Category Archives: Sewing

“bookshelf” skirt

18/04/2017 3:32 pm \ 21 Comments \

Hello!  I’ve finished the second part of my little autumn wardrobe-lette… a new skirt! using a printed, upholstery-weight cotton canvas from the Fabric Store in Melbourne, the fifth fabric from the top in this pic of my Melbourne acquisitions…

I absolutely fell in love with this print at first sight, in fact the very minute I spotted it I GRABBED IT!  Not even counting the rather yummy autumnal colours… it reminds me of bookshelves, stacked not quite full, with the colourful spines of the books tipping over a bit into the gaps between them.  I love libraries, in fact it’s been a lifelong daydream of mine to have a room that is completely lined with shelves of books, from floor to ceiling, and a big squishy armchair right in the middle of the room, either faded rusty-red or bottle-green velvet, can’t decide but either would be nice, big enough for me plus at least one cat, and with one little curly-legged side table just big enough for a stained glass lamp and a cup of tea perched on top.  *sigh*

Wait, where was I? oh yes ahem…SKIRT.

 

Pattern; Vogue 8363, one I’ve used many times before, actually I’ve just counted and have made it TWELVE times previously!  You can look at ALL of them by clicking here….

Some of the many reasons I love this pattern so are; a) gorgeously deep slanted side pockets, in fact I can’t help noticing I have my hands shoved deep deep down into those pockets in, only like, every single picture.  They’re just that wonderful, I simply can’t resist!  Also b) straight side seams, making it a nice one for pattern matching, c) double darts in the back which lend themselves very nicely to the wide hips/narrow waist/slight sway back adjustment that I usually make.  I tend to use view D for the pockets, which has a button front placket at the centre front; I obviously eliminate this though and instead have an invisible zip closure at the centre back.  I also like to cut the skirt part roughly two sizes up from the waist part, because I like that boxy with nipped in waist silhouette on me.

Also, this time I added belt loops because I decided all that psychedelic tipping-stripe-y action could probably benefit by being visually reined in with a solid, sombre, no-nonsense belt.  Now it’s finished and I’ve worn it thus, I think yep, this was a good idea

Partly because I stingily didn’t buy much of the print, and also partly for the same visual grounding reason as having a belt: I cut the pocket bags in a thick chocolate brushed twill, a small bit of leftover fabric harvested from Craig’s old pair of chocolate moleskins and which I used to make this skirt, also  Vogue 8363.

Inner workings; I had to piece the chocolate moleskin to get pieces big enough for the pocket bags, but the seams are tucked down deep in the pockets… I used plain black cotton for the waistband facing and pocket facings.  Because I’m a bit of a stickler for matching threads, I switched threads on BOTH my sewing machine and overlocker several times during the making of this skirt!

Above, I spaced it to turn up the hem exactly between two horizontal stripes in the print.  The lower edge of the skirt is finished in bias cut black cotton, the same as for the inner waistband and pocket facings.  See that little tiny row of mustard stitches along the top? I initially started hemming with black thread to match the bias; but quickly realised that even though I made my stitches as tiny as tiny could be, that row of minuscule black dots did show up on the right side of the skirt if you looked closely enough, and I didn’t like it!!  So I switched to the same mustard thread that I’d used in other seams, which disappears nicely into the print.. so they’re pretty much invisible on the right side, which is the main thing!

Above; I chose a mustard invisible zip.  When it came to placing the belt loops, I put two on the front, spaced just outside the waist-shaping dart; and three on the back, the outer two just outside the outer waist shaping dart, and one in the centre back.  It abuts the waist closure, which I wondered would make it difficult to put in the belt; but it doesn’t, it slips through just fine and isn’t a bother at all.  Oh, and waistband closure? there’s a wide hook/eye stitched in under there.

Also, darts?!  One of the most serendipitous things I discovered about this print is that you can barely make out any darts at all! can you even see them in the above picture?? they’re just buried there in amongst those higgledy-piggledy books.  WIN!

