June 2009

Panniers

June 30, 2009

These were finished for soooooo long ago, but silly me had forgotten them and I found them under a pile of fabric. But here they are!

Sewn in what I think is a linen fabric, but it could be cotton to, but it feels more like linen. The pattern is from Corsets and Crinolines by Norah Waugh It went together really easy and for the boning channels I have a simple cotton ribbon.

All the raw edges are folded in and sewn together by hand.

All the visible seams except for the boning channels are sewn by hand with flax waxed with beeswax.

carpetbag

June 29, 2009

As I told you the second damask fabric was for a bag. I have not really made bags before, except for simple things, so i decided to actually buy a pattern this time. The bag went together so easy, it was crazy simple. :D

This bag have bag feet, a tubular metal bag frame, a plastic grid in the bottom for stability, riveted handles in leather and so on :) The outside fabric is my handwoven damask fabric and the inside is a black linen fabric, to “take up” the flax in the warp.

I am really really really satisfied with this bag, it turned out great and i truly LOVE IT. In the end not all the symbols that i planned got to be on the bag, but the most relevant is there, the dress makers dummy, the computer and the corset. The crowns are also there, but are not really visible.

All the supplies for this bag, except for the fabric, the buckle, the leather handles, rings and rivets for the handles are from u-handbag.com I am really satisfied with their services, the things arrives so amazingly quick. They are based in the UK and I live in Sweden so the shipping time of just a few days are amazing, I don’t even think that I would get something that quick even if I ordered something from a Swedish web shop.

My shopping list from u-handbag
Silver Protective Bag Feet 16mm
Grid Bag Bottom 6 3/4″x 22.5″
Indygo Junction: The Carpetbag Pattern
Internal Bag Frame 12″ – Tubular

cherry dress

June 27, 2009

Having a sister living in USA is a great thing when you want fabric from a store that does not ship internationally as JoAnn . This time it was Robert Kaufmans cherry fabric from his “fruit basket” collection. When my sister asked if there was something she could bring to me from the states when she came here this summer I knew exactly what it would be. :)

It turned into a dress, as usual. As you all know I love dresses and this one is as I usually make my dresses, knee long, puffy sleeves, big skirt.

I love it :) It is a real head turner, flirting with the rockabilly fashion and it makes me feel great.

damask dress

June 25, 2009

remember the damask fabric with crowns that I made, it turned into a dress of course, it was supposed to and I almost always do as I first planned.

It became a bit shorter then it was supposed to be, the fabric shrunk and there is NOTING you can do about, you can not get more when you have woven the fabric yourself. It is not a short dress, but shorter then what I am used to.

But I like it, it is sooooo soft.

This is the sketch that I did before even weaving the fabric.

empire waist balloon dress

June 24, 2009

I have a thing for balloon dresses at the moment, I think that it is 1. the volume of the skirts 2. the wonderfully finished “hem” as there is no hem just a invisible seam.

The top of the dress is a linen fabric and is boned at all the seams with spiral steel and spring steel from Venacava. It have lacing in the back and in the skirt part it has a hidden zipper. The skirt part is polyester organza lined with polyester taffeta. The “sleeves” are also polyester organza.

I really like this dress, the taffeta rustles when you move and it feels so fancy.

new damask fabric

June 23, 2009

I guess that I was a bit crazy weaving damask the first time, but after the first weave, I decided to weave damask again. This time I wanted to make a fabric for a old fashion carpetbag. To try out new materials in my warp I used flax for it, and then a one thread wool yarn for the weft. This fabric is very durable and “almost indestructible” and have the right weight for a bag, sturdy and nice.

I decided to make different symbols this time, symbols representing me.
corset – because I love them so, to wear, to look at and to make.
computer – I spend far to many hours in front of the computer, I can not live without it.
dress form – I sew and a dress from is a good representative of this.
a crown – because I like pretty things (and it turned out so nicely in the last weave).
dress – since I am a dress loving gal.

The warp was supposed to last for fabric for two bags, it was supposed to be two meters of fabric (about two yards), but I did a miss counting and forgot to take the loom waste of one meters (about one yard) in the calculation for the warp so after weaving one meter I saw that I had just to little warp left to be able to weave one more bag. So I had to wrap it up quickly and got half a meter out of it which is not enough for a bag on its own, but with some supplemental fabric it can become a bag some day.

Weaving this went fine, but the warp was a bit unevenly tensed so I had some problems with threads acting up, especially in the end as the warp gets more sensitive.

I just love the color of the yarn, I have a cold brown and a gray yarn

organic cotton jersey balloon dress

June 21, 2009

I wanted a simple “at home in the sofa” dress, the keywords; soft, casual, simple made me think of t-shirt. But as normal t-shirts does not sit well on the girl with rack of doom and narrow short back I knew that I needed some kind of seams, and darts does no go well with jersey fabric.

The finished product is a empire waist balloon dress, but in the end it did not really turn out as empire waist. The fabric in the skirt part is kind of heavy so it pulls the empire wast down so it hangs down into the natural waist in the back.
Over all it turned out nice it got “princess seams” since that works well with my body, it is casual and nice to wear. The not so very much empire waist bothers me, since the fit is kind of off in the whole dress because of that.
The fabric in this dress is kind of “trendy” it is a organic cotton jersey fabric that is really nice and have a nice feel to it.

I look so damn bithcy in this photo, I’m not at all in real life, I am actually really nice, I promise. I am TO nice most of the time.

fashion show

June 19, 2009

It was a while ago now, the 14th of may to be exact we had a runway show in school at the “open classrooms night”, my mother was kind enough to take pictures of the whole ting.
It was a nice evening and a lot of people came and visited, they also gave out scholarships and I was one of the three people that got one.

You can look at all the pictures at my picture diary (the language is Swedish but one can always just look at the pictures)

swim dress

June 18, 2009

So, I am not the one for showing off my body at the meat market also known as the beach. But I am the one for swimming and I have since I was a kid lived in the water during the summer season. These things does not mix well when the only thing one can find in the stores will show off everything that you do not wish to show of.

We had a guest teacher in school that taught us how to sew bras, so I took the opportunity to use this bra sewing day to make something for the beach. As I am a dress girl I decided to make a “swim dress” a bathing suit with a dress over it, all in lycra. As I have a rack of doom I needed a bra in the top and since I had no idea on how to sew bras this was the golden opportunity to combine it all.

This is how it turned out, I am really happy about it. It shows off all of the good stuff and hides all of the bad, a win win situation.

damask fabric finished

June 15, 2009

so the fabric is finished, It went smoothly weaving it but when i washed it it shrunk 15 cm (5,9 inches) so I I am a bit weary if it going to be enough for the dress I’m making out of it.