Bilby Yarns. It’s such a great scheme!! All my yarn was spun by the talented Beverley L. whose yarn I also used last year! Some of my yarn this year was leftover from last year, and I managed to buy some more of her’s this year…. I’m so pleased I was able to purchase so much of her gloriously lovely handspun! I bought mostly undyed natural white, and some natural grey. The grey is quite rare, and I was lucky to get hold of this! I used the grey to highlight each colour; I like how the grey stripe adds a bit of trompe l’oeil 3D-ness to the coloured stripes, like a shadow underneath each one.

So! I had my natural ivory and grey yarn, now for the colours! All my dyeing experiments are outlined in this post here. I didn’t end up using all the colours I produced… leaving something for the next 1year1outfit maybe?? The colours I chose from my experiments are, from the hemline going up, are:

Orange, from Coreopsis flowers;

Acid yellow; from sour grass stems and flowers,

Blue, from Japanese indigo, and I’m so grateful to Nicki for the use of her dye vat,

Pink, from avocado pits,

and that lime-y green colour at the neckline, and seen in closeup a few pictures down, was the result of over-dyeing, soaking some of my spare indigo yarn in a sour grass (oxalis) dye bath and then with just a single coreopsis flower (orange) tossed in to give it a bit more oomph when I realised the yellow was a bit weak.

The design: is my own!! I did about a million calculations first but even then there was plenty of unravelling and re-doing bits until I was satisfied with it! I wrote down my final pattern below, just in case I ever want to revisit this pattern, or if anyone is interested in knitting an entire dress for themselves! It’s ok, I wouldn’t blame anyone who didn’t but still… The only thing is that it’s only got the one size. That lower hemline with slightly forward slits? yes, it’s pretty obvious that my hemline is totally inspired by the Named patterns Inari tee dress, a pattern I have made five times now and unequivocally LOVE. I just really like the way the Inari dress slits do the job of a walking vent, but is visually more interesting and obvious than your regular, garden variety, centre-back walking vent … and I really like the terraced high-low look of that longer back and shorter front.

The dress is mostly stocking stitch, with the lower edges, the sleeve edges, and pocket opening welts highlighted with various width rows of garter stitch. Those sleeves! OK, I’ll confess these almost did me in … initially I had other ideas, resulting four false starts on the sleeves before the final design decision. Four!! It was a bit gut-wrenching, each time I would be chooffing merrily along with a sleeve, before the dawning realisation that my previously thought-to-be cool idea was actually going to look really really stupid. Gut-wrenching! SO MUCH UNRAVELLING!! But I refused to give up, I kept reminding myself that this HAD to work, I’d put so much into it already and I just could not abandon it in its hour of need. Finally I hit upon this sleeve, a very simple, and plain, , unadorned long-sleeved style , which worked out just right, I think.

Pockets; of course it has pockets!! the dress is knitted in the round, so there are no side seams, but I left openings at the front hip to knit in the pockets later. There are little extension “flaps” at the pocket openings, for a continuous look when you’ve got your hands in the pockets and may catch glimpses of the pocket insides; and the pockets are just little “bags” made by picking up stitches along this edge, knitting a simple rectangular strip and folding it in on itself. The garter stitch “welt” was knitted on before stitching the pocket piece closed.

The neckline; just wanted something really simple and streamlined, so I did one single row of chain stitch embroidery around the neckline edge.

The beanie: is a slightly loose and slouchy beanie, as I love this look and have decided this style of beanie suits me quite well, I think… hope! The arrangement of the stripes is the same as the dress, just on a smaller scale. This got unravelled and re-knitted only once before I worked out just exactly how I wanted it to look.

Le Whole Shebang, with accessories and all:

Shoes and bag; I’m wearing the same shoes and bag I made for last year’s project. At first I worried that they wouldn’t “go” but well; I reckon they go just fine. I carved my shoe bases from Manjimup pine and made the felted tops in natural white and black merino fleece and handspun, as described here. The matching bag is of the same felt.

Underwear: yep, same as last year. Well, I’m not going to make a new pair when I never wear this set at all! However, it is totally 100% local so I’m counting it as part of my totally local outfit again for this year, hehe.

So that’s it!! Am I going to take part in the “1 year 1 outfit” project again next year? well I do have ideas, but confess I’m a little exhausted, by, well… everything, at this point. Maybe, maybe not. The truth is that I actually do have enough totally local materials still, to produce something… so maybe… yes?! We’ll see!

fun fact; the small tree with bright green leaves behind and to the right of me in the picture, is called a Snottygobble. Yes, really!! #weirdAussienames

Following is my free pattern for this knitted, slightly A-line dress with inset, welted pockets, split hem, long sleeves. Includes pattern for optional beanie also. Please link back to me and credit me if you use this pattern, thank you so much 🙂

Knitted dress + beanie

Location; Leeuwin National Park, in the south-west of Western Australia… although the picture immediately below is actually taken in our own garden, since I forgot to take my bag with me when I went to the park, doh!!

Now, you may be wondering… Carolyn, isn’t it the height of summer? Aren’t you absolutely roasting alive like a broiled lobster in that warm and ultra-cosy-looking woollen ensemble?? The short answer to those questions is; yes, and again, yes. Ahem. The maestro of Seasonally Inappropriate Sewing strikes yet again.

