Photoshoot.

My housemate Harriet is working on a mock up of a magazine for her journalism MA and her chosen subject is... customising clothes! So last weekend was spent taking lots of photos of my room and projects and ME! Mutually beneficial because she now has content for her project, and I have some new photos which have been taken by another person - no photos at arm's length.
So I found out all the things I have made/customised and we chose our favourites and got to work.



The outfits are very crazy, Hatty needed something that screamed "customised" and I would like to state that I wouldn't go out in these outfits as they are, I'm a bit more subtle!



A couple of these photos are of things I'd forgotten about, like my measuring tape rosette, so it was great to revisit these. The rosette was made by dividing a Christmas cracker tape measure into eight equal lengths, folding each in half and stitching through, with a bead on the top for decoration. I also found out a top with my name in cute print fabrics, which I made last year. Harriet liked this and used it in photos.


In my interview I said I loved bows and loved making them, so we rounded up all the home-made bows in my room:



Glorious.


The final shot is a little foreshadow of my next project.

Stay tuned.

Tuesday 26th April 2011.

Good day to you all. As promised here is a photo of my new top in action.
I took my mum to Jam Jar Beads to show her the wonder of all the beads and treated myself to another lucky cat. I have fashioned the two cats into earrings with a length of aqua blue waxed cotton. Pretty darn simple, just took a couple of knots and I'm done.
If I ever get bored of the earrings I can easily cut the thread and recycle the pieces into something new.

I've recently discovered Thread Banger on Youtube. Its a channel for DIY fashion etc and its got some nice ideas. I'm really keen to try making my own body double for future dress making adventures. Just need to find a willing volunteer to cover me in parcel tape/duct tape/plaster. I've wondered about saving up for a tailor's dummy but they're so dang expensive. So in the meantime, maybe this DIY version is the best idea.

My First Ever Piece of Clothing (From Scratch)

It has been done. I have finally made myself a piece of clothing completely from scratch.
Behold my new summer top!
I'm really happy that I've managed to make something original off of my own design. I created a pattern out of my own measurements and greaseproof paper. I've stashed the pattern so I can use it again. I'm going to wear it when I see Mum tomorrow. Hopefully I can get a photo of me wearing it to show how it looks on.

Yay.

Sunshine!

The weather was so beautiful yesterday that I decided to relax my total leg ban and wore shorts for the first time in a long time. In honour of this special occasion I took a pair of scissors to an old pair of khaki combat trousers. They had begun to rip along the bottom and were looking less than their best. To add a feminine touch to the new shorts I added a floral piece of fabric as a belt, tying the ends into a bow at one side. Very nice for a picnic in the sunshine with my boyfriend.




We were going to have a barbeque for dinner but we couldn't find any disposable ones in Morrisons (although we did spot a suspiciously large empty space next to the barbeque coals - maybe other people had the same idea) so we just cooked the food under the grill in the kitchen. We had lamb kebabs with rosemary and chilli and sausages. Delicious, less smoke and no fear of food poisoning :)



I also made some great biscuits for pudding. All it took was 175g (6oz) of flour, the same of butter and 5tbsp of sugar. I added vanilla for some extra flavour and they were great. Just cook for roughly 30mins and done. They went pretty quickly though, so I'll have to make some more very soon!



Photos of shorts to follow soon.

My Week Off (Wednesday)

I have begun my skirt project today! The pieces are all cut out and pinned together. All I need now is to stitch stitch stitch (and buy exciting buttons and bright zippers, to stitch some more).
Here are the exciting fabrics, the floral is the main body and I'm using the orange for a contrasting belt.

Will keep you posted