Sienna Archives - Page 17 of 32 - Handmade by Carolyn

Coming to my senses…

20/01/2012 5:34 am \ 25 Comments \ Carolyn

Employing that pleasing dichotomy of minimal with steam-punk in my outfit today… yeah?
Dichotomy.
Is good stuff.
Now, I’ve had a re-think. And thank you all for helping me to come to my senses! I did feel a little out of my comfort zone after posting yesterday, and after sleeping on it I felt even worse about it …
The specific cost of my personal things is, I have decided, personal. It feels very uncomfortable for me to be publicising it. That’s just the way I was brought up, so I’m not going to excuse that.
Even amongst my closest friends I would not dream of announcing how much an outfit cost. That would be like extreme bad manners… so why did I think I would be OK with doing the same on the blinking internet?? (face palm)
Besides, the numbers I put down here are meaningless to most people who might even read my blog, apart from other Australians. And only fellow Perthies will understand about the fabric and yarn limitations here… And I do not want to attract judgement, condemnation or pity from the inevitable comparisons, which I would certainly do if I really started publicising how much things actually cost here… so I will be keeping tabs on my clothing creations this year, in exactly the guidelines I laid down yesterday, but I will probably be keeping the figures to myself.
Unless I change my mind again 🙂
A woman’s prerogative, you know…. 😉

Details:
Top; top “b” from Unique Clothes Any Way You Like by Natsuno Hiraiwa, white cotton, details here
Skirt; Vogue 7303, ivory wool-mix suiting
Sandals; Micam by Joanne Mercer; from Hobbs shoes

Necklace; urbandon , here
Isn’t this the coolest thing?! My new favourite accessory…

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, random life stuff, Sienna

A small silk surprise

24/12/2011 1:56 am \ 22 Comments \ Carolyn

I think it is safe to put this here since no one in my family is going to be reading my blog at this late stage in the game…
And if you are a family member reading this, then quickly; avert your eyes! Now! 😀

There is to be one of those Christmas lucky-dips-with-a-strict-budget at the family gathering this year and I racked my brains to come up with a wearable something, both lovely and of high quality as well as handmade. My gift had to be for a girl, and had to suit any one of a range of hair and skin colours; from beautifully grey, to a pale ash blond, to rich chocolate-y black, and to a true strawberry blond. All divine hair colours on their individual heads, and for each of which I would rejoice in choosing just exactly the right colours, if only I knew which fair hand would be the one to pluck out my own little offering…
I spied this absolutely delicious silk chiffon at Fabulous Fabrics, and could buy just enough for a little scarf. With its shades of warm pale pink, blue-y murky green, bronze and with just a little bit of black I reckon it is perfect. It spoke to me a sense of dusky, pastel, subtle and yet warm and rich, all at the same time. What a find!
Simply edged with a rolled hem in black.

And just because this picture below made me smile (seeing Sienna’s furry face always does) and just because “finding the dog” is fun…! can you spot her this time?

Details:
Scarf; silk chiffon (and don’t worry, it was only worn for just these few pictures before being safely tucked away)
Dress; modified Simplicity 3745, pink lace and pink border lace, details here
Petticoat; Burda 8071, pink satin, details here
Sandals/thongs (new! a present to myself!); Misano from Marie Claire shoes

(impatiently) What? Not more photos… let’s go, already!

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: scarf, Sienna

On the rocks…

17/12/2011 2:49 pm \ 12 Comments \ Carolyn

… in my on-going part-time quest to get great pictures with my dog; can you see her? She is there in the picture… just.
Camouflaged well in amongst the rocks…
Blue and green together is such a great summer time colour combination. They look so fresh and clean together.
In sewing news; I am squeezing an insane amount of sewing in amongst glasses of champagne, canapes, and strawberries and small pieces of chocolate fudge cake impaled on skewers so you can dip them into a chocolate fountain… and btw, YUM (it’s a tough life but somebody has to do it) But all my current projects are top secret coal-and-dagger stuff; mwahaha. To be revealed at a later date….

