Woodmouse And Bobbit Bag

Does anyone else procrastinate like I do? I ordered this fabric from Spoonflower back in October 2015 but as that was also coming up to finals for Uni I put it away under my bed and forgot about it. Then in December when moving I found it again and decided to do something with it. I took photos and cut it out. I made the keyfob and again the rest was put aside due to life's circumstances.  Now four months later it has yet again resurfaced and this time I plan on finishing it.

The fabric is linen-cotton canvas, for a sturdy bag. It cost me $27US for the fabric and I bought it on a free shipping day (yay for free shipping!!)

The instructions suggest using a fusible fleece. Of course I thought I knew better and didn't. Just like I thought using the canvas was the best idea for a strong bag. Bad idea on both counts. The canvas makes it incredibly difficult to sew, and doesn't exactly make it a soft bag to touch. I might order it again in a quilting weight and use the fusible fleece.

I want to start other projects but feel like I owe it to myself and this bag to finish it before I start anything else, including the octopus skirt. Yet for some reason it sits on the ironing board waiting to be ironed before I can finish it.

Kimoyes Silk

I pinched my partners big photography reflector to use as a solid colour background for the silk images. Best idea ever!
I will admit that it was his idea after I was complaining that the black coffee table wasn't big enough and the red shaggy rug on the floor would distort the colours. It's always handy having someone with photographic know how around.



This beautiful one was the most expensive. I think it was $50/m. I bought half a meter. It's 14" wide (35cm). I'm hoping the gorgeous crane will fit as a center panel for a high waisted pair of knickers.



This delicate one I bought a meter of. The pink is so beautiful and the details are just amazing. This was probably around $10/m.



This one was the hardest one to photograph. The camera has trouble picking up on both the colour and the texture. I thought this design was a little bit more wearable. This was $10/m I was able to find this design on the website if anyone is interested. http://www.kimoyes.com/products/17336



Last but not least, this gorgeous one with a woven detail in it. I just couldn't pass up those flowers that looked as if someone had used a stencil or resist dye, to make that watercolour flower. This one was again around the $10/m mark.

What do you think I should make out of them?
Let me know if you grab anything from the Kimoyes website! There's just far too many gorgeous silks, and I sadly can't afford to own them all.  http://www.kimoyes.com

2016 onwards

Ok, I'm back. Kinda. I don't know what I'm doing anymore with this! haha

I started this blog to document the progress with the historically correct bustle dress I was making back in 2013. Time flies. Sadly my circumstances changed and I wasn't able to complete the project nor was I able to continue blogging. When I thought those circumstances had changed I tried to come back to no avail :(
But you know what? Third time lucky :)

I don't plan on this blog being every week, or maybe even every few weeks. But I do plan on using it to help document my projects and other things that make me happy. Hopefully it will even help me actually finish a few projects, you crafty people out there know what I'm talking about!

I very happily discovered a new shop two days ago. What kind of shop you may ask? Fabric of course!! Vintage Japanese kimono silks to be exact. Most of them were marked as $10-25 per meter so I just couldn't help myself. I walked out of the shop having spent $65 with 3.5 meters of fabric. That beautiful orange one you see at the front just has the most wonderful print on it, but unfortunately was $50 per meter.  I still had to have it though, so I only bought half a meter. In my next post I'll show you each fabric print and what I plan on doing with them.

90% of my belongings are in storage for an unknown amount of time, but when I was last at the storage place I was able to grab a few boxes of fabric. This box had my Spoonflower stash! I bought this amazing octopus fabric with the intentions of making a lolita skirt like the fabric designer has done. I bought 2 yards from memory, which has two and a half repeats of the print, so I'm not sure I'll get my skirt quite as nice as hers which seems to have three.

And last but not least, I thought while I was doing all this sewing, I would need something nice to take a break with. So I decided to splurge on a gorgeous T2 set which has a cute little teapot that sits upon a cup. I seem to have a thing for these mint greens and blues lately. Even the rest of my fabrics from that box were cool toned.

What have you splurged on lately? Some pretty clothes or makeup? Or maybe some craft supplies or games? I love hearing what makes you happy :)

Celebratory Bodycon

My birthday was early Jan. My mum bought me a dress for my birthday...ok..so it was more of a DIY dress. It was just the fabric haha. But it was a dress nonetheless :)

I had one day to turn this fabric into something wearable for my party. Seeing as it has a gorgeous print, it didn't need many design lines to make this thing amazing..I started work.

