Category Archives: Sewing

2018; a retrospective

31/12/2018 8:38 pm \ 27 Comments \

Ah, it’s the 31st December, when I look back over of my year of making and wearing and do a little analysis… to kick off, some of my favourite pictures/outfits, one for each month.  Several of these pictures are not even “blog pictures”; by that I mean have never appeared on my blog, but may just be an outfit or picture that I particularly liked, or may be because of a particularly lovely memory of that day or something…

January

just a particularly gorgeous day and in my happy place…

February

… because I love this outfit so much

March

…the prototype of my first sewing pattern!

April

… the day of Tim and Kelly’s engagement party which is pretty special I think; so I made a special skirt just for the occasion

May

… in Bali for our friends L + L’s wedding; so much fun!

June

… just because of this gorgeous cockatoo fabric! unfortunately also the day my trusty old camera nosedived into the sand and died, and the beginning of several months of annoying “photo improv”

July

… made a raincoat to commemorate the wettest year we’ve had for like 50 years, or thereabouts…

August

… just had a really nice hike, that’s all….

September

… love first “bare leg” day of the season…

October

… luscious lace, and cheers to a lush, rain-engorged garden…

November

…  our daily constitutional…

December

… my most recent creation!  Thoroughly enjoyed this, and the whole fun experience has sewn some fertile seeds for a new project I’m dreaming of for next year  🙂

What did I make?

So, it’s funny; this year I didn’t feel so productive and could have sworn I didn’t make as much as previous years, and yet when I added it up I made 77 things, including 22 items for others, 2 prs of shoes, and our 2 sewing patterns.  Surprised! and even a little embarrassed?  This is on a par with last years’ production levels, though to be sure some items this year were definitely on the quick and easy side.  Breaking it down: 13 tops/shirts/blouses, 6 skirts, 4 prs jeans/trousers, 9 prs sockettes, 2 prs tights, 2 prs shoes, 6 hats, 1 baby romper, 12 dresses + 2 wedding dress muslins, 3 coats, 1 jumpsuit, 3 sets of lingerie, 2 knitted cardigans/jumpers, 5 bags, and 4 dolls complete with wardrobes.  I know, right?!     In fact, now I think about it, I actually made 3 further items over and above than this, but those things have not yet been blogged since they are all patterns still in the testing phase and I’ve been sworn to secrecy until their release. One of them is a Pretty BIG Thing, though.

This year I also started making our soap, and think I’ve made enough for several years’ supply already, lol.  Luckily, we really like using it, and I also gave several bars away during the year, as little gifts for friends and family too.

What did I wear?

I still keep my OOTD blog up to date and tally up the things I wore and frequency thereof.  Documenting one’s outfits is a pretty obsessive thing to do, I realise that, but I still really like doing it.  The clothes I wore the most frequently this year can be summed up in the following:

This collage comprises more outfits than I’ve posted in previous years for this category, but I have an explanation: keeping an outfit tally has opened my eyes to the fact that I tend to favour certain wardrobe items and ignore others… and I’ve been making an effort to “spread the love” around my wardrobe more.  This might seem like an artificial thing to do, like why force yourself to wear something you don’t love as much as another thing? Why not just wear the things you love the most?  But I’ve found that wearing something breeds a love for it, so pulling out not-quite-so-loved things, experimenting with them and finding outfits in which they can shine; is a means to the end of loving them more, thus loving ALL your self-made clothes, MORE; and so getting more wear out of everything.  I loathe waste, and particularly waste in clothing, so I don’t want for things I’ve spent care and energy making to be unworn and tossed out before their time.  So, I wear them.  Make sense?  Well, I know what I mean, anyway.

Apart from various shoes/boots and my self-made black tights, all of which are always worn the absolute MOST in my wardrobe; the most frequently worn item this year was my new mustard raincoat with a total of 31 wears, closely followed by my grey Sasha trousers at 30 wears, my trusty little paprika cardigan at 22 wears, and my pink Kelly raincoat and scarlet Miette cardigan both at 19 wears each…

Favourite creations?

