Tag Archives: Accessories

Mother’s Day

09/05/2010 4:13 am \ 2 Comments \

I know Mother’s Day is celebrated on different days in all the different countries of the world, but here in Australia we celebrate it on the second Sunday in May: which is today!  
My parents kindly had sent me a few photos of some of the items I’ve made for them over the years so I thought it a good day to put up a photo of the Goddess bag.  I made this for Mum ooh, probably about six years ago? I think?  Not sure…  (I’m getting shocking with remembering stuff like that…  I also think this could have been a birthday gift, not a Mother’s Day gift; again, memory not what it used to be and I’ve lost track in my own head of fine distinctions such as these… sad, no?)
This is a knitted bag with a sewn in lining and was made in a class at Ivy and Maude, now part of Calico and Ivy.
Mum looks gorgeous in colours such as these.  All of the jewel and green-y blue colours.  These are “her” colours.  This bag is composed of a mix of eclectic yarns; including some lurex, some mohair, some feathery type yarn, some chenille, some wool.  My favourite section has always been the shredded ribbon yarn around the bottom of the bag, in divinely smudgy and faded hues of putty, indigo, lavender and aqua, reminiscent of a watery undersea vista of a meadow of seaweedy tendrils…
I sincerely wish all the mothers reading this a perfectly looovely day, and I hope your offspring think to remind you of the wonderful person you are in their lives.  If they are teenagers, good luck with that one… (;D) however if they are little you are sure to be presented with lukewarm tea and toast on a tray in bed, and a beautiful handmade card.  I have all my children’s handmade cards safely tucked away and they always make me smile at their cute little designs, hand-drawn decorations and funny salutations.  My youngest son, even up until quite recently, always signed his cards to me with his full name, including his surname, ie.  Dear Mum, Happy Mothers Day to the best mother in the world, lots of love Samuel Smith.  So sweet, as if I would confuse him with another Samuel!
So, Happy Mother’s Day to all of you yummy Mummys out there!!

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Bottle green Basic

08/05/2010 2:36 am \ 10 Comments \

I made a new skirt!
This latest is the result of wanting a little quick and easy skirt that I could just throw on for any occasion, something like my olive green corduroy skirt that is such a staple in my wardrobe.  Plus my desire to incorporate a little more green in my wardrobe.  I used to have a lot of this colour once upon a time, but my green options have dwindled somewhat over recent years, suffering from my obsession with neutrals.  Plus I had seen this skirt at right in the Celine parade and thought how great the bottle green looked with all the other creams, whites, beiges, caramels and other light neutrals in the collection, and as I have such an overabundance of aforementioned neutrals in my wardrobe I thought it was high time for a return to an old favourite.  Thus, green.
Having said all that here I am wearing my new skirt with no such light neutrals as displayed so gorgeously by Celine but with the wintery shades of teal and my new air force blue scarf…. ah, paradoxical, no?  But I like the look of the green so much with these “dirty” blues just as well, so this is how I am wearing it for today… no doubt when spring starts to sprung (spring?) then I’ll be pairing this little skirt with my beloved neutrals as planned…
Sorry for the old chestnut Vogue 7303 rearing its head once more on this blog.  I only bought 70cm of fabric and needed a pattern that could cope with such a small amount.  This trusty old pattern is getting kinda fragile and is patched together with sticky tape in places, and its envelope is dog-eared and tattered, but still I keep turning to it.  Besides its economy with fabric, another plus is its sheer simplicity; it took less than an hour to run this number up.
I am constantly vacillating between wanting to source new and exciting patterns for my wardrobe, and then when the time comes reaching for the same old basic tried and true patterns…  I like to do both and don’t have a set formula when it comes to choosing my next project but just work on whim and fancy…  What do you do?  Do you use a pattern once and then move on to the next exciting challenge, or do you keep returning to the favourites in your pattern collection, or is it a bit-of-both?

Photo above from Celine Spring/Summer 2010

Details:
Skirt; Vogue 7303, bottle green cotton velveteen
Top; Metalicus
Scarf; refashioned from an old tank-top, here
Boots; Fornarina, from David Jones

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Knotty blue scarf

06/05/2010 6:56 am \ 8 Comments \

It’s been an embarrassingly long while since I did a re-fashion.  My big bag of toss-out garments is still sitting there, taunting me.  And this re-fashion is so … trite, it’s barely worth the label “re-fashion”.  Still, in my defence, there was not a lot of fabric to play with in this one, meaning, not a lot of re-fashion options.  But I like scarves.  And, bonus, I’m making a start on incorporating some air force blue into my wardrobe for winter.  Win!
So, starting with an old tank-top of my husband’s.  This is actually the top half of a pair of summer jammies, from a men’s sleepwear range brought out by Ian Thorpe the Aussie Olympic swimmer, that I’m chopping up here.  Sorry, Thorpie…

I simply cut off the top part of the tank-top at underarm level, and the bottom seam, for a raw edge.  The side seams were cut out also to get the raw edge, and the front and back remaining rectangles cut into three roughly equal width pieces.  (OK, very roughly…)

  
These were overlocked together, right sides facing.  When overlocking I also cut out the remains of that logo….  I didn’t use matching overlocker thread, but it doesn’t matter as these seams are to be hidden by knots.  

Where I’m knotting the sides are folded in slightly, just to hide the seam stitching, and simple knots positioned to hide the seams.