Details:
Top; from Pattern Magic 3 by Tomoko Nakamichi, green cotton jersey, details here
Shorts; Burda 7723, white linen, details here and my review of this pattern here
Cardigan; Metalicus

ps. she is the slightly more orange “rock” at the top left.

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, Sienna

Iceberg garter-stitch jacket

13/12/2011 3:22 pm \ 41 Comments \ Carolyn

With impeccable timing I have finished a toasty warm little knitted jacket. Yeaah, just in time for these really hot hot summer days ahead, hehe… I’m a bit sad about having to pack it away for a while, but that’s my own silly fault for starting my new winter cardi during winter. 😉 It is the shorter (version 1) Garter Jacket from Jo Sharp Knit 6… As soon as I laid eyes on this design I loved the boxy shape and interesting stitch arrangement but when I saw an actual made-up example in real life I thought it was a bit bulky and a bit big in the body for my tastes. So I took a punt that using a finer gauge yarn could work out quite good…. and I think it did! Basically instead of using the thicker gauge Aran Tweed recommended in the instructions I used the thinner DK Tweed, knitted up to its own recommended tension (not the one in the pattern instructions for the thicker yarn) and I also knitted up the very smallest size. I still followed all the instructions for number of stitches and rows etc… but the smaller scale gauge of the thinner yarn resulted in a smaller and finer cardi; not too thick and just right in my opinion. Another bonus to this approach was that I needed only 9 balls, as opposed to the 11 balls required in the thicker yarn.
Those gorgeous wooden buttons are made by Dad. Thank you Dad! I am lucky to have such a clever father.

Details:
Cardigan; Garter stitch jacket from Jo Sharp Knit 6, in Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed in colour Iceberg
(the individual pattern is available by digital download here)
Jeans; Burda 7863 modified, rusty stretch corduroy, details here and my review of this pattern here

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: cardigan, daily outfit, Jo Sharp, knitting, Sienna

The day of the bushfires

25/11/2011 9:29 pm \ 21 Comments \ Carolyn

(Wrote all this yesterday, but our internet here is being veeery dodgy at the mo)

Thank you Robyn, for your thoughtful well-wishes; our family and house are safe. I was a little bit concerned about my parents who are both active in the volunteer rural firefighting community, since I couldn’t contact them by phone for over a day. I found out tonight they are both fine.
The news about the bushfires has been terrible though. Overnight, 39 houses in Margaret River and Prevelly have been lost and thousands of acres burnt to the ground. In small towns like these, that is pretty devastating. The weather conditions over the past two days were high winds and extremely high temperatures, adding up to ideal bushfire conditions. This weekend is schoolies weekend, and 350 schoolkids bound for Margaret River and Prevelly have been diverted to Dunsborough, our town; and where we have been for the past few days. There are other people who temporarily evacuated to Dunsborough, who will have found out today whether or not their properties have been lost.
I took this photo while walking on the beach yesterday and obviously at this moment didn’t know what was happening. The good news is that cooler temperatures and a little bit of rain today have helped the firefighters enormously.
And I think everyone is just grateful that there has been no loss of life…

Details:
Top; my own design based on top “a” from Unique Clothes Any Way You Like by Natsuno Hiraiwa, made of scraps of “Smoky” shot cotton, details here
Shorts; Burda 7723, charcoal gabardine, a wardrobe refashion of an old skirt of Cassie’s, details here

