The beautiful fabric is a textured silk (texture of Chux, according to my husband!) that I bought from a little old lady at her garage sale.
When I was younger, everyone dressed to the hilt to attend church. It really was your Sunday Best - high heels, meticulous make-up, even fresh flowers in your hair!
Everyone dresses very casually now, but to recreate the past, I've decided to put in a bit more effort. Each Sunday, I'll try to wear something I've handmade myself.
After lowering the neckline on my pattern draft, it gaped a little, so I added tucks to rein it back in.
Picked up a self-cover belt kit from an op-shop for twenty cents. They add a lovely retro finish to a dress!
Here's yesterday's effort - a little dress I based on a Sixties shift pattern. I did make a toile in calico, before I cut into the silk and added a series of tucks to make the neckline fit better. I always pick up self-cover belt kits from op shops as I've never seen them for sale anywhere else. You sew a bias strip into a tube to cover the buckle and iron on your fabric to the belt for a great retro accessory.
Four year old Hazel speaks the truth. While helping hang out the washing, she asks - "Are these your undies? They're so big!!!" Afraid it's true, I like big knickers, I cannot lie. Inspired by these retro swimmers on Etsy, I set out to make my own version.
Ancient patterns, (this one circa 1990) ...the source of great sewing wisdom...
Surely a vintage pattern will be a good start. They ended up a little toooo big. Having them stretch up to my armpits wasn't a great look, so I scaled them back.
DIY Retro undies!
Making knickers is pretty easy (compared with, say, making a bra) and requires little fabric. Unaccustomed as I am to displaying my knickers on the internet, here is what I ended up sewing... and photographing in a bunched up way, to make them appear slightly smaller...
This pincushion's like a big padded watch - at least I'll always know where it is!
Tired of sweeping pins up off the floor, I set out to make a pincushion for every corner of my sewing room. One ties on to my sewing machine, another is velcro-attached to the serger, the third is firmly strapped to my wrist, and the last ... well it ain't tied down, so I'll probably lose it very shortly!
I like to take pins out just before I sew, rather than mowing over them. This pincushion tied to my sewing machine makes sure those pins ain't goin' nowhere!
Get your own pins into line by following the simple steps in my d-i-y slideshow!
This sweet cupcake started life as a bottle cap. Now it stays velcro-ed to the top of my serger.
The easiest of them all to make (and they're all pretty easy.) I'd call it idiot-simple, but that sounds a big insulting...
Before: My favourite porridge comes in a great recyclable container.
Transformed with just a piece of paper and some double-sided tape...
Call me Scottish, but I love all things thrifty. All that kitchen packaging can surely be put to use in my sewing room. "Be Natural" porridge containers covered with printed paper house scissors, rulers and a stash of op-shop zippers.
My thread now lives in regimented order inside an old desk drawer.
Clear plastic packaging from fruit, veg and biscuits keep small notions organised.
Still working on my cereal box filing system though!
So we left the Big Smoke of Brisbane for our new happy home in Mackay...
Since moving to Mackay, I've found a part-time sewing job at a clothing alterations shop. When a suit was brought in with two buttons to be sewn back on, I realised that we will eventually be the last folk in this town who know how to mend clothing!
Back in the day, the government made sure everyone knew how to repair clothing!
A far cry from, say the 1940s, when clothing would be repaired and recycled by neccessity. I enjoyed reading Make Do and Mend, a collection of leaflets distributed by the government, showing folk how to repair and re-use their clothing during wartime rationing.
Blogger Design Mom has lots of cute mending ideas like this embroidered patch!
There's something quite charming and frugal about fixing things instead of discarding them, as these repairs from Design Mom show!
No you don't need expensive software, grading can be done with pen and paper. Lucky I was paying attention at college!
Grading is changing a pattern's size. I've been grading my pattern for the Mitchell Mitchell Shift Dress from a size 3 to a size 4 and 5. For my grading, I'm using a Burda measurement chart, because I like their fit.
My measurement charts shows that on average, 3 to 5 year old kids are shooting up and expected to grow 6 cm in height each year. They don't get a lot wider - ie. their chest measurement increases just 1 cm for each year/size.
Just enough genuine sixties fabric in my Mum's garage to make this trio of dresses to check my patterns...
So I've traced the original size 3 pattern onto paper and am making a "nest" of 3 sizes, by adding the increments from the measurement chart. I scanned my handdrawn grading and traced around patterns in Illustrator to neaten them up. A quick trip back to Officeworks and I have my patterns printed full size.
Last step was to make up my patterns in the 3 sizes to check pattern pieces sew together well.
