MMM'12 Week 3

So here is my me-made stuff for Week 3.

Day 15:
I just wore my leather and plaid jacket on this day. Since I've already got a picture of that one, I didn't really feel like taking another one :)

Day 16:

Me-made skirt. The picture is a little dark so it just looks like any old black skirt, but it is actually a semi-sheer paisley fabric. I need to wear a skirt undernealth because in the sun it is a little see-through. I usually just wear a black stretchy tube skirt undernealth. It used to have a lining, but it was a little tight, and one day I got sick of constantly having to hitch in down so I ripped it out and now just wear my black tube skirt undernealth.

Day 17:

 I didn't wear anythign me-made during the day, but in the evening I went to go see Mary Poppins with my parents and my friend's mum. It was amazing, such a good show!!
ANy way, I wore my maroon pleated skirt. I love this skirt, so nice and swishy. It took forever to make though. All those pleats I pressed individually. I'm pretty sure I went through BBC's entire Planet Earth documentary series.

Day 18:

 I had another lab today that required long sleeves and pants, so I wore my black pants again. I wasn't planning to take a picture, but then I remembered, Friday's theme was green so I decided to take a picture so I could participate :P

Day 19:

 I went down south to the Groovin' the Moo festival with a couple friends and wore this brand new top. Made from the sorbetto pattern with a few modifications. Originally I wanted to put a fringe trim on the hem so I made it a little cropped. But then I didn't have enough trim so I had to change my plans. I ended up putting pleats at the front to cover my midriff a bit. Although it is still a little short at the front. The back has a longer curved hem so it's fine, its just the front. I just need to wear higher sitting pants with this top. It's made out of a super soft black frabic that is really comfy. The back needs a sway back adjustment (it wrinkles a fair bit) but I couldn't be bother so I just left it. It doesn't really bother me that much, it's supposed to be a loose top after all.

Day 20:

 So today I was recovering :P so it was definately a trackies kinda day. But because I didn't want to bomb out another day I put a me-made headband on.

Day 21:

Me made blue dress. This dress has a low back as well with bos over it that are supposed to cover my bra but don't so I put an in-built bra in it. So all good :) It's starting to get pretty cold. The days of wearing dressing without leggings and tights are almost gone :(

Anyway almost through this challenge. It was surprisingly easy following through with it. Although I don't think I'd be able to do the full on challenge of only me-made stuff. Well maybe in the summer, when all I need to wear are dresses :)

Kaylee Costume - Part 1

So in June the Supernova convention is coming to Perth. And I'm going!!! SO excited. My friend and I are dressing up (as you do for these sorts of things) and I'm going as Kaylee from Firefly (She's going as Leeloo from The Fifth Element). Firefly is one of my favourite shows ever, and I still get depressed about the fact that there where only 14 episodes :( Anyway, I choose Kaylee because her outfit will be pretty easy to make up, basically just khaki coveralls, boots and a flowered long sleeved t-shirt. Also because she is one of my favourite characters ever. She's always so happy and cheerful and she's a kick ass mechanic. I do mechanical engineering at uni, so I reckon it's pretty cool :P.

Plus her hair is similar to mine so I won't need to wear a wig.
Anyway, this morning I got my coveralls that I bought off ebay in the post :D I tried looking for coveralls at a couple op-shops around the place, but I guess people don't really donate those things. They are pretty expensive new in the shops and I suppose used ones will be covered in too my oil and grease to donate. Mind you I wouldn't have minded a grease-and-oil covered one, would have been more authentic :D
So I tried it on. Not going to show you a picture because it is waayyy to tight in all the wrong places.

Bleh, while the waist and bust fits fine, this is a mens jumpsuit so does not allow for my rather large hips and butt.  Another problem is, I have quite a long torso, so it's basically pushing up on my crotch and down on my shoulders. I couldn't sit in this thing thats how bad it was.

So first things first, I cut off the sleeves. Probably the easiest alteration for this thing. Then I figured I needed to lengthen the torso some how. TO do it at the bottom would be much to tricky (all the seams are flatfelled - its a pretty good quality jumpsuit, well made I'd say, I feel sort of bad hacking it up :P ) so I decided I would have to lengthen it at the top. 

I cut across the shoulders at the back and added a rectangle of sleeve fabric, thus lengthening the back. The I tried it on. Soooo much better already, although I could use a little more room. So unpick and add another rectangle, now I ahve plenty of room at the back, too much even and still not enough at the front. Because I added all this room at the back the collar is now tugging down on my neck. That had me stumped for a while til I added an extra bit to it, at the center back. You can see it here.

Haha, it needs a bit of an iron and the seams need finishing, but it works!!! I also removed one of the chest pockets, as Kaylee's only has one.

 

Aaaand another bathroom mirror shot to show you how it fits now. Can't really see too much of a difference, but believe me there is!! I can actually sit down in the thing now. Which is nice. 