I’m wearing today paired with my basic black Tshirt because I wanted the skirt to take centre stage in this, its own dedicated post… but I also think it looks quite nice worn with the, as yet one other piece in my autumn mini-wardrobe, the apricot top.  Actually, I only picked up the apricot crepe because of this fabric!

sorry for the blurriness.  Clearly I’m busily dashing off on a very important mission… like, to get the leaf blower

 

Details:

Skirt; Vogue 8363, printed cotton canvas, my review of this pattern here
Black Tshirt; self drafted, details here
Belt; had this for about 30 years
Black shoes; designed and made by me! details here

Above picture:
Apricot top; the epaulette cut and sewn, pattern no.4 from “she has a mannish style” by Tuko Takada, details here
Brown and ivory clogs; also designed and made by me, details here

  

Also; on Eagle Bay beach, Western Australia… Every time we come down here I have to walk along the beach and clamber over the rocks each day.  This is one of my favourite places on Earth.

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bunny top

16/04/2017 5:29 pm \ 18 Comments \

I’ve made a new little top… I really wanted to debut it today seeing as it’s strewn with beautiful bouncing bunnies.  A bunny-tastic, rabbit-iferous Easter-rockin’ top!  😀

You know when you go to Spotlight for a handful of bits and bobs, not including fabric, but you grab a bit of fabric anyway just so you can pay for everything at the fabric counter and save yourself from queueing at that hideously long queue at the front checkout?  No? Just me then… 🙂  #anyexcuse #addictedtofabric  #ineedhelp

Well, this was a result of one of those times.  I do really love this though.  I mean, I don’t know if I’ve ever been to a fabric store and not spotted something I really love?! seriously! but I do manage to restrain myself most of the time.  In this case, the soft, washed out, almost-antique-y ink drawing-like look of the bunny print is really beautiful to my eyes, it’s a novelty print and pretty cute but I think it’s also still quite sophisticated in feel.  The print is more like a dirty charcoal than black, and the background has a sort of marled oatmeal/ivory blotchiness to it, which is very much my best sort of white.  The selvedge says it’s a linen mix, although truthfully  think the linen content is not huge.
   

Pattern; the epaulette cut and sewn, pattern No. 4 from “she has a mannish style”, or “she wears the pants”, by Yuko Takada.  I know, I just made another of these very recently… which is why I used it probably, it was handy to pluck out from my pattern stash again, and I didn’t have to put any thought into going through my top patterns searching for a different one.  #lazybum  Although, to be fair; I knew it’s loose-fitting unstructured lines would be perfect for the flimsy floatiness of the fabric too.

Because the fabric is almost sheer, I lined the body part of the top with a pale coffee-coloured jersey knit, that I bought yeeeeeears ago at a Morrison sale.  I’ve used little bits of it here and there, namely for this lingerie set, and also for this one too.

I cut the lining to be the same size as the shell from the armpit up, and just a bit slimmer in the body so the shell could skim over it better.  I put quite a bit of thought into the best way of lining it.. should I line it or underline it? have the bottom edge enclosed? neckline binding or clean edge? line the sleeves too?  eventually settled upon this way and think it’s turned out a pretty good way to line a loose top like this one. No bindings; it’s attached at the neckline and the sleeves, but otherwise floats freely and separately inside the top.

Construction method is as follows …
Firstly, sew the shoulder seams of the shell, likewise the lining pieces.  With this fabric being pretty flimsy and virtually see-through, I finished all seams very close to the stitching with my overlocker.

 

Pin the shell and lining right sides together around the neckline, stitch and finish.
Understitch.

 

Sew the side seams of the shell, and separately, the side seams of the lining

 

Pull the lining inside the shell, wrong sides together and keep both layers together, raw edges even, when stitching the sleeve in the armscye.  Sew the sleeve seams, pin sleeve cap in the shell/lining armscye right side of sleeve to right side of shell, stitch and finish edge close to stitching.

Hem the shell and lining separately.  I chose to invisibly hand-stitch the lower hems in place.

