Category Archives: Uncategorized

Domestic diva IV

20/09/2010 5:30 am \ 10 Comments \

Hmmm, so you can tell I’m getting a bit jaded with my usual photo spots lately?  Just jazzing it up around my own home at the present… and trying to inject a bit more fun into this daily fashion post thing!   I’m impressed with how fashion bloggers manage to do it and maintain interest…
For today’s Self-Stitched September effort; a purple sheath dress, made using Burda 8511, with my fitted-to-me custom fitting modifications.   And altered zip placement.  And incorporation of a full lining.  And a different neckline and hemline.  Just minor modifications…  Lol, I read once about someone who had bought a whole new sheath dress pattern, just because they liked the slightly different cut of the neckline to the one on the dress patterns they already had…?!  why you would get a whole new pattern just for this is … well, it’s unnecessary of course.
And the retro-swirly tights, first seen here.  With a major modification (hehe, new pattern not necessary for this!)… I chopped the feet off, and hemmed at ankle length instead.  I decided they’d be a little more useful and kinda more interesting to wear this way.  I had a lot of requests on Burdastyle to publish a pattern for these; well, a leggings pattern graded to suit everybody is beyond my amateurish capabilities, but I thought I’d do a little tutorial soon on how to draft one’s own leggings pattern to fit yourself at some stage… after this month is up.  This isn’t a difficult procedure and is a quick and easy project.  I promise.  Stay tuned.

Details:
Dress; Burda 8511, minor modifications, purple/blue raw silk
Leggings; self drafted, printed jersey knit
Shoes; Perrini, had forever

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Domestic diva III

19/09/2010 5:51 am \ 27 Comments \

This is an all-new outfit for today; another pair of corduroy jeans, these in my new favourite neutral, greige.  These are made using Burda 7863 again, fitted to me, with a zip placket and coin pocket added, and flared out from knee to ankle by about ten centimetres overall circumference wider than the pattern.  To line the waistband and pocket I used the very last of the leftover fabric from Sam’s shirt.   (and thanks, for your kind words of comfort about Sam being away, he will be back in a few weeks!)
The T-shirt is made from the leftovers of my Jailbreak dress, my own design, drafted roughly from T-shirts I already have.  I wanted to have the neck, sleeve and hemline binding stripes lined up perpendicularly to the body of the T-shirt; the only difficulty to achieving this effect was that the jersey fabric had no stretch in this direction.  However I managed to make it work; the bands fit nicely over my wrist but don’t contract snugly over my arms like a stretch would, c’est la vie…
The scarf is merely a strip of leftover fabric from my greige top with half-raglan sleeves, seen worn together like this it can be seen the new pants are going to be a perfect match for that top… yay for mono-tonal dressing!  According to my latest Vogue, mono-tonal is in in in!!  Along with the sailor-striped top… nice to know I’m looking sort of  “in” when just doing the housework, no?!
The socks are handknit by me also…
In blogger news, Trudy, of Sewing with Trudy, has awarded me with a Beautiful Blogger award, thankyou so much Trudy! Trudy always takes the time to leave a kind and thoughtful comment on my blog, and she has been so sweet and supportive of me!  I have received this award before so I am, however, thinking of you when I say I won’t try to think of yet another ten things about me (truly I’m not very interesting!), but if you wish to read the 10 things I wrote about before then you can click on the Beautiful Blogger button in my sidebar.

Details:
Jeans; Burda 7863 with a few modifications, greige corduroy
Top; my own design, striped jersey knit
Scarf; strip of greige jersey knit
Socks; handknit using Noro Kureyon sock yarn and Koigu sock yarn

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Domestic diva II

18/09/2010 4:26 am \ 9 Comments \

Captain’s log: Self Stitched September, Day 18; finding my no-double-up rule for this month tough…
Yes, I know this is self-imposed and I don’t have to, but I’m stubborn that way and will see it through.  Heaven knows, I have enough clothes.  It’s just making oneself wear some of the lurkers; garments that have been shoved back to languish in the far rear corner of the wardrobe…
There is actually nothing wrong with this dress.  It doesn’t deserve to be a lurker.  In fact the fabric is Gorgeous, capital intended.  In the close-up below can be seen the detail; sequins, silk embroidery, velvet/chenille ribbon threaded through, tiny cylindrical wooden beading…  the design is exquisite.  The fabric was a remnant from my favourite shop; Fabulous Fabrics.  The problem is in the pattern.  I just felt frumpy whenever I put it on.  This morning I decided it was the combination of the high collar with the general shapelessness of the dress that made me feel that way, so I did a bit of pinning and refitting and resewed the side seams to make it more form-fitting (Marilyn-esque? even though I hesitate to bring a mental image of such a bombshell to the reader’s mind when my more ordinary silhouette is there for comparison…!)   But now I feel far less “mother-of-the-bride”, and will hopefully wear this dress a lot more, like it deserves…
This evening we are going to the ballet, so I required a dress that would pass muster for this classy event.  When I went out during the day I just left off the stole and popped my trench coat on over…  The stole is simply a length of fake, fluffy fur that I just narrow zig-zagged along the cut edges… it is the perfectly warm and slightly glamourous evening wrap.
And yesterday saw my son Sam off at the airport for his big trip, he is off to France!  Exciting for him, but I will admit to a slightly choked-up moment at the departure gate… and I’m missing him already!  Funny, on the way home from the airport in the car I glanced at the car clock and a thought popped into my head; must get home, Sam will be coming home from school soon! then realised immediately.  Oh.

