Check out this awesome givaway on Grosgrain! Kathleen is a super awesome lady. :)
The Ever After Frock Halloween Grosgrain Giveaway
10.16.2010
Dreaming of Dresses
So recently (for about 2 years) I've become more passionate about dresses. The girlyness of them. the softness. the adorableness. I see them everywhere, and whenever I see one I like, my heart just does a belly flop and I wish I could have it. My problem is I don't have many things I need a really nice dress for, and the super comfortable casual ones are so so simple that they don't speak to me. Anyway. I really want to make dresses. Everyday dresses, or at least Sunday Best dresses are what I like. ModCloth has a number of heart belly flop dresses. such as.....
They are so pretty. And a lot of them have inspired some of my own designs. I fill a notebook full of all these designs that I will probably never make because I have too many ideas for my mind to handle it. I feel if I ever was a contestant on Project Runway, I'd never finish any of my challenges because I'll think of one thing, then think something else is better, then all of a sudden these other things will pop in my head and I wont know what to do. I wish I had access to a place like mood (+ their budgets!) every time I started a new project. I think having good materials to begin with helps a lot with my enthusiasm for what I'm making. Oh my, I have much to learn... I'm gonna go get sewing on my latest dress design. :)
AND......
AAANDD.......
They are so pretty. And a lot of them have inspired some of my own designs. I fill a notebook full of all these designs that I will probably never make because I have too many ideas for my mind to handle it. I feel if I ever was a contestant on Project Runway, I'd never finish any of my challenges because I'll think of one thing, then think something else is better, then all of a sudden these other things will pop in my head and I wont know what to do. I wish I had access to a place like mood (+ their budgets!) every time I started a new project. I think having good materials to begin with helps a lot with my enthusiasm for what I'm making. Oh my, I have much to learn... I'm gonna go get sewing on my latest dress design. :)
10.07.2010
The wedding post
Hello all! well I am sorry but I only have the end result photos here for the wedding dress... but I hope that will be good enough? unless I figure out how to email my phone photos to myself.
Anyway here is a photo of the front. my hand is conveniently covering a detail of the skirt that my mother didn't believe I could even execute. but alas, I did. I had inspiration from a designer from 1940, Ceil Chapman. She is flippin amazing. Her draping is so graceful and effortless. It makes my brain hurt when I try to figure out how she put some of her dresses together.
Just look at that dress! Perfect folds in all the right places. See the part at the hip where the draping goes 2 different ways? I kinda succeeded that with my dress, but it doesn't look quite as lovely. Oh well.
Anyway... The fun part was the back. I actually think that after so much work making the front of the dress work, the back ended up looking better.
The buttons worked out great, and my mom made some roses out of the scraps to put on the transition from bodice to skirt. We put in some loop tape, but it was hardly worth the effort, but it definitely made a great photo in the end:
That's my mom and godmother trying very hard to button me up. It took longer than even putting the dress on. By the end of the night I was so sick of standing up straight and being constricted by my dress, I told my husband to just cut through the loops because it was taking him 10 times longer to undo one loop than it took my mom to do up all the buttons. Or maybe it just felt that way. haha
Another part of my ensemble was the headpiece. It was my mothers for her wedding in 1970. It had a HUGE veil attached to it when she wore it though. Very 70's. And since it is bendy, I was able to make it more headband-like rather than it taking over my entire head like she had it for her wedding. Here's a close-up:
Apart from my dress being handmade, I had relatives make the bridesmaid dresses. My mom was the winner for the most sewing for the wedding by helping me with my dress, sewing her own dress, and sewing my sister's dress. Go mom! Here's a pic of all of our handmade dresses. Credits from left to right: My mom, Me and my mom, my godmother, and my mother-in-law. Thank you ladies for your skills, time and dedication! My godmother also made 3 different veils to choose from, how awesome is she?!
My sister-in-law also made the flower girl dress out of extra fabric from my dress. She was very adorable, but also she is 2 which means that she is more interested in playing with the flowers rather than posing with them... hah, but this picture is a winner!
It was a lovely day and it was nice to see all those months of hard work finally show it's face. The reception hall looked fabulous all decked out in green and pink. And the cake! it was perfect! (yes those are giraffes, no there's no reason besides it was funny. See the etsy shop where we got it.)
We had live betta fish as our centerpieces. THAT was a lot of work on it's own. We had bought 30 fish a week before hand and tried to keep them alive for the day. We only lost two total which was great because we didn't need all 30 of them. You can kind of see him swimming around in this photo. All of the fish found their way to a new home which was great. I was worried no one would take them. We hand-made the table runners because otherwise it would be 20 bucks a table for a tablecloth service to put a green tablecloth down.... really? 20 bucks? we got away with less than a dollar for the runners. they looked fab with the pink napkins.
