Tag Archives: Own Design

Flat out

18/12/2010 2:07 pm \ 9 Comments \

Ahhh, delightful albeit exhausting day…
Up early for a long walk with my good friend S; but on a low note, I was saying goodbye to her as she is heading back home to NZ.  I’m very sad to see her go.  She’s a delightful lady; great company, sweet, intelligent and funny, and been a really good friend to me.  She’s a rare lady; a Kiwi who actually likes Australia, and says so.  That’s refreshing.

I can’t wait to plan my next visit to see her.
Later a mammoth shopping excursion for a Christmas do we’re hosting tomorrow…
And even later; well, my favourite shop, Fabulous Fabrics has been having a huge sale, and, yes I had to pay them a visit.  But it’s OK.  Really.  You see, I’ve been buying my family’s Christmas presents, from them to me.  It makes sense.  You see, nobody ever knows what I would like, although I don’t get what is the mystery as I can think of, like, a zillion things, hehe…   but, long and short, my family will be wrapping up lengths of fabric,  zips, lining and interfacing to put under the Christmas tree… it sounds a loopy thing but really it makes it all so much easier for everyone, and with the 20% off prices, it is sensible to be buying it now, rather than next year…  So thankyou, my loved ones., for lavishing me with an oh so generous stash injection; all in my favourite colours, perfectly co-ordinating with my current wardrobe, filling in some gaps…  Oh my, so thoughtful…
One needs to express a least a smidgeon of delighted reaction upon opening one’s own presents to oneself… otherwise it just doesn’t work right.  This is an important component of self-gift-giving.

Details:
Shirt; Burda 7767 with minor design modifications here, cotton/linen chambray
Skirt; modified Vogue 7303, olive corduroy
Scarf; refashioned from old Tshirt, here
Sandals; Vincenzo, from Soletta shoes
Sunnies; RayBan
Bag; Gucci

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Khaki scarf; a refashion

06/12/2010 5:18 am \ 14 Comments \

I took the Tshirt below and followed my own tutorial to make this new knotted scarf.  Though for this one I cut the front in two pieces and the back in three…  
Nothing earth-shattering, but will be a useful little thing to go with the other khakis in my collection…
I love khaki/olive, obviously; one of my best neutrals.  This was my daughter’s old Tshirt, and when she gave it the heave-ho I baggsed it; immediatement.  That last word is Franglaise, a form of butchered French/English, a language often employed in this household… er, by me mostly.  I do have this bad habit of making up words and sometimes even talk in weird, vaguely European accents, particularly after a few drinks.  I haven’t on this occasion.  Had a few drinks, that is.  So got no excuse, really.
Back to the scarf…
The Tshirt in its original form was one of those really badly constructed ones that would not lie straight, and developed strange twisted folds if you tried to fold it flat along the side seams when hanging it up on the clothesline.  This is because the sides were cut and sewn just a little bit off.  Grrr… my pet hate.  Look how it used to be, below… soooo skewiff.  So I was pretty elated to be given the opportunity to take the scissors to it. 
Now it has a new lease on life, and will not cheese off this laundress ever ever again.  Hehehe….

Details:

Top and cardigan; Country Road
Pants; drafted by me, white linen
Scarf; refashioned from an old Tshirt
Thongs (flipflops); Mountain Designs

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An unappreciated skirt

01/12/2010 2:58 am \ 8 Comments \

Rummaging around in my wardrobe I came out with this skirt which has only been worn a mere handful of times; poor thing.  I was so pleased with it when I had finished it, so I’m not sure why I haven’t been reaching for it more often.  I think, even though I’ve been trying to work my way through the wardrobe evenly, I still stubbornly and faithfully go for the same old favourites.  I think we fall in a habit of wearing certain items.  You know, you reach for the “safe” clothes time and time again, even though they may be looking a little shabby and past their best, and you fail to notice some of the new-ish clothes that you haven’t quite worked out how to work into your ensembles yet… exhibit A; this skirt.  I’m going to ease it into circulation more.
Also these shoes, which I bought probably seven or eight years ago.  They are really cute, but I haven’t worn them in about three years.  I’d been looking for a new pair of flattish black shoes to fit my very strict shoe criteria.  This is an annoyingly vague rule; shoes absolutely must excite me with some sort of “it” factor that I can only recognise when I see it.  Also, preferably, to be manufactured in a country with ethical employment practices…  but my search was failing dismally.  Then I came across these tucked away at the back of the wardrobe.
Jackpot!!

