Category Archives: Uncategorized

Riverside situation

04/03/2010 4:27 am \ 7 Comments \

Little adventure this morning.  Lately I’m in the habit of combining my two early morning tasks of dog-walking with taking my photo, if I’m planning to take one that day, that is.  I have my camera, tripod and the shoes I’m planning to wear the remainder of that day in a backpack, I take Sienna with me and stop somewhere picturesque and set up for a few minutes.  Well today, I’m out on this tiny jetty and it’s quite windy, I’ve got the tripod shored up between a pillar and the backpack to prevent it from blowing over (yeah, it was windy enough that that was a real risk!) and next thing I know, whoosh! my tripod bag is now floating in the river about five metres away.  Bob bob bob, it goes, taunting me,  out of reach.  I look at it with despair.  Should I abandon modesty and wade out to it?  No, the river is over thigh deep at that point…  Sienna is no bloomin’ good at all, she may look pretty but that’s as far as her usefulness goes.  Fetch, she does not do…  I look about for a handy young man jogging in his shorts who may gallantly help me out, but I’ve chosen my time well and there is absolutely no-bloomin’-one in sight AT ALL.  No canoe-ers.  I’ve got the foreshore to myself.  Usually this is a plus as I’m shy about taking my own photo if anyone’s about, but this time I could really do with a helpful man… (couldn’t we all…?!, joking, I’ve got my own man, but he’s gone to work early, dammit)
So I hightail it home, dragging Sienna, not allowing her to sniff or socialise, and luckily my eldest two are still around, and my daughter, never shy of an adventurous stunt, immediately dons bathers and we drive back down, she swims out, it’s about twenty metres out by now, and rescues the tripod bag…
As the song goes, thank goodness for little girls…
As a anticlimactic afterthought, my hat.  It’s newish, well on its maiden voyage anyhow (like my tripod bag).  I bought a single ball of this yummy wool at anny blat at their shop in Paris when we were there six years ago.  I finally made this beanie last year from my own design, just cast onto four double-ended needles and made it up as I went along.  I’m going to make myself wear hats more often.  I wish they were more in fashion.

Details:
Skirt; Vogue 7303, fabric handwoven by my Mum
Top; refashioned from husband’s old workshirt, my own design
Scarf; Country Road
Shoes; Timberland, bought in Rome
Cloche; annyblat yarn, my own design

 

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Pattern Magic, toile 1

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

Would you wear one of your toiles?
I only ask because of this: I had some unwashed calico to use for making toiles and experimenting on, and one day I was desperate to try out a pattern even though I hadn’t pre-washed the fabric yet.  So I used some in its unwashed state to trial a coat pattern.  The resulting toile was then stuffed in the fabric stash, why? because I’m a fabric hoarder and hardly ever throw fabric out.  When I was doing this latest toile I thought I might be able to re-use the calico from the coat-toile, so tossed it into the washing machine to pre-shrink… and then just slung it on Bessie awaiting further action.  
My daughter sees it.  She wants it.  She thinks it’s cool and looks expensive, like something one would find at more! (very expensive local boutique).  I look at it again and admit she’s right.  It does remind me of some extremely expensive garments I’ve seen on occasion in very exclusive boutiques, the sort that you wonder are a designer’s idea of a joke on the customer.  However the ?jacket? (if it’s worthy of that title!) does have a sort of post-grunge charm about it. I’m not sure I could get away with it, but I think my daughter could because she’s young and gorgeous.  Would you wear this garment?

Anyhow, on to the real point of this post, my first foray into Pattern Magic, the very exciting book by Nakamichi Tomoko.  Not having even the most basic understanding of Japanese (I know, I’m terribly ignorant) I think our first project is to make up a custom fit bodice pattern from a few basic torso measurements.  The accompanying diagram and two tables look terribly complicated, especially for a non-Japanese person, but I thoroughly enjoyed this process nonetheless.  I studied the pages for quite a while to work out the angles and precise meanings of the measurements marked, then finally taped together a few sheets of copy paper, got an accurate ruler and a protractor and got drawing and measuring.  This took me right back to my school days doing geometry and trigonometry (was called Maths III back then, but that’s ancient history…)  This was lots of fun.  I’m serious.  I’m a real geek at heart.
Finally ended up with this.