I was also lucky enough to have my uncle Dana do the photos for me all day. He's been in the business for a very long time. He helped his dad out when he was in High School and his son (my cousin) Helps him out too. Yay for family businesses! They do such a wonderful job too. they captured everything beautifully. You can check him out here: www.whiteography.com
After all that, I am done with wedding planning. It was a long and hard rollercoaster ride, and I am glad it is over. And now I have all these pretty wedding photos to look at too :)
Anyway here is a photo of the front. my hand is conveniently covering a detail of the skirt that my mother didn't believe I could even execute. but alas, I did. I had inspiration from a designer from 1940, Ceil Chapman. She is flippin amazing. Her draping is so graceful and effortless. It makes my brain hurt when I try to figure out how she put some of her dresses together.Just look at that dress! Perfect folds in all the right places. See the part at the hip where the draping goes 2 different ways? I kinda succeeded that with my dress, but it doesn't look quite as lovely. Oh well.
Anyway... The fun part was the back. I actually think that after so much work making the front of the dress work, the back ended up looking better.
The buttons worked out great, and my mom made some roses out of the scraps to put on the transition from bodice to skirt. We put in some loop tape, but it was hardly worth the effort, but it definitely made a great photo in the end:
That's my mom and godmother trying very hard to button me up. It took longer than even putting the dress on. By the end of the night I was so sick of standing up straight and being constricted by my dress, I told my husband to just cut through the loops because it was taking him 10 times longer to undo one loop than it took my mom to do up all the buttons. Or maybe it just felt that way. haha
Another part of my ensemble was the headpiece. It was my mothers for her wedding in 1970. It had a HUGE veil attached to it when she wore it though. Very 70's. And since it is bendy, I was able to make it more headband-like rather than it taking over my entire head like she had it for her wedding. Here's a close-up:
My sister-in-law also made the flower girl dress out of extra fabric from my dress. She was very adorable, but also she is 2 which means that she is more interested in playing with the flowers rather than posing with them... hah, but this picture is a winner!
It was a lovely day and it was nice to see all those months of hard work finally show it's face. The reception hall looked fabulous all decked out in green and pink. And the cake! it was perfect! (yes those are giraffes, no there's no reason besides it was funny. See the etsy shop where we got it.)
I was also lucky enough to have my uncle Dana do the photos for me all day. He's been in the business for a very long time. He helped his dad out when he was in High School and his son (my cousin) Helps him out too. Yay for family businesses! They do such a wonderful job too. they captured everything beautifully. You can check him out here: www.whiteography.com
After all that, I am done with wedding planning. It was a long and hard rollercoaster ride, and I am glad it is over. And now I have all these pretty wedding photos to look at too :)
5.30.2010
Wedding Dress and Savannah
I'm finally getting so so excited about my dress because I'm finally making progress! I have my dress form all dressed up in what I've made so far, and it looks like a real dress. It makes me a little giddy as I gathered a bunch of info from a bunch of different resources and just started making the dress. Nothing I've done with it so far is directly from any commercial pattern. (the one I used was altered, and only used because an A-line skirt is easier to just steal from a pattern)
So apart from that, I've recently gone with the Sons of Turner on tour number 2: Savannah, GA. It was a relaxing time, and for me, it ended up being a break from all the stress that's been building up since I left school. And I got to paint again! I only had enough energy to get one done (I was sick with a sinus infection during the first half of the trip, boo) but all in all, a nice break from life. I've been very neglectful of uploading photos too, so that will have to wait until another post.
I have 2 months left until I'm married and move up to WI, and once I do that, I'll be a sewing and painting fool. I've been pondering the sewing business and wondering if it'd be something I want to offer to people. I still have a lot to learn about sewing, but I'm bursting with this need to create my own designs. After making this wedding dress to my own design, I think I'll have a lot more confidence. At any rate, stay tuned and you may be able to get your very own garment made to your specific measurements made by yours truly.
That's all for now, sorry for the lack of pictures. I promise to load up tons of photos of the dress in progress after the wedding, and the little itty painting I did on my vacation.
:)
So apart from that, I've recently gone with the Sons of Turner on tour number 2: Savannah, GA. It was a relaxing time, and for me, it ended up being a break from all the stress that's been building up since I left school. And I got to paint again! I only had enough energy to get one done (I was sick with a sinus infection during the first half of the trip, boo) but all in all, a nice break from life. I've been very neglectful of uploading photos too, so that will have to wait until another post.
I have 2 months left until I'm married and move up to WI, and once I do that, I'll be a sewing and painting fool. I've been pondering the sewing business and wondering if it'd be something I want to offer to people. I still have a lot to learn about sewing, but I'm bursting with this need to create my own designs. After making this wedding dress to my own design, I think I'll have a lot more confidence. At any rate, stay tuned and you may be able to get your very own garment made to your specific measurements made by yours truly.