Next I need to finish the seams and the sleeves, add some patchs and some dirt!! I would also like to replace the snaps with a zip to make it more authentic, but I think I will only do that if I have time :)

Day 4 - Flowers

So I love flowers. I take a lot of photos of flowers. They are soo pretty and have such interesting shapes and such beautiful colours. However, I also love mushrooms, and since I have a ton of flower photos I figured I will feature a mushroom for this day's photo. Mushrooms are sorta like flowers...... :P
So for this photo I flipped my lens around to turn it into a macro lens. Which is such a good idea!! Makes a simple lens so much more versitile.
I was wondering around my garden looking for a pretty flower to photograph and I saw these two little guys sitting on the grass. Don't they have the most fantastic textures. Beautiful. I love mushrooms :)

 

You can see my Flickr page for a bigger picture :) 

Me-Made-May '12 Week 2

Hi!
So the second week of MMM'12 is over with. Past halfway now :) (sorta)
Anyway, onto the outfits!

Day 8:

Me-Made: Stripey dress.
This dress is probably my favourite dress ever!! It's flattering and very comfortable. Which is pretty much the magic combination isn't it. I wore this for a day at uni and then I had to go to a friend's birthday dinner straight after uni. It was pretty comfortable and looked good with my new boots (which I love love love!! They are totally kick arse, and have a hidden wedge heel, and although it's sorta high they are surprisingly comfortable. Yay!)
My lovely mum took this picture. Which is a lot quicker and easier then having to prop my camera up on the table and use self timer :)

Day 9:

Me-Made: Black Pants
I had a lab at uni that day so I needed to wear long sleeves and long pants. (I changed into long sleeves later) I don't actually have any me-made long sleeved tops so it had to be long pants, and these are the only pair of me-made long pants I have. So no brainer really. These pants are actually high waisted. I finished them just before I had to go to a job induction (buisness casual dress code), so the waistband is a little messed up. My first time putting belt loops on something, I completely stuffed it up. They are all over the place. At least I figured out how not to do them now :P I think that is one of the pitfalls of trail and error sewing :P I'm too impatient to read how to do it in books and on the net, I like to jump straight into it and figure it out myself. Any how, if I don't wear these pants high waisted you can't really see the messed up belt loops so no worries.
The fabric is pretty cool, it's some polyester thing but it has the coolest square pattern, which you can sorta see in the picture. My friend told me I can't wear these as buisness casual work pants because the squares are a little out there, but you can't really notice them and I reckon it's a little different which is nice. I should probably save this pondering on the post about these pants but who knows when I'll get around to that :P Moving on....

Day 10:

Me-Made (not quite, me-altered more like): Purple/grey dress
This dress started life as a long sleeved tunic/dress thing shaped like a sack. It was comfy but not very flattering, so I cut the sleeves off and cut it at the waist. Then pleated the skirt bit and sewed it back together. Actually this might have been the first thing I ever did with my overlocker. Not sure though :P Anyway, it's super comfy and technically not me-made and although I didn't specify in my challenge declaration that I would could wear altered stuff (this is pretty much the only altered piece of clothing I have anyway) I'm still counting it. Becaase it is my challenge afterall :P
So yeah, this day was a lazy day (I'm sure you can tell from the uggs, bun and tights) and this is the perfect lazy day dress. This dress also works dressed up, but I still need to get around the finishing off the sleeves :S

Day 11:

Me-Made: Yellow African Print Top
So the previous day I was bored and wanted a quick and easy sewing project. Which produced this. I need a lot more me-made separates, so I've been trying to think of cool top and skirt designs. Anyway, this is just a simple A-line sleeve-less top. I used the Danielle pattern bodice from Burdastyle (one of my favourites!!) and just added an A-line bitfrom waist to hips. The back has a curved hem (see pic below) which I have decided I really like the look of. It has an invisible zipper on the side.

Side view: I did a bit of a sway back adjustment but it was last minute so not completely effective, you can't really tell in this photo but there is still a bit of a crinkle on my lower due to my booty :P

The fabric my dad bought for me in Africa and he bought about 6 or 8 yards of it (it came pre-packaged) I forget how much exactly. So that's about, 5.5 to 7 m. So tonnes!!! It's such a cool colour, funky pattern, wax printed material, possibly cotton(?). I love anything with yellow in it so definitely a winner. He also bought back this funky parrot patterned wax fabric which has green and red all through it. Even louder then this one. I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to make with it. So far I've used it to line a black skirt.


Day 12:
Hmmm, well, umm, I fell off the wagon on this day. It was Saturday and I work half the day (at a swimmign pool) so when I get home, I generally don't want to wear anything fancy. And most of the stuff I have made isn't really the lounge-around-in-my-uggs-all-day type of stuff. The Saturday before this one I was lucky because I had a 21st so my me-made was the party dress I wore to that. Didn't have anything on this Saturday :P

Day 13:

 

Me-made: Stripey Kimono top.

My first repeat. Pretty good effort so far I reckon. Sorry for the bad messy bedroom photo, but since I've already worn this and I was only wearing my trackies and uggs with it, I figured and nice photo outside wasn't necessary.