Details:
Dress, worn under as petticoat; Burda 8071in embroidered cheesecloth, to see this styled in 6 different ways, go here
Skirt; drafted by me, made from leftover linen scraps from my husband’s shirts, here
Cardigan; Country Road
Scarf; made out of an old tanktop, here
Shoes; Jocomomola

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Further from yesterday

28/11/2010 3:58 am \ 4 Comments \

Thankyou so much for your thoughts yesterday … and many of your comments resonated quite clearly with me and my own thinking on this subject; I also read a little bit more on Natalie’s findings and summary of her yearlong challenge here.  The bit about recognising the work of experts in their field (ie. shoemakers) and not trying to metaphorically reinvent the wheel, spoke to me.  I also had been feeling, like a lot of post-modernists, that I should be doing more for myself and making as much as I could… relying less on store-bought.  This is rooted in good intentions, but has limitations.  I can’t see myself attempting to make my own shoes or sunglasses, for example.  Is this a cop-out?  Well, no, because although I like to set myself challenges and rise to them, I do understand the findings of the makeshift project that some components of a project can be just so much wasted time for an amateur and that unnecessary self-imposed hardship could be viewed as just plain silly.  And just to clarify: I don’t view Natalie’s challenge as at all silly, on the contrary; I have enormous admiration for her achievement…
On the subject of challenges, well I have already committed myself to not buy any new clothing for myself, and I feel quite comfortable with that one, and actually not particularly challenged by this rule at all.  Thus my need to search for a new challenge?
I also feel that making new garments for myself, like basics such as Tshirts… when I have perfectly good ones already sitting in my drawers, is counterproductive.  So perhaps I’m just not ready for this particular challenge.  The notion of not allowing myself to wear certain items of clothing in my possession just because they happen to have been bought in a store, is not practical, and really doesn’t prove anything to anyone.
But I will continue to make my own clothes, and as the old store-boughts get to the stage of being consigned to the rag-bag, maybe I will be ready to do this challenge for myself.

But not the shoes!!

Details:
Skirt; my own design, based upon a basic three (six?) gore pattern Butterick 3134, printed polyester chiffon
Top; Tbox
Hat; Country Road
Tongs (flipflops); Mountain Designs
Sunnies; RayBan

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The makeshift project

27/11/2010 4:04 am \ 7 Comments \

Oh, I am in a much better mood today since my family turned up here last night… I swear I was getting a minor case of …something mental… here all by my lonesome and carrying on one-sided conversations with the dog; her contribution was just supportive tail-wagging and loyal loving looks… kinda like one of those weird psychological films.
So I apologise sincerely for any escalating grumpiness over the past few days.
Last evening while internetting by myself, I discovered an awesome blog, makeshift, where a clothing designer went for a year wearing only items of clothing made by herself, including shoes and underwear, oh and sunglasses too!!  I only wish I had discovered her at the beginning of her journey as her year is now over and she doesn’t seem to be making many entries in her blog since she finished a few months ago.  Such an impressive feat; and not only has her determination inspired me but I adore all her clothes and designs, she looks modern, comfortable and edgy in all her outfits.  I want to be edgier too now, my current clothes are boring me at the mo.  Practicality is winning out over style here…
The concept of going all self-made is something I’ve toyed with in my own head before, although not to the extreme of making my own shoes; this is beyond my capabilities.  Not to mention I love my current shoe collection too much…  Though, is there a shoe-making course to be found in Perth…?
I am going to give this some thought.  I do think I could go a year all self-made.  Bar shoes, oh and underwear … as I don’t see the point of making a new set of underwear when I have perfectly servicable set already.  Plus I’m not convinced making underwear is an interesting or worthwhile fashion statement.  I’ll only go to this extreme the day I can’t find underwear made in Australia anymore…
In my initial excitement I pondered doing this beginning the 1st January 2011, but realistically this will not work as we have an overseas skiing trip planned for January and I couldn’t possibly make my own snow-worthy gear… well, not in time.  I’m sure it is possible and some clever seamstresses out there have probably done it but for the climate where I live it just wouldn’t be worth my effort, honestly.  It has never snowed here in the history of time and probably isn’t going to any time soon.
Keep you posted.

Details:
Shorts; Burda 7723, white linen
Top; Country Road
Cardigan; my own design, jersey knit

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A difficult dress

24/11/2010 7:23 am \ 9 Comments \

Oh, so much for horrific leavers rowdy stories… so far I’ve only come across small bunches of delightfully friendly, polite and sweet teenagers who immediately want to pat Sienna and make friends with her.  Having a dog takes down a lot of barriers…  and seeing happy teenagers having fun on the beach has just made me miss my own kiddywinks and I really wish they were here with me…  sigh…
My dress; first time here although it does not qualify as new.  I’ve really struggled with this dress.  This is its third incarnation, nearly two years in the making and I’m still not desperately in love with it… I bought this embroidered silk from Tessuti’s in Melbourne a few years ago, with the intention of making a full-skirted number inspired by a Burberry dress.  Full-skirted, fitted bodice, boatneck and with elbow length fitted sleeves.  I finished my version and it was a perfectly OK dress.  But it didn’t actually look very “me”.  I felt like I was dressing up in someone else’s clothes…
So I decided the full-skirt was the problem; I unpicked this and recut a more fitted skirt.  This was a little better, but by this time the allover embroidery and sameness of the fabric was just screaming at me “TOO MUCH” and I had to put it aside for a few months.  Or a year.  You remember how the von Trapp children in the Sound of Music were all dressed in the curtain fabric so all their outfits were over-the-top matchy matchy??  The dress was like that.  Eventually I removed the bodice and sleeves, recut the skirt again and bought some goldy green silk for a plain bodice.  Sleeveless.
Better.
But still not…. quite…
I look at all my sewing and judge it by this criteria; would I buy this if I saw it in a shop?  And this dress; well I’m not so sure.
The fabric is so gorgeous; soft gold, apricot and muted mossy sagey green, nothing not to love there.  I’m forcing myself to wear it, hoping I will love it more with use.  But I’m not ready to reveal it without a cardigan yet.  I still look at it and can see all the angst in its inception…