When we were kids, a dressmaker we called Mitchell Mitchell, (in hindsight, more likely Mrs Mitchell) made most of our clothes. Shop bought dresses
were an expensive luxury. How times have changed!
Now mass-produced
clothes are the norm and handmade clothing a luxury
reserved for special occasions (ie. wedding dresses.)
In tribute to Mitchell Mitchell, I sewed a little girls shift dress, just like the ones we wore. I think the fabric even came from Mum's archive (the granny flat behind her house.)
I just love Indie pattern companies like Colette! Some friends and I are all making up this charming jacket - though it is taking a little longer than expected to get us all together to sew. It's all cut out and ready to start sewing...
Check out Colette patterns for more charming clothes to sew...
Some manual patternmaking basics - rulers, pencil, notcher, oak tag board
Call me crazy but I love patternmaking. Especially
when it's done the old-school way- no high-tech Gerber
and Lectra software and computers, just nice, reassuring, brown tag board, sharp
pencils, and funny shaped rulers.
OK, I did indulge myself and bought a little
metal tool that just cuts notches into cardboard.
It's a bit like going back to kindergarten, (well I
am using kindy paper!) lots of drawing and cutting out.
Today I'm grading (drawing up in different sizes) a
dress I made for my niece Elke. Off to the print shop now to make some copies to sell in my Etsy store!
Pinterest is a great way to keep all your favourite stuff on a virtual pinboard.
Here's just some of my Pinterest boards!
Seamstresses may be interested in my Free Sewing Projects, Sew what now? (sewing inspiration) and Book Book Book (favourite sewing tomes) pinboards.
When you pin a picture, Pinterest automatically stores a link to the site so you can find it again easily. Great for all the stuff I've been meaning to sew.
Love this pin. (Read to the end and you'll see why!)
Sweet apron dress for a one-year-old. Pocket upcycled from some upholstery fabric samples. It's reversible too for when you spill stuff on the front!
This week's project - open an Etsy store - Clothesline Emporium. My cunning plan is to sell super easy sew in one hour type patterns, fabulous fabric and ready made clothing for time-poor seamstresses.
Can't wait to open shop, so I'm starting out with just a trio of handmade little girls dresses.
I love sewing but never seem to find enough time to make clothes. My new cunning plan is to wear something handmade to church every Sunday. That's my own little protest against mass production!
This week's effort saw me channelling Jil Sander. I loved the Navy collection, so drafted and made my own little button backed stripey shirt with a contrasting collar. Ta da!
Thoroughly exhaustimicated at the end of term. I promise you I worked harder for this quaint little TAFE course, than I ever did to earn a degree! To finish the course we have a College Parade, which is a bit like a graduation ceremony, but with more chandeliers and bling. Although I was thinking "Don't trip!" and "Stand that collar up!" and the like, it's still quite satisfying to see your garments being tromped down the catwalk by a bunch of Amazonian women.
Sorry I don't have photos from the parade, but here's the outfits I made on some of our lovely students. Thanks to Lynette Rees for the great shots.StasiIvyAnn
Hand drawn sketch in ink and conte crayonWorking from my mood board (see previous blog entry!) I hand draw sketches of what I'm going to make.
For more clarity, these can also be translated into a technical drawing on a computer drawing program.Technical drawing in Adobe Illustrator
Patterns are drawn up by hand and a toile or test garment pieced together. At college, we have rolls and rolls of fabric oddments to cobble toiles together. At home, I like to pick up cheap fabric from op shops for testing patterns. It can be a bit of an eyesore, but it's great for trialling. Here's a snap taken in our college studio...
Test garment made of scrap fabrics!
Love collecting fabric swatches from stores until I make my mind up!But you can relax, the final garment will be made in lovely ice-cream coloured silks and organzas. Can't wait!
Ever wondered why "all-look-same" when you go shopping for clothes? Blame it on the trend forecasters! At college, we use a French company called Promostyl who for an exhorbitant fee will send you a big folder full of the next big things. They boil down a fashion season into a dozen concepts and even provide colour palettes so that textile manufacturers can start producing fabrics in the "it" colours for Summer 2013.
Here's my mood board from which I'll draw up some design developments, draft patterns, make toiles and sew up a collection. All by June. Wish me luck!
Here's my mood board inspired by some beautiful lampshades from industrial designer Tord Boontje.
It prompted a series of design developments. One of which was made up on a half scale mannequin. Then there was the pattern making and experimenting with constructing a pinata of an underskirt in boning and mesh. Then the 40 white leaves were glued in place and Ta Da! It all looks so easy when some gorgeous young thing like Emily is wearing the final result!