Oooh, this one is always so tough… I mean, how does one choose one’s favourite child?? of course it is impossible.  Having said that though, I think my favourite creation(s) for the year are something a little bit different; our sewing patterns!  Because, yes; of course, during the year Cassie and I released two sewing patterns; our Perth dress/blouse, and our Kimberley rag doll.  The response has been fantastic, for which I am so SO grateful.  We’re fully immersed in plans for TWO more patterns too!  It’s a LOT of work producing a pattern, and I’m eternally thankful to everyone who did support us in this new endeavour this year.  MWAH! to all of you.  Thank you xxx

   

As far as favourite made clothes;  well, if I really did have to pick… it’s nothing special, far from it! but I really enjoyed making, and I really love wearing my “piñata” outfit!  A little bit weird, all very spontaneous, the fabric was such an impulse buy, and I ran it up on my dinky, clunky, plastic-ky little holiday sewing machine, in our holiday house with the bare minimum of sewing supplies.   Maybe all that “wrongness” is what combined to give it a paradoxical rightness … and I have a soft spot for those orange pompoms too!

I also really really love my cockatoo outfit and also my floral trench coat…  I must be having a colourful moment?!

What are my plans for 2019?

So, BIG THING….  the first part of this year I will be making Kelly’s wedding dress! yes that’s pretty huge.  I’ve made two muslins so far… the second one is nearly perfect so with only one tiny adjustment and one further fitting, I hope to actually cut into the real fabric early in the New Year.  Scary!!

muslin number 1

muslin number 2

I am also beholden to make two bridesmaids’ dresses; one for Cassie, and one for her’s and Kelly’s mutual friend G.  I’m going to tackle those after I’ve got the bare bones of the wedding dress all done and dusted though.

For myself, well of course I want to make a mother of the groom outfit for myself!  Yup, pretty excited for that too!!  I know exactly what I want, I have my pattern all ready and lined up, and I just need to find the perfect fabric.

In other, more ordinary, sewing plans; the smalls drawer! I did not make much this year and now find myself in need, so there will be more lingerie this year.  I am also in a very sad sock situation at the moment, my old socks are all darned and darned and even then darned some more.  So my plan is to knit 1 new pair of socks per month.  A dozen pairs of socks!

And, yes, I have plans for two new patterns this year.  The groundwork has been laid, and I just need to get in and on it; and tidy a few things up.  Well, there’s a LOT to be done, to be honest, I only hope I can get enough time together to do all this… obviously the wedding dress is my number one priority.  🙂

Anything else?

Well, finally and of course most importantly of all, I just want to say THANK YOU! to everyone who reads my blog and who takes the time to leave a comment, I am so grateful for each and every kind thought.  Thank you all so very much, and I’d like to wish all the best to everyone for a safe, happy, peaceful and wildly creative 2019!  Mwah!  xxx

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rope market bag

27/12/2018 2:41 pm \ 7 Comments \

< So this is embarrassing… I made this bag in October… last year!  It has sat up in my laundry, only awaiting the handles; and the following draft post has been sitting forlornly in my drafts folder ALL THAT TIME.  But no more!  I finished the handles last month, polished up the draft post and just bunged in some pictures and bammo…  DONE!  Finally! >

hehe, anyone who knows me knows that I don’t make bags very often… it’s the one luxury I BUY! but I saw this tutorial by Amy over at Heather’s blog Closet Case patterns and just thought it was super chic and cute!! Coincidentally, when I pinned it I found that a few years previously I had also pinned a similar tutorial written by Erica over at honestlywtf.com! Guess it was a sign… for me to get on and DO it!

 

I’ve been carrying my shopping in generic carry bags rather than plastic shopping bags even before the placky-bag bag came in, because I’m such a bag snob, hehe, and while I do have a quite a lot of perfectly serviceable plain ones stashed in the boot of my car I decided I wanted a nicer one for when I wanted to look more classy-like in the supermarket.  Probably just because I wanted to give this awesome tutorial a go more than anything else, to be honest…

I bought 3 bundles of this cotton rope/cord from Bunnings and just had at it… my first fold is 20cm, and I started sloping the sides after just 10 rounds, because I wanted my bag to be wide, but flattish.  The longer your first fold, the wider the bag, widthwise, and the more rounds you stitch before sloping the sides up, the “fatter” your bag will be.  My bag itself is two whole bundles of 25m, and then I decided I wanted leather handles rather than rope ones…. I had a small scrap of deep chocolate brown leather from when my friend V was cleaning out her stash.  I punched the holes for the stitching using the leather tool I bought from Skinhuset in Copenhagen during our visit there a few years ago, and handstitched using a leather needle and deep chocolate brown Gutermann’s upholstery thread.