For the sleeve hems; I really like the raw sheer edge and the way it gently rolls up, and wanted to keep this look, however the knit does fray a little. So I made an attempt to employ something similar to what I’ve seen Sasha of secondopiano do… I was so impressed that Sasha unravels a length of the fabric filament and uses it to properly cast off the edges of her knits in the knitting way! Or is it crochet? I just checked… it’s crochet!  Her work looks so beautiful and perfectly finished.  Well, I didn’t  manage to crochet my edges here, I tried! but failed… I really need to get myself a teeny tiny little crochet hook I think! so instead I did a sort of cheat’s version… I threaded a sewing needle with the same beige all-purpose thread I’d used to sew the top together, and loop-stitched through each loop to finish the edge.  It’s secure, it won’t fray and it’s pretty much invisible, and I love how this turned out.  Thanks for the brilliant idea, Sasha!

OK, I have no idea what promoted this mad bunny pose… I’m gonna go with too much amaaaazing hot-cross bun?!  Or maybe… not enough amazing hot-cross bun?  Yep, that sounds far more likely…   better hop off and eat another one! 😉

    

Details:

top, the epaulette cut and sewn, pattern No 4 from “she has a mannish style” or “she wears the pants”, by Yuko Takada, soft linen-mix knit.  My previous versions of this pattern are here, here and here
Skirt; Vogue 1247, red velveteen, details here and my review of this pattern here
Shoes: black clogs made by me, here; white oxfords below, also made by me, here  I almost cannot believe I have TWO me-made pairs of shoes to choose from when deciding what will go with an outfit…  I feel like my self-made shoe collection is taking OFF!!!!

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couture pour bébés

14/04/2017 4:49 pm \ 17 Comments \

Hello!

Lately I’ve been making some cute little baby suits!

We have two friends who have recently welcomed babies into their lives, both boys, and I decided to make some little hoodie suits for them.  Aren’t these the cutest?? It was soooo haaaaard to choose which cute little jersey print to use! there were so many super sweet and adorable little prints available.

I agonised a bit, would the Mums prefer funny/cute? or would they prefer chic/cute?  You can’t always predict what people are going to want for their babes, in the end I stuck with the safe option and went with the neutral coloured chic/cute… but just couldn’t resist the bear ears on the hoodies!  So there is a little bit of funny/cute going on.   I hope the new mothers don’t mind this… because I think the bear ears are adorable!


Pattern; Butterick 6372.  For both sets I chose to make a bear eared hoodie, zip fronted with long sleeves, and separate trousers.  There isn’t a pattern for the hoodie with long sleeves, but it’s pretty easy to juxtapose the onesie pattern piece with the armscye that allows for long sleeves, with the vest pattern piece that has the little pockets and a shorter, swingy silhouette.  Yes, I put in the side pockets!!! Completely useless obviously, nearly every single family member who has seen them has asked “but what are they going to put in there???” but they’re so cute that just like the bear ears, I just couldn’t resist adding them.
Fabrics; cotton jersey from Spotlight.  Both are bear prints, which fits in with the bear ears thing going on with the hoodie… am I putting too much thought into this, or what?!  Anyway, I love both of them equally.  Baby T is a bigger baby so the beige “bears camping” one is a bit bigger for him, and the smaller, ivory “bears in the woods” set is for baby J.  To be honest, I’m seriously thinking of getting some of this fabric to make a Tshirt for myself… would that be weird??  I would just have to be vigilant to never wear it while visiting!

It was such fun making these, took me right back to when I used to make cute little baby clothes for my own bubs!  I love fiddling about with the smaller and easy to manage pieces and everything goes together so fast and easy!  the only difficulties I had was with the zips for the front opening.  I don’t really like these ones all that much, they’re called “invisible separating zips” but they were the only ones I could get that were even halfway suitable, as in a) separating, b) the right colour and c) lightweight and “petite” enough to be ok for babywear.  Also it is NOT FUN putting zips into flimsy, lightweight jersey fabric.  I just went as slowly and as carefully as I could, being super careful not to stretch the fabric out very much, and I think they turned out ok.  The zip for the smaller, ivory hoodie had to be trimmed a little in length, and you can’t cut any off the bottom, because you’d lose the separating part!  So I trimmed it from the top and was careful to firmly secure the top edge into the seam so there’s no risk of the zip-pull flying off the top.  I’m speaking from bitter experience there… it’s an old old old war wound, and don’t ask!!  Just that my number one rule with invisible zips is usually; NEVER cut the top off!!