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, random life stuff, Sienna

Crescent moon

22/11/2011 3:51 am \ 26 Comments \ Carolyn

Now my new little top here is a very quick and easy, yet still interesting design. And like all the designs from the Pattern Magic series; very very clever too, and another example of a “why hasn’t anyone thought of this before” sort of a garment. This one from Pattern Magic 3, by Tomoko Nakamichi.
The names of the designs are so interesting, are they not? Some of them are so full of imagery and poetry. Like this one for instance. When the garment is laid flat you can see at once the inspiration for its moniker. Crescent moon. How clever and beautiful. Just typical of Japanese design and their artistic sensibility towards shapes and images in nature; a concept I really relate to.
For this I used some more of the leftover jersey scraps from the bundle given to me by my friend C, from her late mother’s stash. I had to cut and join the darker blue fabric to get a piece large enough, but that is OK since it is the bottom layer and the seam just looks like an underarm side seam whilst you are wearing it. To finish; the raw edges were overlocked, turned under once, and topstitched down from the outside.
I love the way that when you are wearing it, from the front it just looks like you are wearing a rather ordinary cropped little Tshirt, with maybe just the stripe as its lone interesting feature. However as one turns around, it transpires one is wearing an elegant little draped cape, with a flattering, widely scooped back neckline.
And since capes are “in”, albeit for the northern autumn/winter scene right now, I’m serendipitously fashionable too. In a summery southern hemisphere sort of a way…
Rather chic, yes?

Details:
Top; from Pattern Magic 3 by Tomoko Nakamichi, two different colours of cotton jersey scraps
Shorts; Burda 7723, white linen, details here
Camisole (underneath); Country Road
Thongs; Mountain Designs

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, Pattern Magic 3, Sienna, top

A sleeveless top, con latte

12/11/2011 2:19 pm \ 46 Comments \ Carolyn

I’ve made a new top!
This is the little top from Vogue 1248, made of a light cotton voile the colour of pale milky coffee, and with miniature metallic silver polka-dots dotted sweetly all over like a starry starry sky…
the most interesting feature of this top is that it has a triple collar. This, I love. How cool and easy is this idea? so simple and so cute and yet you don’t see multiple collars very often, if at all. When I was planning the top, I thought how wonderful it would be to make the collars in different colours to really show off this feature but couldn’t find matching weight fabrics in colours I liked, and I vetoed as being too wasteful the idea of dyeing tiny little collar-sized pieces of fabric. So in the end I took the easy route of just using all one fabric. Next time… and yup, I am already plotting a next time, mwahaha (watch this space!)
The top also has snap-opening plackets both front and back, and I chose silver snaps to match the tiny silver dots on the fabric.
I’m not thrilled with the snaps… because my fabric is very very light and just may be too fragile for snaps, yikes! Undoing the snaps I am veeery carefully and slowly prising them apart, absolutely terrified of ripping the fabric. But this is completely my fault for not putting in heavy-duty enough interfacing to stabilise the plackets enough, something to bear in mind.
Another unusual feature about this little top; the two fronts and the two backs just go into the collar; with no shoulder joining seams, or any shoulder at all, for that matter! So really my calling it a sleeveless top is not going far enough; it is more specifically a shoulderless as well as a sleeveless top. I just went with “sleeveless” because; well, “sleeveless and shoulderless top” up in the blog post title is not super-succinct but is a bit of a mouthful and would have just befuddled and confused and had y’all going, “wha’?? no sleeves and no shoulders, well how can there be any top even left?”…. but yeah, one’s shoulders are bare too. This will a good feature for summer in a hot hot climate like ours; just as long as one remembers to slather on that suncream before heading out.
Following the “finishing off as well as I can” policy; the princess seams are flat-felled, the side seams are French seams, and the armhole facings are edged with self-fabric HongKong seaming but with the fabric reversed so as to have the silver dots hidden inside.
(left; inside the top and clockwise; HongKong seaming around the facing, flat-felled princess seaming, French side seaming: at right; that interesting triple collar)

Details:
Top; Vogue 1248, pale coffee cotton batiste with tiny silver polka-dots
Skirt; Burdastyle 10/2010, 136, made of black suiting, details and my pattern review here
Shoes; Misano, bought from Labels boutique