 

I also wanted some little internal pockets inside the bag; one side has a zipped one for keys and the other has an open,  more accessible one for my phone… these are made from a stiff, cream-coloured cotton broadcloth, actually the same stuff I used to make my rag-doll Sally… and I just zig-zagged them down inside the bag.  Because there’s all the mad crazy zig-zagging going on on the outside of the bag already, you don’t really notice a little bit of extra zig-zagging for the pocket attachments.  The perfectly matching “rustic” chocolate-brown zip came from an old pair of jeans that I previously cut up for another project…

so that’s it!  I really really love it, and think it will come in handy not just for shopping, but just for anything and everything, really.  So far I’ve used it precisely once, when I took it to my local Australian Sewing Guild meeting, to hold my sewing stuff.  It worked!

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the bumper Christmas edition

26/12/2018 3:19 pm \ 10 Comments \

So, every Christmas I like to make a small mountain of stuff for my loved ones; this year was a smaller mountain than previously, mostly because I embarked upon a sorta epic making-adventure of a more selfish variety, ahem … but more about that particular project in a future post!  But I did still manage to make some bits and pieces for others!  btw, I was too busy to take any photos on the day, woops!  but I’m hoping to get some modelled shots here sometime soon  🙂

Items 1-5; it’s always difficult to think of something for the boys, something “useful”, because boys are never just about the pretty things like girls are. Also, because I actually prefer practical and useful myself too, always.  I recently discovered elbe sewing patterns through instagram, and noticed that she had very kindly made a free pattern available; the Sorrento bucket hat.  Freeeee!  So generous! and I thought it would be fabulous for my guys who do wear hats all the time. Craig, for one, who has been wearing the same sad shabby hat for about a decade now, ahem. Yes, since I make stuff it has indeed been a point of embarrassment, hehe  ;D  A hat also seemed like the perfect gift for Cassie’s man D, notoriously difficult to buy/make for.  He loves fishing with a passion and was apparently in need of a new fishing hat, according to Cassie.  Great timing!

Tim’s hat

I had to measure everyone’s heads… awkward! but well, I guess everyone’s used to my strange stealth-measuring attacks by now!  Cassie helped me out by stealth-measuring D’s head… she said she did it while he was sleeping which made me laugh to imagine that!  Fortunately he says it fits him perfectly!

D’s hat…

The boys’ hats are all made from Spotlight’s cotton drill, it’s hard to find fabrics that are both masculine and interesting, but luckily Spotlight currently has these camouflage prints in a wide range of colours. SO AMAZINGLY LUCKY!!!

Craig’s hat…

I opted to interface the brims with medium weight fusible interfacing, and they are all fully lined; Cassie’s with a stiff white cotton, the drills I used for Craig’s and Tim’s both have an olive-ish cast to them so I used an olive poplin from my stash for them, and Sam’s and D’s are both more blue-ish so for them I cut up the trouser legs off an old pair of Sam’s navy blue work trousers.  It was exactly the right shade of navy blue, and also a really nice weight for lining a hat.

Sam’s hat…

And I found this old label in my notions basket! the very last one! leftover from when I used to sew their names in their school uniforms! I had a little giggle putting this in, and Sam too when he saw it in there on Christmas morning.

Cassie’s hat…

I also made one for Cassie using some of the leftover fabric from her Christmas dress for this year…  more on that later!  Cassie’s floral linen is very lightweight compared to the cotton drill that I used for the boys’ hats, so I fully interfaced all the pieces in this one, including the lining, with medium weight fusible interfacing.

This is a free pattern so obviously you can’t complain, and I’m not! because this is a fantastic little pattern! However one thing I want to note for if I ever use this the future… the pattern specifies 30cm for fabric and 30cm for lining. Yes, this is technically correct; but personally I prefer for the brim lining of a hat to be of the same fabric as the shell, because you can see it while you’re wearing it. So if you’re cutting out all 4 brim pieces from the outer fabric, 30cm is enough, but just barely! and only if you throw all grainline specs out the window and are super vigilant about miserly pattern placement! I did make sure to cut the band pieces on grain though, I think you have to for the hat to look nice.  If you want to cut the brim plus brim lining pieces all on grain then you’d need at least 40cm, or 50cm to be safe

I made all my paper pattern pieces full size, which I HIGHLY recommend; because when you are cutting out fiddly little pieces like these on the fold, and in multiples; then they rarely come out identical to each other.