Cut it out, taped it up and made a few adjustments to get this bodice pattern, tailored to me:

And made up my bodice:
I enclosed the edges with scraps of bias binding because I wanted some bias-binding practice, then added some buttons and buttonholes at the back when I started to vaguely consider adding it to my wardrobe….  However its just a bodice, not a blouse, so I decided I would need a very high-waisted skirt to get away with this, so will probably not be wearing it and the buttons will go back into my button bag…

Funny story: when I was working on this, I had this conversation with my husband…
Me (studying my Pattern Magic book): “Do you think the library would have a Japanese dictionary?”
Him: “What?”
Me (still studying): “A Japanese dictionary.  If I could just work out what a few of these characters mean it would make this so much easier.”
Him: “What?”
Me (louder and a little impatient): “A JAPANESE DICTIONARY!”
Him: “Are you serious?”
I finally look up and see him smirking at me.  Realisation dawns.  We both start laughing, a lot.

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Chocolate, gold and turquoise

02/03/2010 5:10 am \ 2 Comments \

Above, the sky is a rich intense shade of turquoise with not a single wisp of cloud to mar its relentless plane of colour; it’s not surprising I was drawn to this vivid and gorgeous shade of nail varnish… (if only I’d had it in time for Saturday’s photo, no?!)   The name of this shade is Fool’s Paradise, a message, perhaps?  Need to shake this lethargy and get onto the officework, I think…
The air is still and heavy and this heat is seriously sapping my will to live, but I’m doggedly pursuing my plan to branch into autumnal fashion and leave the hues of summer behind.
Luckily the Bouchee dress is of a shade to pass any autumn colour test even though autumn here isn’t of nearly the richness of colours that it brings to colder climates, our version is more of a season of relief and recovery from the harsh ravages of the summer months.  And today being another 36C scorcher this dress is tolerably cool and a joy to wear.  I’m glad I rescued it from my Salvo’s pile….
Today I’m wearing it with a necklace I bought as a souvenir from Santorini, the island my imagination wanders to on so many occasions, and my golden jewelled sandals, which were bought, er here, sadly no romance or memories associated with their purchase, driven just by a prosaic need for summer footwear.  Nonetheless I have my necklace and my turquoise toe-nails to transport me mentally back to the happy casual handholding days of Greece….

Details:
Dress; my own design based on McCalls 4454, brown self-embroidered cotton
Necklace; souvenir from Santorini
Sandals; Anna, bought from MarieClaire shoes
Nail varnish; Fool’s Paradise, BYS

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The summer in review

01/03/2010 4:38 am \ 4 Comments \

Today is officially the first day of autumn.  Seems kind of hilarious given that it’s going to be 37C again, and will continue to be in the high thirties for another week or so… anyhoo, I thought I’d review my most worn items of clothing over the past summer.  Now I don’t take my photo every day, and I am making an effort to rotate through the wardrobe and wear everything once in a while, but that being said there are still the favourites that I turn to time and time again on my days “off” from posing for a photo because a. they are comfortable and b. I feel good in them.  So I guess these clothes sum up “my style” for the summer (inverted commas because I’m still a bit hazy on what the heck my style even is!)…
It’s been an extremely hot summer with comfortable days few and far in between so it’s hardly surprising that the coolest items in my wardrobe have been the most popular, which means lots of white… even so I was surprised at how consistent my colour palette has been, and strong and bright.  I seem to have gone for greens and raspberry pink quite a lot this season.  For the five or six semi-formal functions I’ve attended I’ve gone for the beige lace dress I made at the beginning of last spring (for which I’ve received many compliments from very kind friends); I made it under the influence of the “nude” colour trend that was about at the time.  Not all of these clothes were made by me, but I tried to be honest about the clothes I’ve turned to most frequently and this included a few store-bought items and one op shop item; in the evenings, or when I’ve required a light cool cardigan, my turquoise and hot pink cardigans from Metalicus have been my go-to’s, and without a doubt my most worn accessory has been my cheap little necklace I bought from the surf shop at Rottnest about four years ago… even so looking over these I’m pretty pleased that most of my daily wear falls in to the handmade category… how about your wardrobe?  Have you worn mostly your own clothes lately?