Et voila, a new air force blue scarf…

Details:
Skirt; Vogue 7303 lined, winter white wool crepe
Top; Metalicus
Cardi; Metalicus
Boots; Enrico Antinori
Scarf; refashioned from old tank-top
Bag; Gucci

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Birthday bag

05/05/2010 3:28 am \ 4 Comments \

Do you remember me posting about a top secret project I was working on last weekend?  Well today is my sister-in-law S’s birthday and I was making her a gift.  It’s a little bag she can use to hold make-up, or some such…  I met her for lunch yesterday and gave it to her then; since she looks at my blog from time to time I couldn’t post about it earlier!
Happy birthday S!

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Pistachio and lilac

16/04/2010 3:21 am \ 5 Comments \

The last time I went op-shopping at the Salvation Army I found this stunning lilac suede skirt.  Yes, you read correctly, suede!!  I cannot believe the lovely things people throw out sometimes…  It has a very slightly graded frill around the bottom, is completely lined in mauve lining and has a raw edge hemline.  It has one label reading Otto collection, and its care label is completely in Japanese.  It’s in immaculate condition and fits me perfectly.  And I love it.  And it was $10.  How could I walk away from a winner like that?
And since today is a glorious warm and sunny autumn day I’m wearing it with my pistachio linen top, refashioned from an old pair of drawstring pants here.  And my boots, because it was just chilly enough this morning that my feet were cold.  I’m not sure about this old necklace.  At the time I made it I though it was so wonderful, but now I’m going off it a bit…  I put it on because I wanted a bit of … something to add pizazz and fill in in the big open neckline of this top.

Details:
Top; own design, refashioned from old linen pants
Skirt; Otto collection, opshop
Necklace, own design, made by me
Boots; Enrico Antinori, Zomp

Just to show you, Polyvore just had a nautical competition and here is my entry.  Not very classically nautical (like, nearly every single other entry was navy, red and white with stripes tossed in there somewhere) but I was going for something a bit different and fun here.  And turquoise is so hot right now!!

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Knotted rope necklace; a tutorial

30/03/2010 3:23 am \ 12 Comments \

Even though we are technically well into autumn, with a forecast of 32C today it’s still feeling a lot like summer.  Not counting last week’s storm, that is.  The past week has been absolutely glorious.  So everyone is still dressing in summer type gear.  When you live here, that often means beachy inspired stuff. Beachside fashion is huge in Australia.  Particularly with teenagers.  I have no wish to go around looking like a teenager, but some beach and surf gear can be quite sophisticated and still fun.  The March issue of Vogue was all surf inspired, and I caught sight of this necklace.  You may be able to read the price of this thing printed there in the middle.  Yes, $110.  Hooley dooley!

This piece is interesting, colourful and ripe for a DIY.  Right up my alley.  Actually, confession, I bought the bits and pieces for this DIY about three weeks ago, and am just only getting around to it now, my experience at making my Chanel style chain belt put me off jewellery making for a while… but I needn’t have stressed as this was a breeze.
I bought 3m of brightly coloured cotton rope and some end bits.  This cost me about $10.  Not pictured here, but you also need a needle, scissors and matching thread.  I used embroidery thread, but that’s because I inherited a lifetime supply of this from my great-aunt and my grandmother, any thread would do.

Fold the rope into three equal lengths.

Simply knot the rope in five evenly spaced knots.  I spent a bit of time getting them exactly even but I’m a bit obsessive that way, and it would probably look just as good a bit more randomly spaced…

Measure around your neck where you want the necklace to hang and mark each of the ends with a pin.

Using your matching thread sew a few firm stitches through all layers to secure them together.

Cut the ends off, and sew on an end piece, using loose stitches so it stands away a bit from your rope end.

Finish off by winding the thread tightly around the rope ends to bind down any loose ends poking out, and secure the ends.

Voila and ready to wear!  Even though I attached jewellery ends to the necklace I find I can still slip it over my head pretty easily without having to undo the catch.
I like the funky, casual, different look of this necklace; its not your average kind of accessory (and so the perfect accessory for me) and cost a lot less than the original.  Win!

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Evening bag, specimen 1

14/03/2010 2:19 am \ 6 Comments \

So a new year brings with it a new round of birthday prezzies to be conceived.
For M’s birthday I made her this little evening bag.  It is made out of some leftover silk hessian (remember the heather purple dress?), with sparkly net overlay (remember the light summer cardigan?), velvet ribbon trimming and with pale pistachio green satin piping and lining.  I used a couple of large silver rings for handle loops and I sewed in one of my own labels, for fun.
I enjoyed making this bag, I think it’s cute and it was a lot less time consuming than the tea cosies of last year….

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“What a curious feeling…”

08/03/2010 5:01 am \ 4 Comments \

When I sat under this tree today I felt a bit like a gypsy-ish Alice in Wonderland.  I had this big solid tree comfortably at my back with its branches swaying and drooping, its canopy of foliage like a whispering crowd of woodland onlookers, I’m looking over a lake sprinkled with silent and watchful ducks and a couple of black swans drifting and foraging in the mud at bottom… all I needed was a cake and a bottle marked “Drink me” though the pool was not of my tears and I could see no dodo… my dog lay peacefully and companionably in the dry grass nearby watching me and waiting patiently for me to finish this strange early morning photography ritual… she’s a faithful soul.
I’m getting braver in my choice of colour combinations; a month ago I would never have worn this top with this skirt.  These golden jewelled sandals always feel so light, sparkly and frivolous on my feet, but the solid brown beads anchor me back down.  I need anchoring, to be reminded me I have a job to do and it’s time to check back into the office and leave my daydreaming for another day…

Details:
Top; Country Road, dyed with turmeric
Skirt; Vogue 7880 view B, multicoloured polyester chiffon
Necklace; made by me
Sandals; Anna, from MarieClaire
Nail varnish; Fools Paradise, BYS

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