Best thing; everyone seemed to love their hats! I might even get around to making one for myself one day 🙂

Items; 6-7; I was going to make hats for Tim’s fiance Kelly and for Sam’s lady L too, but when it came time for choosing prints for them, well I chickened out!  There were loads of gorgeous prints in Spotlight, pretty, feminine and cute and probably lots that they’d love, but well, you know, choosing a print for another girl is quite a personal thing, and I was nervous they wouldn’t like my choice. Eventually I hit on the idea of making a reusable shopping bag for them.  Yes, these are in a print too, that I chose, but a bag is definitely “safer”!

During the last year, it became illegal for supermarkets here to give out single-use shopping bags, and now everyone has to remember to take their own shopping bags for their groceries… of course there are lots of branded reusable shopping bags you can get but everyone likes a cute one to hang up in their kitchen, yes? Kelly and Tim have recently done up their kitchen and btw, it looks AMAZING!!! it’s all dramatically jarrah, black/white, stainless steel, and grey blue; and they also have a lot of indoor plants there. So I chose the above fabric for Kelly’s.

For L; well she loves baking, and she loves cute stuff, so when I saw this bright and fun doughnut print I knew instantly it was perfect for her!  

I made my own pattern, based upon the measurements of the little bag holders in Coles checkout stations. My own experience is that the stitched-on-strap style of handle is a weak point in shopping bags, the first thing to go; so I designed the bags to have cut on handles, and to be reinforced with a facing.  It is a bit of a fabric hog to cut it out like this, but I’m thinking it will prove to be a much stronger and robust design than separately cut and stitched on straps. 

  I found some pieces of stiff plastic film to line the bottoms of the bags, and for the groceries to sit on.

Item 8; Cassie specifically requested that I make a dress for her this year, and we went to Fabulous Fabrics together to look at fabrics. They had this divine pink hydrangea print in a cotton sateen, and Cassie wistfully fingered it and mentioned she would love this if it was in linen. We looked at a few other prints and she pointed out a few others, which I tucked away in my head for the future, mwahaha. But just imagine my joy when I went back in to actually buy something for her, and saw they had actually JUST got the hydrangea print in, IN LINEN! PERFECTO!

For the patten, I cut up an old favourite little tunic dress, that she had discarded a long time ago; it is a simple but very pretty little T-shirt style, with a high rounded neckline finished with bias binding, raglan sleeves folded up at the hem, and a centre back zip, and I always thought she looked gorgeous in it. The new dress did seem a tad short when I’d finished it, but otherwise I was very pleased with it. Then she tried it on on Christmas morning, and it was Super Short!  Turns out 26yr old Cassie likes to wear her dresses a little longer than 18 yr old Cassie did, haha. who knew?!  😉  Anyway, fortunately I had extra fabric, even after making her matching bucket hat, so I extended it with an extra piece attached underneath the hemline. This is a technique I’ve used on several of my own dresses in the past, I do think it makes for an interesting hemline detail, even if you don’t need to add length.  To make it look more like “intentional design detail” rather than “whoops, need to add length because it’s scandalously SHORT” I folded and stitched a series of tucks, and love how this looks!  A hidden bonus is that this adds some weight to the hemline… and I think linen dresses can often benefit from a little extra weightiness at the bottom.

Items 9-2000, might be overshooting the mark but just roughly guess-timating there; so I also like to make something both useful and fun for my extended family members, and this usually ends up being an edible something … this year it was gingerbread pussycats! So of course we have our own three darling little fluffykins, and I hit on the bright idea of icing the gingerbread puddycats to symbolise The Girls.

I’d made huge batches so this took quite a long time, but turned out pretty cute I think! The kids were tickled pink!

My recipe is adapted from a free recipe from Taste.com, and my own lemon icing is a sort of hybrid royal icing/ regular icing. Sophie has green eyes, so I painstakingly picked out the green cachous from a multicoloured jar. I couldn’t get black food colouring! so settled for dark purple-y/blue for Sophie, and sky blue for Zoe, who is a greyish blue point with blue eyes. Zoe was by far the fiddliest pussy cat to recreate!

Mischka is a mischievous fuzzy wuzzy ginger striped pussy with amber eyes, so I tried to capture her cute and perky nature with a riotous striped icing.

It’s funny; everyone immediately said, “but what about Clara?” and there were lots of jokes as to why she was excluded from the fun but of course the real answer is perfectly simple… I don’t have a dog-shaped cookie cutter! Maybe next time, haha.