OH!  I forgot to blog about this before, in fact I just checked and I made this back in February!  bad blogger!  but I also made another little work dress for Cassie, another Named patterns Inari tee dress.  This is my fifth Inari made, my third for Cassie, she loves the style just as much as I do! Also it’s like a perfect little design for work, plus being easy and comfortable to wear, and quick to run one up.  I incorporated the same sleeve-widening alteration I devised previously, to counteract the “raise your arms above your head and oh look! now everyone can see your knickers!” effect of this design.

Fabric: a piece of mid-blue suiting fabric from the small stash given to me by my friend L, when she cleaned out her garage.  It’s got that distinctive vintage feel to it; cuts like a dream, a lovely weight, a bit heavy and with a texture almost like brushed wool.  I overlocked the raw edges inside, with the exception of the hem edge which I finished with a Hong Kong seam in mid-blue linen, from my stash.  Since the inside hem edge of this design is often glimpsed while you’re wearing the dress, I think it’s therefore much better to finish it with some beautiful, “meant to be seen” finish, than just roaring it through the overlocker.  I stitched this down over the edge, before slip-stitching the hem invisibly in place.

Other alteration, the addition of inseam side pockets.  Well, duh.  🙂

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apricot split

08/04/2017 10:22 am \ 31 Comments \

SO!  On my recent trip to Melbourne with Mum, Cassie and Tiffany; I picked up my autumn/winter wardrobe! Obviously, it was all in 2D form, oh except for a pair of Italian leather boots, whoops!  well I am allowing myself to buy shoes every once in a while now… 🙂

I absolutely freakin’ LOVE fabric shopping in Melbourne! so much choice!  so many beautiful fabrics, everything of gorgeous quality; and it’s SOOOO difficult to narrow it down to what you can actually fit in your suitcase.  I joyfully made a zillion plans, followed by a realistic estimate of my time and what I want vs what I actually need, and ended up buying the small pile pictured below.  Plus a coupla pieces of Liberty jersey for pretty colourful underthings… not pictured because their colours didn’t “go” with this autumnally photogenic colour palette here, hehe.

the spoils from Melbourne; aka, my autumn 2017 collection…

First up; this top! the third fabric from the top…

Split high-low hems are everywhere this season, and the more I saw the more I WANTED!  Fortunately, this is an ultra easy thing to rustle up yourself using whatever basic pattern you already have lying around, it’s only a matter of working out your proportions…

Fabric; a heavy apricot crepe, from the Fabric Store in Melbourne.  It’s thick, quite heavy and sponge-y in texture, slightly stretchy, and actually quite warm.

Pattern; modified version of the Epaulette cut and sewn top, pattern No.4 in the Japanese pattern book “she has a mannish style”, also known as “she wears the pants” by Yuko Takada,   This is fairly unexciting, but a terrifically useful basic, go-to, loose, boxy top pattern; I’ve made it twice before, for myself here and once here for Cassie.

I cut the neckline and all pieces as is, and diddled about with the lengths to get the look I wanted… as follows:

side seams; 16.5cm, the remainder left open as a split
sleeve length; 37cm from apex of sleeve cap to lower edge, and with an extra 5cm for a deep hem
Front length @ side seam; 28.5cm
Back length @ side seams; 37.5cm
both front and back I allowed an extra 6cm for a nice deep hem.

For the split hem, I laid the hem allowance outside, right sides together and sewed up the side edge, then turned the corner out and invisibly slip-stitched along the overlocked edge inside, for a clean neat finished appearance on the outside.