Details:
Dresses;(nude) my own design variations based on New Look 6699, two types of beige lace and purple shot  silk
               (white) Simplicity3745, spotted swiss voile with lace trim
Necklace; from the surf shop on Rottnest Island
Skirts; (lime print) Vogue 7303, cotton
             (white cotton) bought from Old Navy, Capetown South Africa
           (olive green) Vogue 7303, corduroy
           (red floral)Vogue 2894, cotton
Shorts; Burda 7723, white linen
Tops; New Look 6252, lime green linen
          New Look 6252, white seersucker
          (pink) Aztec Rose, op shop
          (apricot) Country Road
Cardigans; both from Metalicus

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Tea Cosy, specimen 13

28/02/2010 3:22 am \ Leave a Comment \

Here is the tea cosy I made for a friend, S, for her birthday last year.  It is made using the pattern Harlequin Flower, with a few minor modifications, from the book Wild Tea Cosies, by Loani Prior.
I just love the soft feminine pretty colours of this tea cosy, and the whole style and shape of this pattern.  The little crocheted bell flowers were a tiny amount of crochet that I can cope with; crochet is not my forte, for sure and I struggle with each stitch…
If I was going to make any more tea cosies (and I’m not, I’ve only got one more to show you and then that’s it with the tea cosies!!) then I would choose this pattern, as I think it’s really cute and looks adorable on the teapot.

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Head to toe, turquoise

27/02/2010 1:57 am \ 7 Comments \

Turquoise.  Lashings of it.  This outfit brings back to me cerulean memories of Santorini and all its abundance of charm.  The vivid sea, the stark and yet rustic houses.  Most beautiful holiday, ever.
(The extremely strong wind that we had this morning also was a reminder of that holiday, I am completely wind-blasted in this photo….)
I can remember a saying from when I was growing up; “Blue and green should never be seen”  Be seen together, that is.  I guess it was a fashion faux pas back in the day.  Seems needlessly restrictive nowadays as colour combinations wax and wane in popularity faster than a monthly Vogue can keep up and it seems anything goes in the fashion world.  And what about lovely turquoise?  Somewhere in between blue and green, vacillating back and forth, a tonally peaceful companion to both.  Today I’m wearing my latest turquoise skirt with blue, and a bit of green, just to be daring (ha ha)…  I think it looks OK.
Sewing notes about the hem; when I made this skirt I didn’t initially purchase enough fabric to make the length called for in the pattern.  Didn’t really matter, as I wanted a shorter skirt than that anyway, but when it came time to hem I realised I didn’t even have the length for a decent hem, or at least one that was going to leave me with a decent skirt!!.  
So I did this: using some matching turquoise cotton I cut a 7cm strip of bias, after pressing 1cm over on each side I had a 5cm hemming band.  This I attached to the lower overlocked edge of my skirt with a 1cm seam allowance.  I pressed this up directly on the skirt/bias tape seam and invisibly handstitched the hem down at the top of the bias tape.  Voila.  Hem is now acceptably deep.

Details:
Skirt; Vogue 1023 view C, shortened, turquoise polycotton
Camisole; Country Road
Cardigan; Metalicus
Sandals; lasoffitadi Gilde
Bracelet; jade and silver, gift from my parents

