March 2009

bows

March 29, 2009

This weekends crafty things, two coin purses and a hair bow.

I thought that I would show you around the place were I spend my life at them moment. I study Textil och modedesign (Textile and fashion design) at Skara Lärcentrum, It is a one year long after gymnasium (high school) education that includes loom weaving and pattern making for weaving in a loom, sewing and pattern making, material knowledge and art and sketching.

My class consists of 22 people divided into two groups and the year is divided into four parts that alternate between sewing and weaving.
In sewing you make a skirt, shirt, pants, jacket, something made of jersey and one free choice assignment. In weaving it is more divided into different materials and weaving techniques. Something rough in linen, something thin in linen, something in wool, something for the floor, something with many shafts and treadles and something optional.

Lets take the tour of our premises.

We start out in the main weaving room, here we have looms and tables, this is also were we have the pattern making for the loom and were we pile all our papers and yarns ;)

we have two rooms for weaving the main room and the big room, but in between we have our computer room/yarn storage. I love all the yarn in the cabinets, color coded and it looks like candy, it makes me truly happy.

Then we have the big weaving room, it is my favorite room to sit in, I usually end up in the looms in the middle of the room.

Now we are going over to the sewing department, say hello to the cutting room, the tables are adjustable and the cabinets around them is stacked with high quality fabrics that is cheap, the perfect match.

And then we have the sewing room were all the nice machines are.

We are not at the end of our premises, the last room is filled with nice books and there is also were we have our fitting room.

rag rug

March 24, 2009

I have now changed to weaving in school, and the first project we have is to make something for the floor, and I am making a rag rug. It is really a traditional thing for me, I have grown up with having rag rugs in my home and I really like them, most of the people in my class think that rag rugs are quite boring and ugly things, things to have at the country house. But as I said, for me rag rugs are a natural part of a home, and they do really not have to be ugly. I am making a red rug with a baroque pattern in black to match my red bed drapes.

I have only woven the test and a bit of my hem, but things are moving forward and I expect to be able to start on the real pattern tomorrow

presale

March 14, 2009

These will be up on etsy soon, so grab one before they are sold, just email me at coolacatta(at)hotmail.com if you are interested. They come with a silver plated chain in the length of your choice and are 200 SEK + 12 SEK in shipping (31 dollars + shipping 4 dollars).

How to sew a Victorian skirt

March 14, 2009

A old tutorial I had on livejournal, I hope you like it :)

So I thought that I would share my how to for this quite easy sewn skirt in taffeta that I made for a friend of mine, it is a two layer skirt with strings so that you can tie up and drape the panels as you wish. This is a bit simplified, On the original skirt the top of the skirt was lined with satin so it was not completed in the exact same way as in this tutorial, but trying to explain that whole deal was to time consuming to be worth it.

Material you will need:
Fabric: Of your choice, around 2 times the length of your skirt
A zipper: I use a hidden zipper because I think it looks better, but a ordinary one is just as good.
String: The length of your drapes and a little more *2*6 (you chose one can both have it the whole way up on the skirt or just half, or something similar) I use cotton string 0,5 cm (0,2 inches) thick.

Continue reading “How to sew a Victorian skirt”

button corset finished

March 12, 2009

So it is finished :D The buttons were all sewn on by hand by the way :P yes I am crazy!

The corset itself is made out of two layers of white coutil with a waistband and spring steel boning. It was my fist time making a cupped corset and I am not really satisfied with the result, the shape is a bit wonky and the corset turned out to be to big for me (putting the some pattern pieces in a envelop were another corset size lives is not a good idea), it fits nicely on the body so it is not all to big, but it gives no reduction.

Overall I am happy with it and it gives me a bit of mermaid feeling, I have no idea how many buttons there are, lets stick with A LOT. ^^

mini photo shoot

March 8, 2009

I had a mini photo shoot all by myself on my balcony this Saturday, and as a girl who want to everything herself I played both model and photographer ;P A bit of fabric in one end of the balcony and the camera on timer in the other was all that was needed to make it work, and I do not have a big balcony at all :P I use a Canon PowerShot A640 and it have custom timer settings, so I have the setting on it waiting 1 second and then taking 10 frames at a row with 1 second in between.

dress makers dummies

March 8, 2009

I have made some dress makers dummies in 1/4 of life size. First I made a body out of paper clay after a measurements chart for a size 38 C (European size) when it was dry I covered it first in saran wrap. This was really stupid since this made my mold all bumpy inside :/ If you are not going to use the body for anything I would lacquer the paper clay body and then put a thin layer of paper clay over that and then put out papier mache over that when it is all dried.
Then I covered it all with papier mache to make it all stable. When it was all dried I cut the papier mache in two parts so that I had a front and a back and then I painted it all with liquid latex.

When dry I duck taped the two parts together and than it was just to pour the plaster into the mold and wait for it to dry, I also put a old wine cork that I had duck taped in the bottom of the dummy, to make a hole for a “foot” to be attached to the dummy to make it actually stand up.

When the plaster have cured one just take away the duck tape and the cork and pop the dummy out of the mold. The you clean up the seams with a knife and put it somewhere to cool down. The plaster can become quite hot when it is curing.

Since my dummies ended up bumpy I also sewed fabric cover for them. Now all they need is feet and then they are totally finished. The good thing with having a mold is that one easy can make lots of identical things.

printing on velvet

March 7, 2009

I tried out printing on velvet yesterday, and it turned out really great, I only needed one layer of colour and the gold vent really well with the black, I’m thinking of making a black velvet skirt with these chandeliers on,

another dress

March 6, 2009

Yes I do pop these out like a factory ;) The colour is not really my colour, but I really liked this fabric that I found second hand, it used to be curtains and now they are a summer dress.