Details:
Dress; partly my own design with components of Burda 8071, green silk, embroidered gold silk
Cardigan; Nine, from Labels boutique
Hat; Country Road
Thongs (flipflops); Mountain Design

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In which Sienna has a bad hair day…

18/11/2010 9:01 am \ 14 Comments \

We are having a mini heat-wave.  35C yesterday, 36C today and forecast 37C tomorrow…  (roughly 95F, 97F and 99F respectively)  I’m nervous about summer.  Yup, not even summer yet, and already we’re cookin’.  Not to mention the dog… all that fur… poor poppet.  So a few days ago, when the hot hot hot days starting appearing up ahead on the weather report I rang our neighbourhood dog groomer.
Oh, yes Sienna, one of my favourites!” she chirped.  “now let me see, when can I fit Sienna in… hmmm (sounds of multiple pages flicking… flicking…flicking) the earliest I have is the thirteenth of January.”
Stunned pause. 
“Oh.” Gulp.  “Oh, yes, please book us in”
Since when has it been harder to have one’s dog clipped than one’s own hair, for heaven’s sake?  Though I’m obviously a bit dense, because I now recall it was the same story last year and still I haven’t learnt about the importance of getting in way early…  I’m telling you, looking for extra summertime income? get some clippers and put yourself out there grooming dogs.  Around here at least, HUGE demand…  
But in the meantime, Sienna is already panting and falling back on our morning constitutionals so immediate action is required.  I’ve never clipped a dog before but am always up for a challenge and my overly-confident, can-do brain assured me seriously, how hard could this be?  Armed myself with a medium sized pair of scissors (a mistake… now have blisters) and set to work.  Like, hours later, simply smothered in dog fur (a daily outfit pic from yesterday would have been hilariously un-glamourous) and with a whole cushion sized bag of new blonde clippings in the bin, and below is pictured the newly coiffured Sienna.  (here is the before-Sienna) You know the old saying from schooldays when someone had a haircut “Lost a fight with the lawnmower?” well in all honesty the poor pet looks a bit this way.  Today my daughter’s boyfriend stopped in his tracks, staring incredulously before inquiring “what happened to the dog?”
But hey, I did the best I could do.  She was a very very good dog, lying so patiently while her inept mistress snipped snipped snipped away laboriously…  There are no nicks.  And there’s no doubt she is a heaps livelier and happier dog with a renewed spring in her step.

Details:
Top; my own design, refashioned old pair of 3/4 linen pants seen first here
Skirt; Vogue 7303, lime printed cotton
Sandals; Anna, from MarieClaire shoes
Hat; Country Road
Sunnies; RayBan

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Dove grey skirt, Japanese

09/11/2010 10:08 am \ 12 Comments \

So I’ve made a new skirt, this one is skirt “d” from the Japanese pattern book, “Unique Clothes Any Way You Like” by Natsuno Hirawai.  I’m already in love with its tendency to flutter and float about my legs as I walk in little ripply silver waves, promising to be delightfully cool to wear during summer!
The skirt is cut in one piece, which is a strange almost tear-drop shape, with only three other pieces for the waistband, and two separate button plackets.  I chose these three large nacre buttons for closure to complement the soft silver grey of the fabric.  Actually I made this using the wrong side of the fabric out.  The right side has a much more shimmery shiny metallic silver finish to it, but I chose the dull dove grey wrong side with a slightly felt-y texture over this as I’m not really a disco ball kind of a girl.  Although come to think of it I do have some silver sequinned fabric in my stash… calling to my inner disco queen, a flashy persona buried deep within the prosaic Australian exterior…  I must have bought it knowing she was down in there somewhere, hehe.
The shape of the skirt piece means that the one seam in the skirt joins a with-the-grainline edge on to a cross-grain edge, requiring absolutely straight-as-a-die cutting and sewing to avoid horrible wrinkles and bagginess around the seam.  If it wasn’t for this need for accuracy here I would rate this skirt as a laughably easy project… of course if you are working with a very stable strong fabric then this wouldn’t be a problem… but I chose this slippery crepe; wonderful draping qualities but with a tendency to shift and stretch.  I think I did an OK job with the seam, and I like how it cuts across the body diagonally providing a subtle random off-kilter focal point to what is otherwise a featureless A-line skirt.

Details:
Skirt; skirt “d”, “Unique Clothes Any Way You Like” by Natsuno Hirawai, pale mauve-grey crepe
Camisole; Country Road
Cardigan; my own design seen first here, black jersey printed with rubbery plastic snakeskin scales
Shoes; Perrini, had for so many years I’ve forgotten where they came from
Sunnies; RayBan

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