That's all for now, sorry for the lack of pictures. I promise to load up tons of photos of the dress in progress after the wedding, and the little itty painting I did on my vacation.
:)
2.28.2010
Sewing is in my brain.
So, as most of you know, I'm working on my wedding and sewing a dress so the whole drawing/painting/art thing is put on hold...
Now that that's out of the way, I'd like to say that I LOVE sewing. I really should include all the stuff with sewing on this blog too... why not? So here goes... :)
Recently I've been getting all kinds of books about making patterns and garment construction in an effort to teach myself how sewing works. I definitely understand things a lot better after sewing a lot in the last year and one of the biggest lessons I've learned is to not try to cut corners and spend time with each garment instead of blasting through and trying to just get it done. Quality is important, and clothes wont hold up for very long if they aren't finished properly. I have some jeans I made, but I left most of the seams unfinished, and it's raveling like mad on the inside.
But anyway, my most finished and involved thing I made exactly a year ago this month is my winter coat. I learned a lot with this one too. As I tend to just go for the big project and challenge myself (to keep in interesting, mostly) A lot of things could have been different. The collar could have been bigger, I should have used a different lining, and the facing would have been better in a different fabric.
But enough with the dull details of my sewing projects past and on with some fun links!
First up is the website of my choice when it comes to finding anything and everything to do with sewing. Patterns, blogs, how-tos, and endless member projects to gather inspiration and share talent:
www.burdastyle.com
Next will be a list of books that I've found to be a little above the rest:
Building Patterns the Architecture of Women's Clothing : A bit more expensive than the beginner friendly, fun sewing books that don't always give you all the information.... Actually none of them really do, but this one is great if you really want to know how to make a pattern. I'd suggest getting to know ready made patterns and learn a lot about sewing and how to construct a garment a bit before you go straight to this book. There's a lot of good info and helps you visualize how things work.... plus it tells you how to measure people, draft seams and darts, every type of pocket, and much much more! The thing it lacks is things an advanced sewer would know anyway like seam allowances, how to cut the fabric, and how to construct the garment after the pattern is made.
Twinkle Sews: I think this book is pretty great because it's a bit edgy, much more modern than a lot of books on the market and it has less of a DIY mom who wants to make diaper bags and pajamas and "quick and easy" clothes feel to it. The thing I like the most is it has a range of projects easy-advanced, and doesn't assume that every person touching the book is a complete idiot/beginner. Now to the not so great things about it... It does come with patterns, HOWEVER... you have to print them out on copy paper and tape it all together to even make what you want. And not only is that cumbersome enough (actually the fact doesn't bother me as much because that's how burda style does their patterns, but they at least usually include a file you can print at a copy shop) when the pattern prints out, it's too big for the printer margins and cuts off the markings where you line up the papers so your pattern isnt all screwwy... plus they are all Japanese style patterns (which means that you don't cut the fabric while it's folded, which is slightly annoying for it wastes more paper for things that could be cut "on the fold" and more time because you're spending time cutting things out twice when you could have done one cut and had 2 identically opposite pieces. Helpful when you have 2 sleeves to cut out.) And lastly, the cover dress is basically the only thing in there with any shape. Most of the clothes are oversized t-shirts that are supposed to pass off as a dress.... I guess long story short, check it out in a bookstore to see if it'd suit your style or not. In spite of all the bad stuff I just said about this book, I still really really like the clothes. I haven't made anything yet though because of the all the bad stuff I just said about the book. :)
Lastly, and I'll keep this one short:
Built by Wendy Dresses
This book is nice because it's very pro altering patterns. It includes 3 basic patterns that all the dresses are based off of. It's great because it's a good step towards pattern-making and gets you comfortable and familiar with how patterns work. The first section is good at explaining how to do some basic sewing as well. What I don't like is how it's pretty much an oxymoron. It really is a beginners book, but at the same time it's not. A beginner would probably have a harder time trying to figure out how to do half the things in the book, especially since it's not very clear on how to add seam allowances (since none of the patterns have them to begin with, which is a good thing) and it leaves out some important info like the words "cut on fold"
But this is all from someone who considers herself to be "intermediate" I'm still no expert and there is plenty I still don't know. But I try, oh I try.
Now that that's out of the way, I'd like to say that I LOVE sewing. I really should include all the stuff with sewing on this blog too... why not? So here goes... :)
Recently I've been getting all kinds of books about making patterns and garment construction in an effort to teach myself how sewing works. I definitely understand things a lot better after sewing a lot in the last year and one of the biggest lessons I've learned is to not try to cut corners and spend time with each garment instead of blasting through and trying to just get it done. Quality is important, and clothes wont hold up for very long if they aren't finished properly. I have some jeans I made, but I left most of the seams unfinished, and it's raveling like mad on the inside.