Neckline; I cut the facings from a thin, woven raw silk for minimal bulk, the self fabric would have been way too thick for this!  Interestingly, this fabric was also originally from the Fabric Store in Melbourne, bought a few years ago.

And, done!  I really really REALLY love this, and can see myself wearing it a lot, and with a lot of different outfits.  Actually, I originally envisioned it as a kind of cropped oversized tunic to wear layered with a long-line, slim-fitting, buttoned up white shirt with the shirttails hanging out the bottom, over tapered capri pants.  However: two things; a) it’s too hot for an ensemble like that just yet, which is actually a very good thing because b) I am currently bereft of a long-line, slim-fitting buttoned up white shirt! so maybe I’d better get cracking and make one of those too?!

For now, I really like how it looks nice with this equally boxy, tailored skirt and my new clogs, or alternatively with my boyfriend jeans as below.

Details:

Top, adapted from the epaulette cut and sewn top No. 4, from “she has a mannish style” by Yuko Takada, heavy apricot crepe
Skirt; Burda 10/2010; 136 the Karl Lagerfeld skirt, black suiting fabric, details and my review of this pattern here
Shoes; made by me, and my own design, details here

 

  

and below: worn with my Morgan boyfriend jeans, charcoal denim, details here

location: Eagle Bay, Western Australia

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greenery

27/03/2017 2:20 pm \ 30 Comments \

… and the colour of the year for 2017 is….!!

hehe, it’s kinda silly, but in early January I love looking up what the fashion Colour for the Year is going to be, even if I then forget about it and don’t add any of it to my wardrobe!  This year it is Greenery, and serendipitous news, I had bought a length of this lovely summer weight wool pashmina fabric from Spotlight, in a colour that is well, not too far off.  I love being inadvertently fashionable!

So I made a little dress.  The wool is woven in a twill pattern, and is very light, practically sheer, so I lined fully with a springy yellowy-green polyacetate lining fabric.  It was absolutely amazing to discover invisible zips in Spotlight, in exactly the right colour too.  This is so rare, especially with more out-there colours like this one!

I used Vogue 1351, which I have previously made up once before, here.  This time I followed the pattern to the letter and cut the skirts and bodice front on the bias like you’re supposed to.  I let it hang for a few weeks for the bias to drop before hemming… why so long, do I hear you ask? well not for anything in mindfulness to the outcome of this dress, NO! but because like a ravenous wild beast my Zora Queen Comic Con costume has been demanding and devouring every scrap of my creativity to the exclusion of all else.  AAAAAAAGH!!

Anyway!  It’s finished now!  This dress, I mean; not the costume.  Although that is too, hip hip hooray.  Slowly getting back to normal making.  Well, normal for me, anyway  😉

It’s funny; the vibrant colour of this dress might make it seem kinda frivolous and not like a “basic” or a very core wardrobe staple, but it is a very plain dress really, and I actually think it’s going to be an extremely useful mix and match item in my wardrobe.  The kind of thing that can either command attention in an outfit thanks to its colour, or also play nicely with other items in an outfit, thanks to its lack of detail.  A useful little stayer.  The lightweight wool is just the right warmth and breeziness for our current mild and just starting to get cooler autumn days, and I think I’m going to enjoy mixing it up in winter too, with black tights and boots too, and a dark leather jacket or coat.  The bright green is going to look great with all my bright and colourful cardigans, and will also add a nice splash of colour to more neutrally neutrals too.  I love it and am really excited about its possibilities!

Details

Dress; Vogue 1351, light green wool pashmina on a roll
Cardigan (below); my own design, based upon the Nettie by closet case.patterns, details here, paprika stretch
Shoes: sandals designed and made by me, details here

   
Location: Pt Walter beach, Attadale.  I joined friends at the cafe there this morning for morning tea; it was pure delight!!  I love these early autumn days!

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the Zora Queen Rutela

26/03/2017 11:33 am \ 37 Comments \

OK, I’ve done some pretty involved and intensive projects in my time, in fact more often than not, lately! and this one definitely ticks that box too.

