Its love!

Oh golly gosh perfection does exist after all... I love this dress from the colours, to the modern lace work, to the shape, the graphic quality, yum, yum, yum! It is from Alexander McQeen's 2010 resort collection.

I am busy, busy finishing costumes for the graduation show, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and tailoring, then waiting for graduation... which means making my grad dress... but hey I may find a couple of thousand hiding in an old shoe under our house and be able to get the dress above *sigh*

I will be finished school this week so expect some bumper updates in the next couple of weeks. Until then make a date and check out CRAFT 2.0 this Saturday, 24th of October and make room for Fabric-a-brac, Saturday 14th of November.

xx

Fringe benefits

I needed to make something for my night out at World of Wearable arts... WOW in another word. The dates for the show are half way over and I can't think why I have never mentioned it before for in a Make a Date post! I went on awards night and the array of costumes or really works of art are quite amazing. But I needed some thing quick to go with my Graphic Ruffle skirt and black shirt (from my $20 bag) that I was going to wear... accessory time.


I saw a similar necklace on online magazine N.E.E.T via a post from Sally Jane Vintage and I thought I would attempt to make one. Here is what I did.


1. I got my supplies together. Some upholstery fringing in different colours and lengths. Length of gold chain and links from the bead shop (but you could reuse and existing chain) and got out and needle and thread and jewelry tools!




2. I arranged the fringing the way I wanted it for the finally placement and sewed them all together... with invisible stitches. I then made up my chain but forgot to take pictures, sorry.




3. The next step was to attach the fringing to the chain. To do this I doubled up a thread in a colour as close to the blue fringing (the one at the back) as I could find. Then I whip stitched it to the chain.


It worked and looked really good with my skirt and I think it will work well the a white tee and jeans too. Now for the finally hat installment, it is Make do and Mend, yippeee!








Click to download the pages from my workbook for my Make Do and Mend Hat. Just leave a comment if you have problems.

xx

In the pink

I do have another hat file for you to look at but its short so I thought I would update you with some of my recent-ish opshop finds. In Wellington it is raining... as I type... and what could be more delicious than banishing rainy days in the pink. I found this raincoat in an opshop and apart from the lining having seen better days and no matching belt it is GReaT. I adore the little hood at the back with its button to keep it in place when not in use, or you can just take it off.

The little woven bag was another steal, it is made in Italy and will be perfect for summer days with floral dresses. It had a rather ugly plastic cord on it but I swapped it with a chain from another bag I have.


I bought a skirt via an auction site not that long ago and I think its the perfect companion for these two lovely items.

Mmmmm, well, well as I promised here is another hat installment. We all had to make a straw hat. I saw a lovely picture of a Lanvin hat c1910, in the amazing Lanvin book and decided to recreate it. The book as also inspired my graduation dress along with fellow Scot, Christopher Kane but that's another post altogether :)



Click the PDF icon to download my workbook page for my Lanvin-esque straw hat. Any problems just leave a comment.

xx

First up... felt

I did promise, so I shall deliver. I have taken photos of my visual diary for the felt hat and then placed them in to a PDF. I typed in all my notes as I don't expect anybody to read my hand writing :)


Find out what the door above has to do with my hat and more insightful insights. I have just put up my design process so this is not a 'how to', sorry. I hope it will be interesting enough to peek into the inner working of my mind.



Click the PDF icon to start download of the felt hat file. Is 8.86MB, post a comment if you have trouble downloading and I will sort it out pronto.

xx

What I did next...

Hello... well, well, well Costume Showcase has been and gone. It was a really great night. I hope to get quite a few photos to show you what treats where there to be found. Our class was really happy and that's what you want to be... not to mention have a good ole boogie after the main event :)

I have promised a lot from previous blogs namely along the lines off 'i will show you this when I have finished' and now I may find the odd spare hour to get some of those things on the move. In the meantime I have been asked to see the hats. So I thought yup I could post just pictures but how about if I did a 'mini series'. Having meet some of you now and knowing that if you are either/all, crafty, arty, technical and are prone to day dreaming a little you like to know how the end result became the end result.

So I thought I will show the pictures of all finished three hats... all at once... but then my next few blogs will have pictures of my visual diary for each, development images and written accounts of my thought processes. I will make these available in PDF downloads.

So here are the finished hats.

This weekend was also really great. Karen (of lightdress fame, amongst other things) and I had a day out on Saturday. Its been so long since I had a day to wander around and do exactly what I liked (just like Audrey in Roman Holiday).

First we went around town from Aro Valley towards Te Papa. We stumbled into a few places along the way, namely Swonderful. WOw! I love their clothing label Papercup. Elegant, contemporary and fun. Then on to Te Papa to see the interactive architecture, I loved the umbrella digital light reactive flowers and the reactive music table. Then we walked around Oriental Parade, got gelato, and some great photos.

Then I went to see the film Moon with my guy. I really loved it, the music is amazing, fantastic acting, it looks stunning and oh gosh I wished I had designed the poster, a touch of Bridget Riley.



Anyways, I'd better go I have some hat blog entries to get organised!

xx

You gotta go!

Its just under one week until my 18th century costume and other fantastic costumes by my lovely classmates are on show... in a show!

If you are in NZ you can book online here, or call 04 381 9253 (automated line). It is a bargain at $10. Not only is there a show but an exhibit of three years of costume students work and light refreshments, so well worth it.

I am finishing up my 18th century dress, nearly there. Here are some shots of my petticoats mid construction. They have quite a lot of decoration on them now.

Thank you to all those who have left very kind comments after finding my blog via my featured member spot on BurdaStyle and those who read it that I don't know about :)

I will be pretty busy up until the 17th but I will post pictures of my finished dress on stage asap. Wish me luck.

xx

Dreams can come true...

... I am a featured member on BurdaStyle! How cool. You can read all about it here
I am wearing some of my recently made hats in my pictures on BurdaStyle and in the one above. Will post about them very soon, until then happy sewing.

xx