I buy these airtight thingies to give them away in,  see, practical and useful are my middle names!  Each one perfectly fitted 16 gingerpussies.

So, I blog very very rarely about the meals I make; but this year Craig and I decided to cater for the entire extended family lunch, which is a BIG undertaking. We ambitiously planned for a rather (for us) long and involved menu and I’m so proud of us for pulling it off that I thought I’d share … we made all the various dressings and everything!

the makings of maple carrots…

pumpkin and couscous salad…

German-style potato salad…

BBQ asparagus, zucchini and snow pea salad…

veggie rosti with smoked trout; we doubled this recipe and made one with the smoked trout and the second one with smoked salmon

peach and raspberry trifle…

and cherry and nougat semifreddo

the recipes are all from the free Coles cooking magazine that they put out every month. Fair dinkum, this is hands down my favourite source of recipes at the moment… I love it!  We also had a ham that I forgot to take a picture of, and Vintage Cellars had high-end champagne going for half price so I bought a dozen of these… honesty, it all felt very special and went so well, we had such fun, and we were so chuffed everybody at our party had such a gorgeously happy day too!

So that was Christmas this year!! it felt rather epic and stressful all month leading up to it, but now it’s the morning after, and I’m feeling peaceful and relaxed with a happy post-party glow, the house is clean and back to normal; and most of all I am SO GLAD that I did go to the effort of making as lovely a day as I could for all my amazing family. It’s always SO worth it 🙂  Until next time!

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ochre challenge

28/11/2018 11:39 am \ 40 Comments \

So I loooooooove the colour ochre, and I adoooooooore linen too, not to mention that I’m a complete and utter sucker for a clothing/dressmaking challenge of practically any description…. so when the Fabric Store announced their ochre challenge I was just like, well point me to the sign-up page!!!

The idea; you buy some of their ochre linen, or ochre merino – yes, yes, I know, you always have to buy something! but I love the Fabric Store anyway, and for the previously mentioned reasons I’m A-ok with buying a bit of ochre linen.  Then you have to make something with it.  Obviously  😉

I’ve had this idea floating around in my head for a dress with overlays and all random odd angles and “bits” so I drew a few sketches and got playing with some of the very large pieces of paper I seem to always have lying around nowadays since I started designing patterns.  And made a pattern.  And here it is, in fabric form!

It has a gently A-line shape, pockets , overlays both front and back, seams all hidden inside, and asymmetry EVERYWHERE.  There was a bit of technical head scratching about laying the pieces down on my 2m of fabric, and then getting the seams inside and hidden, especially because of the overlays; and getting the “bits” to sit how I wanted them to, but I think it all came together in the end just exactly how I wanted it to.  I’m actually pretty thrilled to be honest! because it’s quite fun and flirty, the colour is YUUUUM! and I think it’ll be really nice for a casual day dress in summer.  I might even make this into a pattern, if there’s interest?  Please do let me know!!

So, I’m pretty sure I NEVER pull this pose in real life and yet I’ve noticed that somehow I’m compelled to do it for blog poses on a frequent and regular basis?? #weird

Details:

Dress; my own design, made from 2m of ochre linen from the Fabric Store
Shoes; made by me, at the Shoe Camaraderie workshop, details here

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the Kimberley doll pattern

13/11/2018 9:32 pm \ 9 Comments \

For anyone who liked my dolls and maybe wished to make one for themselves…Cassie and I have made a pattern!

The Kimberley doll pattern is available to buy in our shop right now, just in time for Christmas making!  You can get it as an instantly downloadable pdf and there are also a limited number of paper patterns.  This is the same pattern I developed to make my recent seasonal set of four; the Mses Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn … I enjoyed making them all so much! and am so happy they’ve been liked so much too  🙂

Included is the rag doll pattern, naturally; and her full wardrobe…  I know when I was a kiddy the most enjoyable thing about playing with my dolls was dressing them in a variety of clothes; the more the better! and my favourite dolls all had lots and lots of clothes which I delighted in changing out regularly.  This is why I strived to give the Kimberley doll plenty of outfit options!  All pieces included in the seasonal girls’ sets are here; the “winter” turtleneck tunic dress and a pair of jersey leggings, and the knitting pattern for her chevron-patterned beanie with pompom; a twirly summer wrap dress, lace knickers, and raglan sleeved mini dress, which so far I have chosen to make in stretch sequinned fabric as a cocktail dress for “my” girls.  Additional patterns included are for her zippered duffle bag, and also for the dust bag that is designed to hold her and all her belongings when she is not being played with.