Oops. Was I accidentally creating a Khatnis dress? That was not what I wanted to do, not that it was not not what I wanted to do either. So I kept at it.

Ran out of bobbin thread. As always. And the the globe broke on my sewing machine. Lucky I work with a lamp as well hahaha, got you beat there sewing machine!! :p

And so I just completed the dress in time to wear....before frantically realising I didn't know what shoes I was going to wear, or how I was going to do my hair....  First world problems.

It was super comfy, being a knit, and nice and long, compared to those shop bought ones anyway. There's nothing worse than walking and having your skirt ride up!! 

I'm back!!

Well, after a rather long hiatus I have returned :)

TAFE exhausted most of my time (and energy) while a little overseas trip in April brought many new experiences and fabric to play with!! Yay!

Speaking of TAFE, I just wanted to rant about the horrible shirt I spent two days making for an assessment...only to hate the thing.

I'm sure we've all been there with our projects, loved the idea and the inspiration but as the project progresses the love turns to frustration and disappointment.

If I had the time to make it properly I don't think I'd hate it like I do. But as it's to be handed in tomorrow it will have to suffice.

Mens Shirt. Basic enough in theory. Add some machine embroidery, some topstitching..yeah. Now it's sounding better!! Maybe some ombre dye to the hem.... Lets get this missing creativity working again!

Nope. Two days....TWO DAYS and I only had time to put one sleeve in. What happened to me? I'm out of practice with my speed. Luck it's the holidays and I can work on that =D

I used the wrong interfacing for the embroidery. I didn't have the right stuff, and no time to buy some.. so I experimented with epic fail. The embroidery puckered :/ Ok, take two. And I didn't leave enough room to actually cut the yolk out. Good one!! Let that be a lesson not to sew when exhausted. So I just had to use the puckered one.

Then the topstitching tension was off. I did a few checks, decided it was time for another service of my machine and carried on. Two things I now don't like about the project. To top my night off, I ran out of topstitching thread halfway through. Oops. The last thing that wasn't on my side for very tired self...was the rolled hem. It just didn't want to catch properly so I just turned off my machine and called it a night.

I used this tutorial for the cuff placket, because I had forgotten how to draft the thing. http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/25307/how-to-make-a-precision-placket/page/all

I stood back and took a look at my creation. I hated it. I had wasted two days making something that was truly horrible.

 The consolation? I can now sleep (or rather write this before sleep), hand in the ugly, horrible shirt. And pull it apart to fix all the things I hate with it when I get it back.

But as it was the last sewing assessment for the year, I can now relax with wine glass in hand for a night before getting to the pile of personal projects that are piling up....like getting back to the bustle dress =D

The Underskirt

Thursday 30th May

YaY!! I'm finally up to the underskirt!!

While I can make the skirt up to the waistband, without a properly fitting corset (since I've lost a little more weight) I cannot sew the skirt to the waistband, and with my current stress levels (bah life getting in the way!!!) I really can't be bothered with the stress of trying to figure out how to tweak the corset to get a proper waist reduction from it, just yet. Would like a bit of a break thank you life! =P

The pattern!

TV261-R 1885 Four-Gour Underskirt

The pattern is a little confusing when looking on the back for yardage, but I decided for that EXTRA large bustle butt to go with the bouffant option. I bought the yardage for the bouffant and ruffle; well at least I tried to.....but I got the end of the roll! There was 3.6 meters left, which is 3.94 yards. I needed 4 1/4 yards (3.8mtr) according to the pattern :s

I know most sewing patterns tell you to buy about 20cm more fabric than you need to allow for shrinkage in the wash (at least thats the reason I can assume for it lol) So I'm really hoping this cotton doesn't shrink too much and that this pattern does tell you to buy that extra.

If not I guess I'll be going without those ruffles!! (The bouffant only pattern asks for 4yards fabric) I did want to decorate the skirt hem, however if I don't have enough self fabric I guess I'll have to go searching for a black that matches! Finding matching blacks are notoriously difficuly however, so maybe change the fabric type and go for a linen/silk/taffeta/ect decoration on the hem? The change in the weave would account for the change in dye colour. 