Posted in: fashion, knitting \ Tagged: dress, dyeing, hat, Knitted, knitting, one year one outfit, own design, pattern

red thongs (shoes)

14/02/2017 7:53 pm \ 15 Comments \ Carolyn

Hello! I’ve made a new pair of um, “shoes”…?? although I’m embarrassed to even consider giving them that lofty title; they’re so basic. Also; yes I know my year of handmade is all but over and I don’t have to make any more footwear, but I just can’t help myself! I’ve even got some OTHER new shoes in the works too! 😀

I’d bought a sheet of this foam from Clark Rubber; it’s matting designed to slot together to make a kiddies’ playmat or shock absorbent flooring for gyms. My straps are red corduroy, the same fabric I used for a previous pair of long-gone sneakers. I made the hole in the foam with a sharp pencil, which I also used to push the straps through said hold. The straps ends are sewn securely to a piece of linen that will be glued between the top and bottom layers. Liquid nails was deployed.

The bottom layer is thin cork-covered, contact paper, cut to size, stuck on – more liquid nails, yo!! and then three layers of clear, enamel varnish to seal and strengthen.

aaaaand, done!

Details

Dress; Vogue 2900, indigo dyed linen, details here
Hat; Vogue 8844, ivory corduroy, details here
Red thongs; made by me

random outfit shot intended to feature the thongs and they’re barely visible, ha!

location; Eagle Bay, Western Australia

Posted in: shoes, Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, own design, shoes

Japanese linen-gauze shirt dress

09/02/2017 1:46 pm \ 36 Comments \ Carolyn

My dear friend Yoshimi sent to me a beautiful birthday present last year; some really beautiful, deep indigo blue linen gauze… The colour is quite glorious, not a solid colour but mottled and variegated with plenty of depth and character; and the texture is ultra light and sheer, quite breezy and with a slight stiffness very similar to organza. It’s utterly lovely.

It’s taken me quite a while to decide what to make with this precious stuff… I would take it out and pet it, thinking of a million options. I layed out several different patterns onto it, only to pack them all up again… obviously it had to be perfect, also I really wanted to make the absolute MOST of every little bit using a pattern resulting in as little waste as possible! I finally settled upon this Burda pattern, Shirt Dress 03/2016; 112B, The pattern pieces fitted on my piece of precious fabric PERFECTLY!!

However.. modifications happened along the way. Of course they did. My dress has the same bones, but the original is actually a very boxy design, with quite a pronounced dropped shoulder. I’m sure it’s a lovely design for the right fabric; as in, something with plenty of natural “flop” that allows those shoulder seams to drop gracefully down over your upper arm.

My fabric doesn’t want to flop in the slightest; while super-breezy it stil has quite a bit of oomph and structure. It works beautifully in the tailored details of a shirtdress, but really the shoulders did not drape in the desired manner at all… So I ended up taking quite a bit of width off from each shoulder and side, and slimming down the sides of the dress bodice too, so my final dress is more like a gentle A-line shape. I couldn’t say I “self-drafted” the armholes, that just sounds terribly pompous when it was basically just tonnes of super careful pinning and multiple tryings-on. I’m so so happy with the final result though. I think the more fitted, yet still loosely relaxed shoulders, the slimmer bodice and A-line shape is perfect for the fabric.

Other alterations: I inverted the pleat the other way in the centre back, also left off the placket to hide the buttonhole band. Fun fact; my pattern is the German version, and while I plugged the instructions into Google translate I actually couldn’t make head nor tail of them, haha!! I think I’ve made enough shirts that I managed to put it together ok though 🙂

I LOVE the sleeves which are unchanged from the pattern, they’re only very slightly gathered at the top, and blouse-y at the elbow, with deep pleats taming that blousiness into the bands. I also love the petite little collar. The collar stand is the tiniest I’ve ever made, so skinny and narrow, only about 1.5cm deep. I was slightly terrified how this would go, fortunately, the linen gauze was an absolute delight to sew and eased beautifully everywhere I asked it to. Like sheer heaven.

I found these awesomely cool yet delicate brass buttons at Fabulous Fabrics. I’ve previously used these very same buttons before, on my khaki linen “army” shirt; five and a half years ago!! I’m so glad they still are stocking these; they’re quite old-fashioned-y, a bit dinged-up and antique-y looking, so very much to my taste!

I also made a little matching belt, which is basically an interfaced waistband with just one button and two buttonholes.

With the fabric being the divine will o’ the wisp that it is, my new dress needed a slip; so I hemmed it so as to work well with my ivory crepe Ruby slip. You can see the slip when I’m wearing it, but hey; you were going to see any slip I wear with this ultra-sheer dress! so it may as well be a nice one! I really love the way the ivory underneath lightens and brightens and highlights the variegated blues and really brings them to life.

I absolutely adore my new dress; thank you so much, Yoshimi!!

Details:

Dress; Burda Shirt Dress 03-2016;112B slimmed down a bit, Japanese indigo linen gauze
Slip; pattern scissors cloth Ruby Slip, a free pattern available here; ivory crepe, details of mine here
Shoes; made by me and my own design, details here

Location, the Crawley boatshed, Crawley, Western Australia

yes; it was blowing a freaking gale, not really ideal but I had the photo opportunity so *shrug*…

Funny story; this is a very popular spot for wedding parties and also for tourists to stop and take pictures. I rocked up and there was a Chinese man taking pictures, so I waited at a little distance for him to finish… once he had I went over and put my camera on the steps. However he hung around for a bit, then came back and started gesturing to his camera and at me; at first I thought he was asking if I wanted assistance with my pictures and I assured him that I was fine, gesturing that I had my remote, etc. However, no! what he wanted was for me to be in his pictures!! eeeek! he demonstrated where he wanted me to stand and how he wanted me to pose, gazing up into the sun and beaming like a stereotypical sun-worshipping Aussie. He took quite a lot of pictures, so if you ever see me popping up in some Chinese guy’s holiday photos, that’s why!!!