I also include instructions for giving the doll a full head of yarn hair and an embroidered face.  The example I used for the pattern is basically the same face that I have given all my dolls, but I would like to point out that how you do the face for your own doll is a very personal decision and you can, and should! use your own artistic license and go with whatever takes your fancy!   Something  interesting I’ve found is that the smallest, tiniest variations; a slant to a mouth, wider-set eyes, offset or asymmetrical eyebrows, can affect a facial expression quite a lot.  And hair! that’s a whole other story too…  🙂

Some of the technical deets:

The Kimberley doll stands 43cm (17″) high.  Most of her clothes can actually be made from scraps and small bits and pieces of fabric, but following is a complete list of requirements should you buying new:

The Kimberley doll is named for the Kimberley region of Western Australia, following our theme of naming our patterns after places in Western Australia.  Well, we already had “Perth” and so decided this would be a nice theme to keep up and we have so many beautiful places here in Western Australia that are obviously very dear to our hearts.  Though we were partly influenced by the thought it would be nice to have a girl’s name for a doll pattern too, so very fortunately we do have one girl’s name in the state!  The colours of the Kimberley rocks are what I was going for in the background colour of the pattern cover.  I was pretty thrilled when Cassie recognised this straight away without my having to explain it, hehe…

It’s so weird; for many years I never suspected I would have become interested in making dolls, it’s not “serious” like making clothing for yourself or anyone else for that matter, and for a long time I’ve been quite serious about my sewing and devoting myself to making a full and proper wardrobe.  But well, doll-making has been such a nice diversion, just something purely whimsical, you know?  I hope it gives a little bit of frivolous enjoyment to others too!

By the way; selling of completed handmade dolls made using this pattern is permitted provided design credit is given to Carolyn & Cassie Pattern Co.pinterestmail

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Ms Autumn

06/11/2018 10:35 pm \ 14 Comments \

Ciao, le belle signore!!  I am soooooo happy to introduce Ms Autumn! the fourth and final doll in my little set of four seasonal girlies…

I’m rather rapt with this young lady… her colour scheme is fab – u – lous!!! and very much right up my alley.  Well, I suppose since I identify as an autumn girl myself, so yeah!  This rich warm collection of tomato red, gold, rusty orange, teal blue, forest green is totally one I would choose for myself… well haha, obviously I’ve chosen all the girl’s colour schemes myself, but well you know what I mean!  I’ve so much enjoyed choosing all the girl’s colours to co-ordinate nicely and I thoroughly loved choosing this one too

Like her friends, Ms Autumn has a range of clothes to choose from, so she is ready and prepared for ANY situation:

a winter ensemble with leggings, a tunic dress and knitted beanie… I gave her a kangaroo pocket on her tunic! because it’s rather lovely to have a warm kangaroo pocket you can stow your hands in to keep them warm in winter…

… little lace knickers, embroidered with a tiny, rich orange-y red rosebud…

a twirly summer dress… I only had the tiniest portion of this gorgeous rusty orange/gold print, and was so glad I managed to squeeze the little dress from out of it, because I think it’s just absolutely perfect for her!

… a sequinned cocktail dress, naturally in bright sunshine-y gold!  This particular fabric is a little sheer so I lined it with cream coloured jersey knit.  Well, modesty is a virtue, si?

Want to hear something a bit funny… ?  I think my favourite favourite thing about her entiiiiiire ensemble is actually this little necklace?!

Up until now I’ve ade the girls’ necklaces using a simple, single loop of wire.  I had some gold wire for Ms Autumn, but frustratingly it was just a little too flimsy to use by itself.  This stumped me for a little bit… should I use one of the other coloured wires I had? but I really had my heart set on gold.  Finally I thought about making a twisted gold necklace.  It took me a few attempts of painstakingly careful twisting to get the twist nice and even all the way along! but finally I had a necklace I was satisfied with.  The little catch closure was little tricky, but I’m in love with how it worked out in the end!  Though I thought the little necklace was pretty cute by itself, it looked just a touch spare without a pendant, so I decided at the last minute to add a gold-apricot pearl to nestle against her décolletage…

She also a zippered forest green duffle bag, which is roomy enough to store all her things, should she wish to go off for a weekend trip, or something, and need all her stuff.