But anyway, my most finished and involved thing I made exactly a year ago this month is my winter coat. I learned a lot with this one too. As I tend to just go for the big project and challenge myself (to keep in interesting, mostly) A lot of things could have been different. The collar could have been bigger, I should have used a different lining, and the facing would have been better in a different fabric.
But enough with the dull details of my sewing projects past and on with some fun links!
First up is the website of my choice when it comes to finding anything and everything to do with sewing. Patterns, blogs, how-tos, and endless member projects to gather inspiration and share talent:
www.burdastyle.com
Next will be a list of books that I've found to be a little above the rest:
Building Patterns the Architecture of Women's Clothing : A bit more expensive than the beginner friendly, fun sewing books that don't always give you all the information.... Actually none of them really do, but this one is great if you really want to know how to make a pattern. I'd suggest getting to know ready made patterns and learn a lot about sewing and how to construct a garment a bit before you go straight to this book. There's a lot of good info and helps you visualize how things work.... plus it tells you how to measure people, draft seams and darts, every type of pocket, and much much more! The thing it lacks is things an advanced sewer would know anyway like seam allowances, how to cut the fabric, and how to construct the garment after the pattern is made.
Twinkle Sews: I think this book is pretty great because it's a bit edgy, much more modern than a lot of books on the market and it has less of a DIY mom who wants to make diaper bags and pajamas and "quick and easy" clothes feel to it. The thing I like the most is it has a range of projects easy-advanced, and doesn't assume that every person touching the book is a complete idiot/beginner. Now to the not so great things about it... It does come with patterns, HOWEVER... you have to print them out on copy paper and tape it all together to even make what you want. And not only is that cumbersome enough (actually the fact doesn't bother me as much because that's how burda style does their patterns, but they at least usually include a file you can print at a copy shop) when the pattern prints out, it's too big for the printer margins and cuts off the markings where you line up the papers so your pattern isnt all screwwy... plus they are all Japanese style patterns (which means that you don't cut the fabric while it's folded, which is slightly annoying for it wastes more paper for things that could be cut "on the fold" and more time because you're spending time cutting things out twice when you could have done one cut and had 2 identically opposite pieces. Helpful when you have 2 sleeves to cut out.) And lastly, the cover dress is basically the only thing in there with any shape. Most of the clothes are oversized t-shirts that are supposed to pass off as a dress.... I guess long story short, check it out in a bookstore to see if it'd suit your style or not. In spite of all the bad stuff I just said about this book, I still really really like the clothes. I haven't made anything yet though because of the all the bad stuff I just said about the book. :)
Lastly, and I'll keep this one short:
Built by Wendy Dresses
This book is nice because it's very pro altering patterns. It includes 3 basic patterns that all the dresses are based off of. It's great because it's a good step towards pattern-making and gets you comfortable and familiar with how patterns work. The first section is good at explaining how to do some basic sewing as well. What I don't like is how it's pretty much an oxymoron. It really is a beginners book, but at the same time it's not. A beginner would probably have a harder time trying to figure out how to do half the things in the book, especially since it's not very clear on how to add seam allowances (since none of the patterns have them to begin with, which is a good thing) and it leaves out some important info like the words "cut on fold"
But this is all from someone who considers herself to be "intermediate" I'm still no expert and there is plenty I still don't know. But I try, oh I try.
12.17.2009
the count is now... ONE!
Hey there! I'm finally done with school! Tomorrow is the very last day I have to come in. All I have to do is wrap up some loose ends, and clean all my stuff from the various parts of the school... And I'm outta here! :) It feels good to be done and to move on to a new part of life.
And with that, I'd like to share my final painting for the semester, and my school career. After this, it's my own work... for better or worse, we'll find out...
This one is about me as I relate to my fiance Andrew. I'm the blunt one. :)
Thanks for looking, I hope everyone has a great holiday! I know I will :)
And with that, I'd like to share my final painting for the semester, and my school career. After this, it's my own work... for better or worse, we'll find out...
This one is about me as I relate to my fiance Andrew. I'm the blunt one. :)
Thanks for looking, I hope everyone has a great holiday! I know I will :)
12.10.2009
Fun Fluff and Stuff
Hey everyone! I've got a nice shinny new painting to show you (actually 2 but ill save one for another post) This painting is a self portrait with just objects this time. My adult self vs. my child self. This is a tiny one, only 4"x4" and it's just so cute, don'cha think? :)
Both the bunny and the monkey were handmade by me. Bunny when I was young, and Wendall a few months ago. Hope you like it :)
Both the bunny and the monkey were handmade by me. Bunny when I was young, and Wendall a few months ago. Hope you like it :)
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