Pattern Description:
Top: fitted front and back snap closing
Pattern Sizing:
4-10 in this envelope, I made a straight size 10
Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you had finished sewing it?
yes
Were the instructions easy to follow?
yes
What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern?
I totally adore the triple collar feature!! Sooo cute! Will be doing this one again for sure, and using different coloured fabrics to highlight the three collars next time…
The length is a nice one which allows the top to look equally good out loose as well as tucked in.
Fabric Used:
very lightweight cotton batiste
Pattern alterations or any design changes you made:
I didn’t make any pattern alterations, but I did flat-felled seams on the princess seams, French seams at the side seams, and applied self-fabric HongKong seaming on the armhole facing edges.
Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others?
Yes, I am already planning my next version in multiple fabrics, to show off that adorable triple-collared feature…! I do recommend this cute and slightly unusual little top pattern to others too.
Conclusion:
Initially I was a little skeptical about this top pattern, as I tend to shy away from clothes which require special undergarments, but well, logically if you own a halter neck bra then you should wear it at least once in a while, no? And I do love this cute little top, I think the shape is flattering, feminine and quite unusual. My husband likes my shoulders on show like this, and I think the high neckline still gives the top a modest flavour and doesn’t make me feel too exposed so it is a win all round!

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, pattern review, Sienna, top, Vogue 1248

Kelly-green cardigan

10/11/2011 7:00 am \ 30 Comments \ Carolyn

Remember how I mentioned fashioning a little cardi out of the leftovers from the ponytail top? Well, here ’tis!
If I say so myself this was a minor miracle in cutting out; why? Well I originally had bought this Kelly green jersey to make a St Patrick’s Day thingy which was actually cut out but not made up. It struck me early on in the piece that the finished garment would be tres hideous and could never ever been worn without inviting well-deserved mockery, so it was abandoned before any actual sewing was done. However, the perfectly-good-for-something-if-only-I could-work-out-what-it-was fabric was too good; a great colour (as long as it was separated from the St Patrick’s Day concept) and there was too much of it to just ruthlessly toss out. Luckily the pieces I had cut out were big enough to get the Pattern Magic ponytail top, and there were still some reasonably good sized pieces and scraps left after that, so I played with them. This is the result of my “play”; at my kind of “Play-Station”, if you will, hehe. The back of the cardigan is quite short and the two fronts are quite skinny and so give a rather sex-ay decolletage, but y’know what? I like that. I feel like the unusual shape is happily avant-garde and cool.

Something that may not be immediately apparent on first sight, but which amused me while I was making the cardi is this: the whole cardigan is made of just one fabric, and thread, and that is all. I used pieces of the same fabric for all the trims, and the buttons and closures are all made of the self-fabric also. Interesting little factoid, yes?
The closure is with long strips of self-fabric that were laid horizontally and topstitched down on the front of the cardi… as they go off the front edge these are faced with the same fabric (for stability and to lessen stretching through use) to make ribbon ties at the front. The front opening edges of the cardi were decoratively finished with two separate long strips; the underneath one is a wider straight cut strip, and then with a pinked narrower strip sewn on top. I’m really happy with the look of this, it is an interesting edge but still a unobtrusive as it is of the same fabric. The pinked edges remind me of banksia leaves…

The front lower edges are left raw, and the back lower edge of the cardi was finished with a strip like this: (I did this because the lower back edge is subject to stretching, and so this strip is cut on the grain to stabilise and strengthen this area)

The sleeve tabs were made in the same way as the front opening edge trim and faced with self-fabric facing, and I made knot buttons of the same fabric to decorate…

While making the trims and buttons, I also amused myself by comparing what I was doing to Chanel’s jackets, which famously are often edged with trims made of the self fabric in various incarnations. So my own secret joke is to think of this as a Chanel-inspired cardi. Of course there is no quilted lining and the hemline is not weighted and therefore no real resemblance at all to a Chanel jacket…! but well, I did say “inspired” and one has to use one’s imagination here! Another little fact about Chanel’s earlier work is this: at a time when such fabric was considered only suitable for men’s underwear, her clothing was made of knit jersey … another tenuous little link, no?
But all the oddly shaped pieces and non-classic silhouette are very un Chanel!

Details:
Cardigan; my own design, Kelly-green cotton jersey
Dress; Simplicity 3745 modified, pink lace and beige border lace, details here (this is my other pink lace dress and not the one from yesterday’s post; embarrassing to admit I have two pink lace dresses but this is my more casual everyday one so that makes it alright, yes?)
Petticoat; Burda 8071, pink silk satin, details here
Shoes; Bronx, from Zomp shoes