… and her dust bag, in a deep raspberry shade which also goes quite nicely with all her things, imo

peekaboo!

Ms Autumn is available for purchase here in our shop right now…

My friend Meggipeg asked me recently… isn’t it hard to part with “my” girls?  and yes, it’s little bit scary! but it really does make me truly happy to think they are going to homes where they can be played with; and Ms Autumn may be the last in this set, however I’m still enjoying myself so I haven’t ruled out making more? hmmm, I’ll see how I go, got so much on my plate at the mo…!

Also I guess it’s probably pretty obvious by now; all the girls, Ms’ Winter, Spring, Summer, and Ms Autumn here too, and all their wardrobes are of course made with the same patterns, one that Cassie and I have been working hard at developing as a new pattern to put in our shop!  It’s going to be available very very soon… stay tuned!

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ivory lace; most definitely label-worthy *

26/10/2018 3:21 pm \ 34 Comments \

OK.   Sooo, it’s early days, since this little sheath o’ my dreams is basically brand new, but I’m so in love with it already I’m just tentatively putting it out there…  I think I’ve just managed to make a forever dress for myself.   I just love love love ivory, as a colour, and lace as a texture, and ivory and lace combined together in one swathe of gloriously snow-dusted curlicues is just always a fabric that’s going to make me sigh with happiness.

Silk World Australia had contacted me to ask me if I would showcase one of their fabrics, and I chose one metre of this guipire lace, one metre being the minimum order; thinking I could make a little skirt.   Silk World have up until recently been wholesalers, and now their beautiful laces and specialty fabrics are available for everyone! which of course is the best news for fabric lovers everywhere.  I was blown away when my lace arrived.. it’s heavily and beautifully detailed, and luxuriously thick with that matte texture that whispers “quality” in hushed genteel notes.    And when I shook out said one metre, well it was so so W I D E! I realised I could get not just a little skirt, but probably a whole dress out of it.  And I did!  Et voila!

One metre dictated a super pared-back, no frills, straight sheath silhouette, which is of course the best thing to show off the intricacies of the lace anyway.  With something this exquisite, you only need a very little of it to make a big impact, in my opinion.  I used an old favourite pattern, Burda 8511, and lined the dress with natural Irish linen, bought years ago at Calico & Ivy, when I had a voucher to burn and nothing in mind to particular spend it on… it’s really gorgeous stuff also and I’ve never really known exactly what to use it for.  I love how the slightly rough ‘n rustic feel and muted stoney colour of the linen is a nice foil to the luxurious decadence of snow-dusted lace sitting on top…  and now I feel like this is exactly the project what it was waiting for all along; a match made in heaven!

Cocktail dress for the season… sorted!

Aaaand, my new labels!! and oh my goodness can we just take a moment to appreciate how absolutely adorable ???

I got these from the Dutch Label Shop, and seriously, I struggled to choose a design, there were just so many cute options, and colours.  I’m super super happy with these; I absolutely LOVE the sweetly funky design! and I’m also pretty impressed with the excellent quality.  The labels are fabric, and the design is stitched, which is very nice; and you know how with a lot of fabric labels, you need to turn under the raw edges as you’re stitching them down, because of fraying? well these ones have all four edges nicely sealed so you don’t need to do that.  They’re all ready to sew on!  Also they are pleasantly substantial and sturdy, with no hint that they will buckle over time or in the wash, and the design is finely detailed and stitched tight and flat; so seems very unlikely it might snag or catch on anything, nor unravel.  I am SO happy with them!  🙂

Also, I have amazing news!  The Dutch Label Shop has very kindly and generously reached out and offered a discount to all my readers … enter handmadebycarolyn15 at the checkout and you will receive a 15% discount on any order.

FLOWERHEAD!!!

random tangent; do you know I’m looking at here? rhetorical question, I know, aren’t they the worst?  actually there was a golden whistler sitting in the tree right by my head, whistling his little head off.  I just had to rush over and grab my camera for a quick shot before he flew off…  If you want to hear his lovely call, you can check it out here…

 

this next picture looks very loving doesn’t it? a tender mistress and puppy moment? actually Clara was having a “puppy mood” and was just really really keen to rip right into those flowers and zoom off through the garden with them.

