A project totally out of left field...

... and totally not from the 1950s, but its still sewing, and exciting, so I thought I'd talk about it here.

This coming weekend Steve and I have been invited to a fancy dress cocktail party with a moulin rouge theme. We won't know ANYONE at this party (long story) so I thought I would go all out with my outfit... like I wouldn't have gone all out anyway!

So, I have this corset that I wore at Miss Pinup Australia NSW Finals last week:

(I had no idea they were taking this photo by the way)

I thought the custom made corset by Jill's Corsets would be a great foundation for a moulin rouge inspired cancan outfit. To that I imagined adding a cancan skirt, and a big feathered head piece. Due to the NSW Finals of Miss Pinup Australia being the weekend before, I really wasn't going to have a lot of time to make this all happen. I looked around at buying a skirt and I couldnt get anything in the colours I wanted, or the look I wanted. The head piece was much easier - Feathers custom make showgirl head pieces in whatever colours you want! Done!!

Back to the skirt - I realised I was going to have to make it, so I started looking around for a pattern, and of course I couldnt find what I wanted. I did find this which gave me a huge hint on ruffles, but more on that later.

So, for the first time, I was going to have to make it up as I was going along!!!! This might scare a lot of people, but not me - chuck me in at the deep end and watch me swim!

I started with the outer skirt, which after a bit of draping and pining, looks like this:

Remind me not to attempt to put zippers in satin again - it wasn't fun, but I will live with the fact that its not perfect because it will be hiding under my corset.

Next step was to make the inner skirt (from bemsilk lining). Its the exact same size as the long bits of the outer skirt. The inner skirt is the bit I was going to attach all the ruffles to.

To make the ruffles, I cut 10 strips of fabric (more bemsilk lining) from selvedge to selvedge, then overlocked the selvedge edges together to make one LOOOONG strip, then I overlocked down both sides of the strip to stop it from fraying. Here is where the ruffling hint comes in.

Did you know that if you make your stitch length and tension maximum on your machine (and maybe give the top thread a bit of a hand by holding it tighter) your sewing machine will create gathers for you!!!!!!!

I didnt!

It goes in like this:

and comes out like this:


And at 1am I also discovered that your overlocker can do exactly the same thing!!!! Its amazing how brave and creative you can be at 1 o'clock in the morning!

So then I stitched the ruffles on in alternate colours. This took a while...


Once all the ruffles were on, I stitched the inner skirt into the outer skirt. This was when something happened that I hadn't anticipated. Even thought the inner skirt and the outer skirt were exactly the same size, the inner skirt hung lower because it had extra weight on it from all the ruffles. This meant that I had to break out the overlocker again and make a satin ruffle to sew to the bottom hem of the outer skirt to make it longer. Phew - almost there! By this point Stella was looking at me wondering if we were ever going to go to bed. She had given up sleeping on my petticoats and had decided to just stare at me instead. Yes Stella, Mummy is mad.

So I sewed the satin ruffle on and VOILA!!!!! THE CAN CAN SKIRT WAS FINISHED!!!!!


Looks pretty doesn't it? You will have to use your imagination and put the whole outfit together because by the time I finished (1.30am) I did not feel like parading around the house in the outfit just to see what it looked like. I'm sure you will understand.

I found this project a wonderful creative outlet and a good test of my sewing skills and ingenuity. Now I need someone else to have a moulin rouge themed fancy dress party so I can bring the whole ensemble out again, as I'm sure it will be a hit on Saturday night!

Thanks for reading.

Beccie
xx

A new hat! Plus an update on the Green and Pink dress

Well look what arrived yesterday!


By some amazing coincidence I actually wore the Sheet Dress to work yesterday, and this hat was intended to be worn with that dress! The colour of the hat works perfectly with the flowers on the dress don't you think? I can't wait to wear the whole ensemble somewhere! All I need now are pink shoes and a pink bag. Pink shoes seem to be the more difficult bit at the moment... all the shoes I see are just not quite the right shade!