Quite a few months ago, Cassie mentioned that she wanted us to go to ComicCon together this year, and furthermore, she had already chosen a good costume for me to make…

source

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This is Queen Rutela, the queen and elder of the Zora; proud, elegant and graceful aquatic-people who reside in the Zora’s Domain in the Zelda universe.  If you’ve never heard of Zora, it’s ok, that’s perfectly normal because this stuff is the very height of geekiness and so far from the mainstream it’s a little embarrassing …  However! you have now!  She is a rather tragic character;  the story is as follows: Queen Rutela was the wife of the late King Zora and mother to Prince Ralis.  During the events of Twilight Princess, Shadow Beasts invade the Zora village, so Queen immediately sent her son to Hyrule Castle for his own safety and to inform Princess Zelda of what was going on, prompting the invaders to make an example of Queen Rutela by executing her in front of her people.

I liked the idea of going as Queen Rutela for several reasons, partly because she’s a mother so I felt she was age appropriate for me, also her story moved me because it is so sad, she’s so protective of her son and so motherly, it tugged at my heartstrings a bit.  But mostly, well, let’s be honest, because her attire and bearing is just so beautiful and I relished the challenge of giving a good go to making it!  Also, the Zora have always been my favourite species in the Zelda universe  🙂

ANYWAY!  here we go…

Firstly, the dress.  More accurately it’s a 3-piece ensemble, I made an ankle length petticoat/underdress, a skirt, and a long tunic top; all using white polyester stretch stuff (some leftovers, some new, variously from Spotlight, Fabulous Fabrics).  The plain, strapless, ankle-length petticoat is one I made many years ago, so long ago I’ve completely forgotten the pattern I used.  I never thought I’d say that, because I tend to remember patterns FOREVER, but not this time!  The skirt has the other “skirt-y” layers on an elastic waistband, and the tunic top is a drastically modified Nettie bodysuit, basically my go-to Tshirt pattern.  The sleeves are in two parts, a close-fitting “under” sleeve that is wrist length, and the “over”sleeve has a very high sleeve cap and a bell-shaped bottom edge that is gathered and “pouffed” into the under sleeve, then point-stitched in place to get artistic-y folding.  At the shoulder edge, the extra fabric in the sleeve caps is pulled in with three sharp darts; making a jutty-out sort of shoulder cap… that’s a technical term there, btw.

I stitched frilly “gills” to the side underbust area.

Oh! I’m getting ahead of myself… those frills were formed in the following way; I clean-cut the eyes using my rotary cutter, then holding the edge just slightly and evenly stretched out, passed it over a candle flame; which melted the edges just a little and set them in a naturally curly frill.  I took a little bit of practise to get this just right, with the right degree of frill and with minimal scorching!  Fortunately, those bits that looked a bit charred black just crumbled off when I rubbed them between my fingers.

Once I’d made the three parts of the dress, I shrouded Bessie in plastic and newspaper, dressed her, masked off the bits that I wanted to remain white, and sprayed the skirt, then the top utra-carefully and judiciously with poppy red enamel spray paint (Bunnings)

The colour is a little brighter than ideal, I really really wanted a warm, dusky coral pink, but with spray paint you’re unfortunately stuck with whatever is in the VERY limited pre-mixed range…  🙁 /

Spraying was pretty scary, my application isn’t perfect, and there is a blotch on the R shoulder that is a bit heavy and which was pretty devastating for a while, but I had no choice really but to accept what I’d done.   As it turned out I shouldn’t have worried too much because you couldn’t even see the blob once my headpiece was on!

Next, the fin/wings… I cut four-layers in light grey polyester organza, and simply stitched all layers together by skinny zig-zagging around all edges, and slip-stitched it in places to the top of the sleeves.


Next, the jewellery; and this bit was lots of fun!  It’s a long time since I’ve played about with jewellry-making and I really enjoyed it  🙂 I used Super Sculpey modelling clay, jewellery wire and gold metallic acrylic paint (Spotlight) and some really lovely turquoise glass jewels (Fabulous Fabrics), and baked my pendants in the oven before painting them, and stringing them together.  It’s hard to see the exact details of the Queen’s jewels in the short footage of her that there is, and what’s more, the details seem to vary from picture to picture, so I took a little creative license and designed my own, closely inspired by what I knew of the Zora style, and the arrangement that I could see from the footage.