Details:
Dress; Vogue 2538, sequinned and beaded silk
Stole; strip of fluffy stuff, edges narrow zig-zagged
Shoes; akiel, op shop

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Domestic diva

17/09/2010 2:47 am \ 8 Comments \

The Maternity dress.  Oh, sorry, not aiming to mislead, I’m NOT expecting.  This is just the name I mentally gave to this dress ever since its debut out of the home atelier.  This final form here is quite a bit slimmer in line than its original incarnation, but it’s still a distinct “possible” to go to nine months with triplets in this dress…
Ok, ok, I am exaggerating…  I made this dress inspired by the Duro dress that was making a few waves on the fashion scene at the time, touted as being the dress shape that suited everybody… well not this body unfortunately.  After finishing it and staring aghast at my reflection in the mirror (and being told by the whole family that I did, indeed, look pregnant) I embarked on some frantic alteration; top-stitching the body pleats in order to streamline this thing… or people will have been asking me “when’s the happy time?” and I have been down that path and have retired gracefully from that particular stage of life, thanks…  after reducing about a third of the volume around the waist I was quite happy with the dress and wore it a lot last summer, so all is well that ends well, no?  The big, pleated patch pockets on the front are my favourite feature of the dress.  As well, it is a fabulous garment for hot weather; breezy, light and very comfortable, and I do feel pretty and feminine in it.  Just don’t want to look so feminine as to tip over into fecund…
The socks are handknitted by me, also.

Details:
Dress; Simplicity 3745, white dotted swiss voile and crocheted lace trim
Socks; handknitted by me, Noro Kureyon sock yarn
Shoes; Francesco Morichetti, from Zomp shoes

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Colour me Carpark

16/09/2010 8:05 am \ 15 Comments \

I’ve made a new top… and the colour is some sort of colour not really grey but not really brown, but something in between.  Brey?  Gr-own? Or just a darker version of my new favourite neutral; greige…  (later edit, duh, taupe!!)  I went into town today and it struck me my new top was the colour of carparks.  The colour of dirty cement and sooty steel piping.  That makes it sound awful, but really I find the colours, shapes and textures found in industrial and manmade environments can be just as artistically inspiring as natural ones…
The pattern I used is Butterick 4985, except with the sleeves from another pattern, as I prefer these “ordinary” sleeves to the rather frilly fancy ones supplied with the pattern.  I’ve used this pattern many times before…  The fabric is pre-gathered or shirred in an unevenly spaced wavy pattern on chiffon, which itself is printed with tiny paper-crane like motifs in ink blue.  It was only when cutting-out time came around that I noticed that the black shirred lines did not meet up nicely in a pattern repeat at all; all up and down unevenly, making pattern matching an absolute impossibility… I just had to give up on the idea of matching up those radiowaves!!  With the shirring it wasn’t terrifically easy to sew either, so I’m happy with how it turned out.  I just barely had enough fabric to cut out the blouse, so for the collar used some of the leftover lace from Cassie’s latest balldress (see here).  After sewing the sleeve hems by hand, I decided the edges looked unfinished, so I top-stitched some black lace braid along the edge.  I chose these little mis-shapen grey swirly buttons to finish it. 
The skirt; actually I’m not feeling this skirt anymore.  Remember when patched and shabby skirts with bits n’ bobs hanging off them were fashionable? well this skirt hails from that time.  It no longer excites me, I’m into a more tailored and simple pared back look in skirts at the mo.  But I decided to just utilise it for Self-Stitched September, and it does go quite nicely with the top, I think!  I used Vogue 7303 to make a lining (which is blue), then just patched together bits of black lace (see here) to make an over-skirt shape and sewed over the joining seams with black lace edging.

Details:
Top; Butterick 4985 with other sleeves, shirred printed chiffon with lace collar
Skirt; partly Vogue 7303, partly my own design, black lace and black lace edging strips
Shoes; Micam by Joanne Mercer, from Hobbs
Necklace; my husband’s very first gift to me! for my 21st birthday (not telling the year, so don’t ask!)
Bag; Gucci
Sunnies; RayBan

showing the lace collar, but check out the reflection in the sunglasses, lol!!