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Autumn trench coat

26/02/2010 2:04 am \ 13 Comments \

I made a trench coat!  Inspired by the beautiful coats in Burberry, but not by the sky high price tag, I set out to make my own….  I actually finished this a few weeks ago and have been dying to show it off(!)
but haven’t been able to wear it because of the 40C+ temps we’ve been having; seriously, the weather has been stifling, and I’m wearing sunnies in these photos to disguise the fact that I’m bleary-eyed through lack of sleep…
I used Burda 7786, which is a pattern for a single breasted trench coat and one I’ve used before here.  I modified the front lapels to be double breasted and added tabs at the wrists to bring the sleeves in, I think this will be a welcome feature when the weather turns cold … (please, turn cold…. ?) 
The coat is made from something called Ribstop cotton from Spotlight, and whilst I think it will be a good, very hardwearing fabric it did present some challenges in working with it.  Firstly I know from previous experience (long story!) to wash it before using it, as it shrinks like nobodies business.  I washed my length of fabric twice, in a heavy duty cycle.  Also it has a very fine dense weave, again good for a coat fabric, but in sewing it the needle didn’t so much glide up and down through the weave as it did audibly punch through this tough semi-impenetrable fabric.
Setting in the sleeves was a bit of a nightmare as this stuff simply would not gather satisfactorily or iron-shrink down AT ALL.  I ended up having to increase the length of the armscye and cut down some of the sleeve cap to get the sleeves to sit in nicely, which they eventually did.
As part of my new resolution to finish things off properly, I used Hong Kong binding on all the exposed seam allowances.  For this I made my own bias binding out of some leftover black cotton.  I am extremely happy with how this turned out.  For the lining I used a nice contrast print shirting cotton which is lovely and soft on the skin and will provide an extra layer for warmth….  ha ha, anyone in Perth at the moment will laugh at that one!, but will be welcome in a few months, I’m sure!
The belt presented its own saga, as I found nothing remotely worthy in Spotlight (although I did get the brass “end” of the belt there), and Fabulous fabrics runs more to diamante buckles! so set out to tour the op shops.  Luckily for $2 found a lovely brass buckle of the right size attached to a hideous vinyl belt.  I’ve said it before; I would never cut up a leather belt unless it was in a really bad way, but a vinyl belt is fair game…  Binned the vinyl portion, attached the brass buckle to my self fabric belt and sewed little miniature “buttonholes” for the belt holes…
And, finally finished.
Any dramas aside, I’m thrilled with my new coat and will be showing it off lots more…. ;D !!!!
(Thanks to my husband for the photo opportunity!)

Details:
Coat; Burda 7786, with some modifications, beige cotton
Top; New Look 6252, white seersucker
Skirt; Louis (?), op shop
Sandals; Micam by Joanne Mercer, from Hobbs shoes

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An edging finish using the fabric selvedge; a tute

25/02/2010 1:37 am \ 5 Comments \

So I set to work on making an outfit from my python print satin.  I want to make a skirt and a top this time, rather than a dress, so I can wear the top with other pants and jeans during autumn and winter.  For the top I’m using a wrap top pattern Burda 8497 and gave some thought to how to finish the edges.  I wanted a clean smooth edge with no visible stitching on view.  This pretty much ruled out any machine finishing, and while I’m more than happy to hand finish a hem I thought I’d try something else this time…
The Feb/March 2010 Threads magazine gave instructions for an edge treatment attributed to Madeleine Vionnet.  This method utilises the selvedge of the fabric, and the accompanying photograph showed a clean smooth edge with a rather attractive almost “piping” effect along the edge that I thought would be perfect, so here we go…
For this finish, cut the selvedges off the fabric, keeping about 1cm extra fabric, giving about a 2cm width strip overall.
Fold the fabric and press, so the “selvedge” side of the pressed strip is wider and overhanging the “cut” edge of fabric.  Lay this strip on top of the right side of your edge to be finished, with the “selvedge” edge up and keeping the selvedge edge longer than and overhanging the unfinished edge.
Stitch along the strip, keeping your stitching about 2mm in from the folded edge of the strip
Turn the selvedge strip to the inside and press.
According to the instructions in the Threads magazine no further stitching is needed.
My final verdict?  There seems no way of preventing the whole strip from just falling down and into view, so I would have to say it actually didn’t reeeally work all that well and I don’t understand how this method could be considered so fantastic.  I ended up hand stitching the hem down invisibly in the end anyway.  Alternatively you could “stitch in the ditch” along the edge and this could help prevent fallout.
I guess you could say it was a nice smooth flat hem, and the selvedge edge is clean and self-finished, so looks good on the inside.  I would use this again, but it might work better on, say, a neckline where there is no danger of gravity causing the strip to fall down and out, but if you are using this for a bottom hem then be prepared for further hand stitching for an effective hem…
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