The body-lace fastens at the small of my back; the necklace is supposed to sit out very wide on her shoulders, and I managed to get this look by stitching rings halfway along my shoulder, and the necklace clips onto these, wide on each shoulder.  I also made a “beaten gold” collar/choker from interfaced gold metallic jersey (Spotlight), hand stitched radiating lines over it, and stitched the last pendant to it, then stitched white vinyl “petals” (Clark Rubber) around the lower edge.  This closes by press studs at the back.

Headpiece: it’s simply a long tail in the same polyester stretch, stuffed with Hobby Fill (Spotlight). I inserted fins of fabric-covered cereal-box cardboard into the side seams, and I took the precaution of spray-painting the cardboard ivory first because the polyester is kinda see-through, and stitched it to the rim of a red swimming cap, also catching into the stitching a white plastic face-mask (Spotlight)

Now for the hair!  This took quite a bit of nutting out…. I’d stretched the bathing cap/head-tail/face mask contraption to Mr ‘Ed, my foam head, above.

For the hair I used skinny foam noodle (Clark Rubber) and stitched the top bit of the hair through all layers.  This stuff is pretty bouncy with a mind of its own, but I damn well forced that sucker to be what I wanted it to be with firm and masterful stitching to get the folded part/hair at the centre top. Take that, foam noodle!!  BOW TO MY WILL…

The blonde “coral” hair was easier and actually lots of fun, like being in kindergarten again… I snipped it into lengths, and painted the bits with various mixed shades of pale yellow, shaded with addition of lilac and metallic gold.  I wanted the hair to be in shades because we all know a flat colour just looks fake and, well, flat, any painted thing always looks so much more vibrant and real and rich when it has several different shades in it.  Going to this much effort sounds complicated and maybe even unnecessarily involved, but I whizzed through making the hair, loving every paint stroke.  I strung them on yellow thread and stitched them to the cap through all layers, and painted part of the top layer of hair in the same way.  There is 35m of noodle in this thing… I can hardly believe that myself but yes, really!

One “strand” came off while I was pulling the thing onto my head, aaaaagh NOOOOOO! which was a bit of a worry, obviously! but I had plenty of “hair” and luckily every other bit stayed put.

The final step was to spray-paint the top side of the head-tail with the same poppy-red spray paint.  Scary!! but I was super SUPER careful… On another note, this picture below gave me a laugh! the head looks hideous, the stuff of nightmares!!!  Zoe “looks” terrified but of course she wasn’t… she’s knows what’s real and what’s not.  Even on Saturday morning when I emerged from the bedroom in full costume plus makeup, all the cats just looked at me, maybe a bit quizzically! but they still knew it was me.

Oh, wait… doing the make-up was the final step, of course!  I painted white dots around her brow line, just like in my inspiration pic, and then trimmed away the mask.  Cassie suggested a strip of Hollywood tape on my nose, which helped keep the nose piece firmly in place throughout the day.  Also, with amazing luck, Priceline had a 40% off all makeup sale in the days beforehand so I got some white translucent face-powder and rather horrible bright red rouge-y stuff for the matching poppy-red circles under my eyes and lips.

   

The photo at the top is my first attempt to photoshop myself into a fake background!  pretty good, huh?!  this actually took me aaaaaaages… hehe, #photoshopnoob Well, I felt like Queen Rutela just HAD to appear in Zora’s Domain or it would be, well, you know, just like an unfinished and half-done effort, so I decided I just had to do it!

I didn’t get any photos of me actually at ComicCon in Perth unfortunately; we were just having way too much fun! plus my gloves made it impossible for me to operate my phone!  However about a million people asked to take my picture, which is not as weird as it sounds, it’s just the done thing at ComicCon when you dress up; everyone does it!  Also it was highly gratifying when people recognised my character, totally made my day!!!  Every now and then I would hear a call; “Queen Rutela!!!!!” which was really nice!