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On mixing prints

15/09/2010 4:31 am \ 8 Comments \

Yikes!  Mixing prints!  So easy to get very very wrong…  Now (confession) I am feeling a leetle out of my comfort zone here with the mixing of prints this morning; well on choosing the python print top I did plan to then play it safe with plain black tights but then a little bout of craziness came over me, I threw caution to the winds and grabbed instead these tartan tights that I bought several years ago and that were still folded perfectly crisp and new in their cellophane packet…  I had originally bought these tights with the view of wearing them with a (hypothetical) little black dress but never did.  This is a different look for me for sure, but I reckon these two prints still work together in the one outfit because the colours in the prints are all alike and furthermore in the safe and sombre neutral tones of charcoal, light grey, beige (greige?) and brown, and black.  Plus the very plain little charcoal skirt is a haven of simple, unadorned and unpatterned in the middle to keep apart and help define and showcase the two clashing prints on either side.  So I’m OK with it.  Pushing oneself out of the comfort zone once in a while is good for the soul…
And we are now halfway through Self-Stitched September!  I am really enjoying this challenge of going all self-stitched! (although ahem, the taking of a photo every day is, dare I say it, a bigger one…!)

Details:
Top; Burda 8497 with fold-back cuffs and button cufflinks added, python print satin
Skirt; my own design, charcoal jersey knit
Tights; Tutuanna, some little shop in Melbourne
Booties; Django and Juliette, from Zomp shoes
Hat; op shop

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The pseudo shirt-dress

14/09/2010 3:05 am \ 5 Comments \

Quiet day here, doing office work at home, so dressed comfy and casual-ish.  Walked the dog this morning.  Doing laundry and will hit up the supermarket later.  Blah blah.
This outfit is what I’ve come to think of as my “shirtdress”; although it’s not actually a dress at all this is still an apt description as it is made of, quite literally, shirts!  Three, to be precise.  These shirts were cast-off business shirts from my husband, all tossed onto the reject pile because of small holes and rips-right-on-seams that had appeared through wear and (literally) tear.  I made myself a new skirt and top out of them, managing to cut around and avoid the areas that had holes in them.  For the original story on this refashion and other views of the outfit, see here.
I’m pretty happy with this set and like to wear it; it’s very easy to wear and I feel a bit funky and unique and out-there when I have it on… hmmm, a bit sad, no?  It’s not really that out-there.  I need to amp up the wardrobe a bit, perhaps.  In fact, this self-stitched September is really proving a challenge to me, I’m finding myself pining for all the store-bought T-shirts and cardigans in my collection, convinced that none of my separates go together… and having to force myself not to just pop on a white top with just about everything…  Really, I’m a white top addict.  My mother will agree that all I wanted to wear growing up was jeans or a denim skirt, and a white top.  So I have moved on from that (a bit) but the white top thing is still deeply ingrained… I feel the pull everyday…  At least this outfit is a complete “set”, so there’s no extra agonising as to whether one is “matching” or not when the decision is made to wear it that day.  Kind of a relief.

Details:
Skirt and top; my own design, constructed from 3 old business shirts, see here
Shoes; Country Road
Sunnies; RayBan

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Ladylike in brown

13/09/2010 5:25 am \ 11 Comments \

This morning attended a ladylike morning tea to celebrate a friend’s birthday, so have thoroughly enjoyed the last hour sitting in the dappled shade of the jacarandas sipping tea from a charmingly cracked and mis-matched pretty china set, ahh, just bliss… but now the fun is over and it’s back to the office…
Now, kind people leave me lots of lovely sweet compliments (and thankyou!) on the picturesque backdrops in my photos; so I’ll let you in on my little photography secret… well I take nearly all my photos in either one of about three or four locations, and it’s amazing how different the effect in a shot can be just by pointing the lens in a slightly different direction.  For example the sunlight is quite bright today so I decided to set up my camera in the shade of a tree for this photo.  I think the muted light shows off the fabric textures and colours of my outfit better than in direct sunlight, which here in Australia can be quite harsh and create either too dramatic shadows on one’s clothes or alternatively bright bright areas completely devoid of any discernible detail… but from where I am standing in the above photo the view I am looking at is this…

So I couldn’t resist kicking off my shoes, rotating the camera 180degrees and stepping out on the beach for one more shot, and decided to show here it to demonstrate the contrast even though you can’t see my dress very well from this angle…!  Which background do you like better? 

Details:
Dress; Burda 8511 from tobacco wool mix, modified to be more fitted and fully lined
Cardigan; knitted by me to my own design, using Jo Sharp Aran Tweed in Brindle
Shoes; Sandler, from David Jones
Bag; Gucci

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