Day 14:

Me-Made: Lacy Top
Phew!! Day 14 already, almost half way through. SO this top is one of my proudest achievements. I sewed it about 2 years ago maybe, (I started sewing about 3 years ago - ish) so 2 years ago I wasn't the best. But this turned out sooo much better then expected. The lace is from an old curtain I picked up at an op-shop and the white is just t-shirt jersey material from Spotlight. Anyway after I made it I got soo many compliments, and questions along the lines of "Omg! Where did you get that top?!" and when I said I made it people couldn't believe it. Yeah, maybe that's a bit proud or whatever, but it was the best thing I made at that time for a while (I have a lot of sewing fails) so I was pretty happy.
Any how I still love it, and up until this day, had never really worn it casually, but I really like the looks so I reckon this will be worn a lot more. So yay for Me-Made-May!!

Wow, that was a loooong post. It's so hard to get myself to sit down and write (I'm definitely not a writer, give me a long maths problem over an essay question any day) but once I start writing, the words just gush out. I guess I just love to talk about sewing and the stuff I've made.
Maybe if I have this much to say about my handmade clothes I should do MMM wrap up posts twice a week instead of one. Then it isn't so much text to read at once.

See you later :)

Just Quickly

So I started a little photo blog to document my photo taking stuff, but I didn't want to run two separate blogs, so I have combined the two. This blog will not be just for sewing exclusively, but rather for anything that takes my fancy :)

Red Dress

Another dress from the Danielle pattern. I made this last year for a Red themed quiz night. It was raising money for Red Aware and hosted by the medical society at my uni.
I used the Danielle pattern from Burdastyle for the top, then added a waistband and pleated skirt. It has an invisible side zipper on one side and a in-seam pocket on the other. I also modified the back piece to have a lower back.
It's a pretty comfy dress and I love the colour! Although in the sun it looks slightly hot pink :P

30 Day Photo Challenge - Day 3 - Clouds

So here's my third day picture for the photo challenge I'm doing. Although if you notice the dates, I've kind of fallen off the wagon a bit :P At the moment I'm doing sewing challenge and uni is pretty busy so I've let the photo taking fall on the way side a bit. Plus I think, like with any creative endevour of mine, I really need to wait until inspiration takes me and I feel a great urge to do something creative. Unfortunately I can't force it. But enough about me. Here is my Day 3 photo. The theme was 'Clouds'.

 So I took this down by the river near my hous. It's about 5 ish and the sun is just starting to set. I love how the shape of the clouds reflect the shape of the bay. Looks almost mirrored in a way. Plus the colours are just lovely. Originally the landscape was very dark, so I lightened it up in Photoshop a bit, and now I think it looks much better. You can see the original on my flickr page as well as another cropped version. Although I think I like this version the best :)
I think maybe I should resize these before I post them. The extra-large blogger photo setting just doesn't cut it and the original size is huge! My flickr page shows it better I think.

MMM'12 Week 1

Well the first week of MMM'12 is over already! And I've kept up, which I'm happy about. I figured individual MMM Day posts would be a little too much so I've put all my outfits for the week together.

Kimono Tee in Lace

 

So, I made this top ages ago, but since I'm wearing it for MMM'12 today and therefore had to take pictures of it, I figured I may aswell give it a little space on my blog here. 

I used the Kimono Tee pattern found on burdastyle. This is the second time I've used this pattern, with the first being a stripy knit tee. I haven't made a blog post for that one, but it will appear on here at some point for MMM'12.

Anyway, when making this top I was inspired by this tee, I loved the peter pan collar with the lace so i figured I'd give it a go myself.

The black fabric I had in my stash, it's some sort of polyester cotton mix I'd say. Although it wrinkles like crazy so maybe it's more cotton then polyester? not really sure, I'm not really that familliar with the properties of different fabrics, other then the obvious. The lace was an old curtain I bought at an op-shop.

It's see-through so I have to wear a singlet or tank top undernealth, today I'm wearing black but I also like wearing something colourful underneath.

I accidentally cut the pattern to small (the lace isn't stretchy) so I had to add those triangles to the sides to make it looser. I also cut it too short :P so I added a band around the bottom. Which I like better anyway!

 I didn't really draft the collar too well :( so sometimes the back folds up like you can see in that picture. It doesn't really bother me too much.

Also I think I will keep the MMM'12 posts to a weekly basis and post up a weeks worth of outfits at once. Posting once a day will be hard I think.

MMM'12 Day 1

Well today is the first day of the MMM'12 challenge. I wore my red linen zipper top. Which I haven't gotten around to documenting formally yet, but I will once I get a bit of time.

I asked my brother to take pictures for me in the morning, but I was in a bit of a rush and he did a bit of a terrible job. All of the photos turned out blurry!! I have no idea how he managed it. So this evening I asked my mum to take a few and she had a lot more success. Unfortunely it was already dark outside so I'm standing under incandescent lights, which have made the colours come out a little oversaturated and warm. I included the best pic my brother took this morning so you can see what the actual colour of the top is.

Laters!