February 2009

summer dress

February 28, 2009

The sun is getting warmer and warmer and inspired by this I decided to make the summer dress that I bought fabric to for ages ago. I started on it today but unfortunately the “rack of doom” aka. my breast decided to do as usual, not play nicely. The empire waistline that I had measured out ended up on my stomach, in my waist. Really there it was 8cm to low even thou I had measured like a crazywoman. Empire waist lines always gets screwed up my my breast, ending up either ON them or way below. After some creative problem solving involving creating a new empire line and some pinning it did turn out fine. I only have the sleeves and some hemming left to do, I am really fast at sewing these kind of dresses ^^

almost finished

February 27, 2009

the 18th century pair of stays are almost done now! The upper edge needs binding and there are a few small things left to be done, but I can see the light in the tunnel now ;)

the gray little wool dress

February 25, 2009

Is finished!

I am really pleased with how this one turned out, it is in Italian wool and do want a bigger petticoat then what I have on in these pictures (I only have a normal skirt under it) The band under the bust is removable and was originally planned to be at the waist, but that looked really strange. It made my upper body look really short, But I do have a short upper body, and the big boobs does not really help with that.

Oh and the BOW! I just love how the bow turned out :) and the stripes as well, I just love them. I love everything on this dress and I think that it is the best dress that I have made so far.

The other entry on this dress can be found here

pair of stays – binding

February 25, 2009

I am binding the lower edge of my pair of stays, it is a real pain but I am doing it by hand, it seems to be the only way of doing it. I realize why a lot of people make the pair of stays with the big tabs, I have small and MANNY tabs, why did I do this? Oh well, no pain no gain.

lace

February 22, 2009

I have found some really nice lace to use for the robe a la Francaise, and it was for free! We were at a underwear company with school this Wednesday, and there the nice lady who were showing us all the nice machines and materials they used said “do you want some materials” Yes! we all said and the lady picked out a BIG box with lace and other materials that were leftover from their production. When we got back to school our teacher said “take stuff when you need it”.
So I took some lace since I knew that I will be using it later.

It is not really what I wanted, it is synthetic, but it is quite high quality so it does not look all that horrible and to find cotton lace that looks like this seems to be impossible. I like the lace on the last picture least, but it is ok and It will be the flounce that is under the other ones.

I don’t know if I have mentioned that I will be making a replica of pompadours green dress, and look at the flounces of lace, I think that my lace will fit perfectly.

my bjd is on the move

February 21, 2009

I am making a bjd with the proportions of a woman size 38 (European size) and the I am working with measurements that are is 1:4 of “life size” so I will end up with a doll that is approximately 41cm tall (16.1 inch) I am striving for making a body that is proportionate with a real woman’s body, it will probably end up as a curvier size 38 than my measurement guides calls for I like curves.

The reason that I am going after a measurement guide for “real people” is that I am studying textile and fashion design and we draw patterns both in full size (after our own measurements) and for 1:4 of a size 38 (European size) and this way It would be dead easy for me to make clothing for my doll being used to making patterns for this size already, and I feel that this size of doll is manageable, not to big and not to small.

This is also the reason why my body have hips and arm stumps on it, I am making a couple of mannequins to show of my collection that I am making in 1:4 scale and those need hips and stumps to make the garments hang as they should.

So I started the whole project with making the body part, I have a Styrofoam core and then paper clay over that. The measurements are right but it is suffering of really bad case of two different breast sizes That is kind of fixed after I took the pictures. There is still a lot of work on it, and a lot of sanding to do, but this is what it looks like so far.
I do not have a sketch of how I want the body to look like, I like the process of things growing into them self and since I have my measurements to rely on I now how long the legs should be and so on.

For the head I did make a sketch, I have worked after a picture, so to make it more doll like it will end up with bigger eyes that this sketch, but as I have said I like things to grow into them self. The head is really rough at the moment, I just wanted to get some shapes up and the profile to be ok.

a gray little dress

February 21, 2009

I am working at a gray wool dress at the moment, I’m really satisfied with how the stripes came out. The dress is inspired by a Innocent World dress, but not a replica at all. I am adding black bias and a little black bow to the neckline, and puffy sleeves with a black border in the edge, and I will be wearing this dress with a poofy underskirt and black belt.

It needs ironing :P and the sleeves are merely pinned to the dress with a couple of needles.

printing of fabric

February 21, 2009

I actually have used the prints that I made a while ago. I have test printed the “chandelier print” on a piece of white linen fabric.

And I have printed the “gates print” on red cotton broadcloth, it is going to end up as a skirt.

And I also Printed the “Alice print” on gray cotton broadcloth and that is also going to end up as a skirt. I like skirts so much ^^ but I don’t really need any more, I should be making tops to go with my skirts in stead.

flowers

February 15, 2009

the robe a la francaise project is still not on the move, the problem of finding a nice fabric have landed it on the waiting list, and I need to take care of the corset issue first. But now I have gotten the stuff from VenaCavaDesign that I needed so I can finish the mock-up and then move on to the real thing. The pocket hoops are finished and I will take some pictures of them perhaps this Tuesday.

But now on to what the title says, flowers! My dress will have about 200 pink flowers on it, and fabric roses does not look that authentic as I would wish them to look, so I goggled fabric roses for some hours last night and found not fabric roses but how to make flowers out of coffee filters on the Martha Stewart site. They look truly awesome and real. Check it out here!

This youtube clip shows the technique to, I had trouble making the Martha Stewart video to load.

I tried my hand on one this morning, it was dead easy but I had the wrong kind of tape so it was a bit tricky. But it turned out nice anyway, I only had brown filters at home so I have not painted it at all, I can Imagen that some paint will make it come alive some more.

I made cake

February 13, 2009

I made a cake today, since my grandparents were coming over to celebrate my 21 birthday today, the birthday was on the 11th of February but since I worked so late all week mum and I decided to not have them over at my birthday after all but on the Friday after in stead.

Birthday party = cake, so I made one :) it is a princess cake with raspberry jam, vanilla cream and whipped cream in a purple tone. And of course black marzipan.