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bobblehead

14/03/2017 2:54 pm \ 35 Comments \

Note; apologies for the latent loopiness of this post.  Sombre, serious, meaningful and purposeful sewing and discourse thereof shall recommence in the near future…. or maybe not…

So, recently I was queued up in Spotlight and spotted some mini snowball-like bobble trim.  … bobbles! so playful! sooo cuute!

I just absentmindlessly picked it up, and then I didn’t want to put it down again.  Realised that I really really wanted, nay, needed, bobble trim in my life, like now.

See, I’m in the middle of making a monstrously involved, head-explodingly complicated costume for Comic Con…  well never mind that right now.   I’ve been working on it for what feels like forever but has only been a couple of weeks actually.   #imgonnalookridiculous

It just felt so nice to indulge in making something super quick and easy as a wink, like this.

Anyhoo.  2m of very lightweight gauzy cotton muslin (Spotlight), always handy to have lots of this around, btw!  cut in half down the middle along the grain line.  I folded a skinny 3mm (1/8″) hem under twice around all edges and top-stitched catching the bobble trim underneath at the same time…

Done!!

Details:

Dress; Named patterns Inari tee dress, in red/white sweatshirt fleece, details here
Scarf; lightweight cotton gauze/muslin, edged in bobble trim
Red sandals/thongs; made by me, details here
location; playground at the Scented Gardens; South Perth foreshore

I have a new scarf, weeee!

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Jungle-y underdaks

29/01/2017 10:31 am \ 28 Comments \

Can you even see my latest creations…?  Not really?  Well, that’s because it’s all so perfectly and beautifully camouflaged in the deepest, darkest, greenest depths of my garden I mean… the jungle, of course!!

So it’s January, and I’d begun to notice a few jungle-y things popping up on my IG feed… oh, it’s that time again…? well alrighty then!!!  hurrah!  Jungle January!  the brainchild of Anne of Pretty Grievances  I LOVE sewing challenges!

I’m continuing on with my tradition of making a new set of bra plus undies for my thing.  The last two years I’ve taken the humble frog as my inspiration, firstly here and secondly here… this time I wanted something different, and by that I meant a creature other than a frog.  I had a few different ideas…  but nothing jumped out at me… finally I just thought; I’m going to google “jungle” and select the top rating picture as my inspiration, no further argument.  I did, it, held my breathe, what creature was I going to have to “interpret”…?  and this is what came up…

source, kingofwallpapers.com/jungle

THE JUNGLE ITSELF.  OF COURSE!!!  #facepalm

Truly magnificent, yes?  Nature at its most glorious.

First impression; well, just GREEN.  How extravagantly, intensely, and totally green it was.  Fabricwise, I was immediately reminded of a length of stretch stuff that Mum had tossed out and that I had immediately squirrelled away, it has a random painterly print on it; predominantly green with some blobs of other colours subtly melting all together; I think it was originally from Fabulous Fabrics.  I dug it out, positioned my pattern pieces on it strategically so as to include as much of the greenery bits as possible, emphasise the “jungle-y” parts of it as much as I was able.

There are even a few, almost snake-scale-y bits, ranging from mossy, yellow-y green…

right though to an almost aqua green

…and can you almost imagine here the golden sunlight breaking through the high-up leafy canopy, and maybe a bright scarlet flash of parrot’s wings, or a single jungle bloom…?

   

Patterns; my old favourite MakeBra bra pattern, and the two pairs of matching briefs are both cloth habit Watson.  I used the makeBra instructional video on how to make a foam-lined bra to make mine; it’s a brilliant video, completely foolproof.  Some of my materials like the foam and some of the elastics are from the MakeBra basic kits that I bought last year, though the underbust bra elastic is from Homecraft Textiles because the stuff in the MakeBra kit is not such good quality this time, unfortunately.  The lingerie elastic on the undies is from Spotlight.  I bought up a huge amount of this during a sale one time and am still using it up!

 

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