LATER EDIT: Mary asked in the comments about the finishing and interior details, and thank you for reminding me, Mary! because I actually meant to post pictures of how I did this in my dress but forgot…

lace side seams; inside

the side seams of the lace shell I stitched along with a bias cut strip of thin, cream cotton, then trimmed the seam allowances of the lace and wrapped the cotton around to bind the edges in a Hong Kong-like seam, except I tucked the raw edge of the cotton under and hand-stitched it in place.  This makes a nicely neat and tidy, cream-coloured roll; which might look like it could be seen on the right side but actually is kinda invisible when the dress is right side out.

lace side seams, outside

The linen lining; I finished the raw edges on my overlocker, and simply left them like that.  The bottom edges of the zip tape I stitched down to the seam allowances like I usually do, in a short row of machine stitching.

The lace around the invisible zip on the outside; here I trimmed the lace while carefully hand stitching the raw edge securely right up to abut against the opening edge, while not obscuring it so I can still pull the zip up and down!  You have to stitch every single little bit of lace down here so there are no loose bits to stick out, which would look very messy and also risk getting lace caught in the zip, so a stitch for like every 3mm or so.

At the top edge of the dress; I stitched the neckline and armscyes of the dress together, right side of linen lining to wrong side of lace shell, and added a linen facing, to hide the lace edges on the inside.  This is under stitched so all edges roll to the inside of the dress.  I handtacked the facing to the lining in a few key places along its edge too.

You can see in the above picture those bust darts shaping the front lining, and also (not seen) on the back lining I stitched long fish-eye darts to shape the small of the back.  I lightly hand-tacked the lace shell to these back darts in a few places so the unshaped lace shell sits shaped to the curve of my back a little  more than it would otherwise.  I mean, without this tacking, the lace just hangs down dead straight, and I like it to curve into the small of my back just a little.  The hand-tacking helps it to do this  🙂

Details:

Dress; Burda 8511, in this guipure lace and natural linen
Shoes; Zomp, from Zomp boutique
Flowers; were from the garden, I love these and they’re looking so beautiful at the moment!  I actually picked them to decorate the kitchen.  I was just aiming for “spring-y”, though now I think my pictures are veering just a little into bridal territory?  though I do quite like the idea of this look for a modern and maybe, mature, bride!   Anyway, Note to self; perhaps avoid carrying big bunches of flowers in my pictures from now on

Christmas party season? I am SO ready! though honestly, not just for Christmas, I am going to wear this dress for ever and EVER…

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Ms Summer

16/10/2018 2:15 pm \ 13 Comments \

Well, hello there gorgeous!   I’m thrilled to introduce Ms Summer to the world!  the latest in my small set of seasonal girlies…

I hand-dyed natural calico with a small army of different iDyes to get Ms Summer’s lovely cocoa-toned skin tone, however her luxuriant mane of tawny hair came ready-dyed in this wonderful range of browns/charcoal/tan and the occasional touches of chestnut… and can I just say I over-the-top love her hair!! and actually would kill to have a crazy multicoloured mane like this myself…

I have hair envy!!!!

Like her friends, she comes with a whole lot of lovely clothes, to keep her comfortable and suitably attired for all seasons.

For summer, she has this pretty little wrap dress… one can never have too many stripes in one’s wardrobe.. oui? and the blue-and-white sets off her baby blues rather nicely too, I reckon.  Also I rather like the way the stripes lie which way (but loose) all over her dress  🙂

For winter, she has a turtleneck sweater in millennial pink – eeee! sah trendyyyyy! – with an attached denim miniskirt, also a pair of light periwinkle tights, and a hand knitted beanie in shades of slightly variegated lavender/mauve.

 

I have to say, I’m particularly enamoured of her little denim skirt… probably because when I was a teen I practically lived in little denim skirts myself.  Teenaged me would no doubt have pounced on the pink turtleneck too, to be honest  😉

Of course she has cute little lace knickers too, with an embroidered rosebud on the front…

… and if she wishes to attend a soiree, or even just for strolling on the beach should such a thing take her fancy, she has a sequinned cocktail dress in a shade to perfectly highlight and set off her cornflower blue eyes.

… which she can accessorise with her classic pearl drop necklace…

… AND she has a jaunty emerald green duffle bag.. with pockets!! to carry all her kit  🙂

Ms Summer is currently listed over in our shop… 🙂

Not pictured above, but like all my dollies she also comes with a lavender tote bag that she and all her things can be safely stored in, when she’s not being played with.

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