The pattern is very easy to trace and cut out ^^ As the name suggests it's only four panels and a waistband lol. I flat lined the skirt as its a period technique. I wasn't going to do this....but thinking about it I decided it really would be best to flatline it if I'm going to trim the hem and if I'm wanting the skirt to last a little longer. I'm really glad I made this choice!!! Because in cutting out the fashion fabric I discovered just how much of a loose weave it was and how much it was going to twist and stretch out of shape =[ As it was trying to get the fashion fabric to sit perfectly flat over the broadcloth lining was close to a nightmare! I ironed both serperatly and then tried to lay the flimsier fashion fabric over the lining and pin, smoothing out as I went. This went ok....but I thought I'm going to iron them together as well, just to make sure it's perfectly flat. And I'm glad I did, because parts of the fashion fabric weren't as flat on the lining as I thought, and other parts stretched =[ The big back panel, which I can assure you was cut on the grain, still managed to stretch on the grain to be around an inch longer than the lining. Blast.

Another thing I did was to lengthen the centre back hem by about 10cm and shaped it to the original side seams of panel. This way I hopefully won't have the same bustle length issues I did with the petticoat. 

I added a layer of netting, as suggested by the pattern, to the bouffant area, stopping where the bouffant stops and shaped to the hem, on the inside of the flatlining before flatlining. This should give the bouffant some extra volume =D I zigzagged the bottom of the netting, so it didn't get caught on the petticoat or anything else. I was going to sew this by hand, until I realised no one will see it, and if it's maching stitched it has a better chance of not catching. It also keeps the netting in place, prevents it from rising up into the bouffant. 

The shaping of the netting to the lining

Showing the zigzags to stop the netting getting caught.

The Petticoat

Friday 10th May

After another interstate trip to help a friend with his photography, I have somehow managed to make a start on the petticoat! =D

I managed to trace the pattern and cut it out in one day. But cutting out the fabric took two days...my goodness! 4 of this and 6 of that! Next time I think I should trace out 6 of those pattern pieces. Wo make my life easier.

The pattern! TV170 Victorian Petticoats by Truly Victorian

http://www.trulyvictorian.net/tvxcart/product.php?productid=28

I made view 3 which is the late bustle era and the image on the left. The pattern called for 5 1/2" tucks on that panel at the back. After seeing photos of other people having made the pattern to that specification I decided to make smaller tucks, pin tucks if you will. So I have chosen to double the amount of tucks and make them half as small so the final length of the panel will remain the same; 10 1/4" pin tucks. These pin tucks will also match the width of the stripe in the fabric I'm using :)

So this project is teaching me many new skills!!! (and frustrations =P )

The setup I had on the foor of the self-contained unit we had interstate for the week.

The pin tucks in progress...and frustration attempting to get the first lot straight.

Not too bad for my first ever attempt!

Both back panels sewn together and pin tucked. Remind me to read the instructions BEFORE I go ahead and do my own thing. I pin tucked both panels individually, read the instructions and realised I was supposed to sew the panels together THEN pin tuck lol. So I spent more time than I needed to unpicking about 20cm either side of the seam and having to resew it lol.

Wednesday 15th May

I have the petticoat mostly sewn together and pinned on the mannequin over the bustle. Oops!!

Should have listened to the instructions on the tornure pattern. It states that the skirts may need to be lengthened to fit over the imperial tornure (the big butt bustle lol)....I thought "it's just the petticoat, it'llbe right" and forgot to alter it *grins innocently*

So now without the bottom ruffle I believe I have fixed the uneven hem as best as I can without cutting a new back piece. I did this by taking a bigger seam allowance at the waist at the front and sides only. This didn't fix the problem completey, but it did help a little bit. Obviously don't do this to a skirt that is already at the right length, eause it does take the length up, and you will need to then alter the fit of the waist to the waistband at the seams because taking away that bit jst made your skirt waist slightly bigger (mine by 2cm)

Friday 17th May

Woo hoo! done =D I also added some insertion lace to the to of the bottom ruffle for some extra decoration. I havn't tried it on for length yet, but as I'm house sitting again and my overlocker is getting serviced I thought I would take a weeks break and work on an unfihished corset instead.

Cost in $au

$11        Pattern cost (not including shipping)

$14.40   Fabric cost (4.5x$3.2)

$05        Lace (guess, as I bought the whole card)

Total=$30.40