I’m seven months into my Year of 100% Handmade; just five short months to go!! above is a selection of my favourite outfits in the last month, the whole kit and caboodle can be seen in my Year of Handmade flickr album here…
Yeah, so I’m still really enjoying the challenge, and of course I absolutely love wearing all my own clothes and shoes. Although, I am looking forward to warmer weather so I can start wearing some of my newer, spring-y shoes! I picked a really bad year to be doing this thing though… we’re officially having the coldest and wettest winter in like thirty years or something. Obviously I’m excited about wearing my own shoes… but when it’s bucketing down with rain?! which it’s been doing a LOT?! eeeeek! It’s a little heart-wrenching, to be honest! I’m sometimes tempted to whip off my precious handmade babies shoes and just slosh through the puddles and mud in my stockinged feet, shoes clutched protectively to my chest. I don’t, though. I stay normally shod, like a regular person, albeit sobbing on the inside and hoping like mad that my dinkie little handmade shoes-ies are going to come out of it ok.
Fortunately, they do. Surprisingly, everything is holding together just fine. My trusty winter boots are not just warm but completely waterproof, so yay for that! So chuffed about those things. Some of my casual walking shoes… not quite so waterproof, ahem, but shoes do dry out. I’m still wearing them all! My paisley oxfords are my go-to, casual “walking shoes”. They’ve done miles and miles and miles, they’ve been rain-drenched and subsequently dried… they then started to wear quite thin under the balls of my feet. I just glued new soles onto the bottom. If I can say one good thing about being forced to wear my shoes in the worst of worst weather; then it is that it’s proved to me that my shoes can take it, and are tougher and not quite so flimsy-whimsy as I feared. Confidence-boosting stuff 🙂
New soles. ‘Nother month of miles
It’s not a super supportive thing, but realistically I have no need for a super supportive bra anyway. I still think it’s pretty stable though; I stitched the clear elastic that came with the kit along each side of the cups; so they won’t stretch out, and stitched a little strip of bias-cut white linen in with the side seams. I trimmed the linen strip right down before encasing it within the side seam, so it doesn’t show…. and this stabilised the side seams and makes them nice and strong, and they won’t stretch out either.
‘s kinda crazy and huge-skirted and possibly a bit over the top, but you know what? it’s also extremely comfortable and cosy, and so swirly and swishy. The instant I finished it and put it on I immediately felt simultaneously relaxed, like I had put on a warm comfy dressing gown or something; but also a bit chic as well. The big feminine skirt with a nipped-in waist does that, but I really like how the volume below is balanced out by the mannish style shirt top with cargo pockets and flaps, and a notched collar.
#awkward!! Yes, well; obviously most of us don’t actually twirl very often. Twirling is something of a fashion blogger contrivance… although if I do want to get in a bit of highland flinging I am all set. 😉
make another one!! Doh!! Clearly there’s something terribly wrong with me… #madvogue1247addict
aaaaaand, my week of exclusively wearing Vogue 1247 skirts, in a nutshell…!
what’s with the ballet pose? I have no idea. Anyway… I have a 
I’ve kept the selvedge from off the fabric, and have sewn these inside one of the pockets! just because I love information like this… namely: this design is by prominent Finnish designer Maija Isola, and was created in 1964! out by a year but definitely still of my era, haha. “Pieni unikko” translates literally to “little poppy” I’m not sure what KI 2009 means yet, but I’m investigating…. Also, how cool is it that the laundering info is printed on the selvedge?! so classy and very considerate really, it’s been along long time since I’ve seen such consideration in a fabric. That information’s the kind of thing I usually forget the very minute I swan out of the shop with my new fabric tucked under my wing.
The loose front pieces also allows you to have these big loose comfortable pockets that you can shove your hands in, while still maintaing quite a slimline dress overall. As a result, the pattern uses very little fabric. I managed to squeeze my pattern pieces out of 1.5m, which is not too bad, not too bad at all, I think *preens oneself on an exceptionally economic layout* I had the merest of scraps left after cutting out my pieces, scraps, I tell you! The pattern has you line the dress, and after a bit of um-ing and aah-ing, I decided to not. Reason? summers here are very hot and I think the breeziness of this lovely cotton fabric is going to be perfect just as it is.
I made some new shoes! and they lace up at the back of the heel.
I lined the shoes with some very thin, pale gold suedette from Spotlight, the same type of stuff I’ve lined all my other shoes with, and the exact same stuff as 
hello! I’ve made some new shoes!
This is actually a shoe version of a muslin, whatever you would call that… I’m working up to making some shoes using some of the Icelandic fish leather that I bought when we visited there a few years ago and I’m trialling a new pattern. The pattern looks almost identical to the pattern I’ve been using previously, to make my previous pairs of oxford shoes, but since I made that pattern prior to getting my lasts I decided it would be prudent to make a new pattern tailored specifically to the lasts.
Details above: the top pieces are edged with close-spaced zig-zag stitch in black, and the shoes are fully lined with pale yellow faux suedette from Spotlight. The paisley fabric is from Spotlight too. Foam shoe liners from Coles for added comfort are covered with the pale yellow suedette which gives a co-ordinating, neat and tidy look inside. 
Craig and Cassie both separately and spontaneously, and without my asking, mentioned that they thought this is my best finish yet. The shoes are quite sturdy and I don’t think I’d even be embarrassed should they be subject to a close inspection. Hehe, I cannot say the same thing for some of my previous efforts!