Also, I finished the Green and Pink dress on the weekend too, and wore it out to dinner on Sunday night. I don't have a picture of me wearing the dress yet, but I'll get that taken care of soon enough. Here is a photo of it on my dressmakers dummy:

I'm pretty happy with the end result, although I must tell you there were times when I wanted to throw it out the window, or set fire to it. The sheer green fabric with holes in it was a NIGHTMARE to sew for a beginner seamstress, but I perservered and we got there in the end. I also have a lovely vintage hat to match this dress so now I need to find two events to which I can wear a hat!

Have a great day everyone, thanks for reading

Beccie

I was thinking of keeping this project top secret...

... but I'm not very good at keeping secrets!

For those that don't know I entered a competition called Miss Pinup Australia, and I am a NSW finalist for Miss Classic Pinup. This competition has required me to buy a lot of vintage clothes and things for each of the categories I have to participate in - Day wear, Swim wear, Lingerie, and Evening wear as well as a talent. Luckily I already had this ballgown


This gorgeous confection was made by Emma Domb and it dates back to the 1950s and it was in pristine condition when I got it. It had a bit of an odd smell, but no rips or tears in the skirt that I could find. It now has a couple though after the outing it had to a ball where the above photo was taken. Going up and down stairs in this thing is a nightmare let me tell you!

Anyway!

I realised that for Miss Pinup Australia I really wanted to have a reveal moment for this beautiful, special gown and because its a difficult colour to match (much more orange than shown above) I figured I had no chance of finding a vintage one the right colour. So I thought I would put my sewing skills to good use and make one!

My mum had an early 1960's pattern for a long coat with a decent size sweep at the bottom which I thought would do if I changed the button arrangement, and shortened the sleeves to bracelet length. Here it is, almost complete


See how much more orange the dress looks in natural light!

I found some lovely pale gold curtain fabric, and some lovely slightly darker gold heavy satin to line it with. This will work well with the other accessories I have (pale gold shoes, and pale gold elbow length vintage gloves). Althought it doesn't look awesome together in this photo its not so bad in person.

I also had to put more fullness in the 'skirt' of the coat. It looked like it had plenty of sweep on the pattern envelope, but I had to add about 1.5 metres to make it big enough to fit the dress. It now has a bottom hem of over 3 metres (120 inches).

I haven't put the buttons on yet. I'm going to do self covered buttons, one on each side up near the neck with a loop closure. The dress will show a little bit when I walk, but you won't see the whole thing until I take the coat off, which I have to work out how to do elegantly. Did I mention how heavy the coat is!

All in all I'm pretty happy with the way it came out. At times its been a difficult journey and if I hadn't needed it for the competition in three weeks I would not have finished it. Lets hope it does the job on the night!

Thanks for reading.

Beccie xx

And the Sheet Dress makes its debut...

... at a Vintage Fair no less!


And it got a very good response I must say! I overheard several people talk about my outfit as I shopped, and I even had a lovely couple of ladies stop me to ask about my outfit. The conversation when something like this:

Ladies : Wow, thats a lovely outfit, where did you buy that from?
Me : Oh, thank you, I made it actually.... from a sheet
Ladies : From a what? Really?? Wow, you did a great job, you must be a really good seamstress!
Me : Well, no, I've only been sewing for about 6 months...
Ladies : hahaha are you serious, the fit is impeccable, you've done a great job! Can we take your photo?
Me : Sure! (poses in a pinupy way)
Ladies : Well, you might not have been sewing long, but you are obviously very creative. What do you do for a living?
Me : I'm an accountant...
Ladies : No! - thats hilarious! hahahahaha
Me : I know, I'm very left brain, right brain conflicted.
Ladies : You are! I can't believe you made that from a sheet! I will never look at the sheets at St Vinnies in the same way again!

A few more pleasantries were exchanged, but that was about it, very funny I thought, but it left me feeling really good about myself, my outfit, and my sewing ability - thanks random ladies!!!

Now, I was sewing another dress at the same time as this one, and I have yet to finish the pink and green dress... its almost there but I have to put it aside to finish a VERY IMPORTANT and VERY URGENT job... but I promise I will finish it, because its very pretty.

Thanks for reading!
Beccie

Is this Heaven???

For anyone (like me) who likes to sew AND likes to rummage around in bargain stores, thrift stores, and yard sales, this place has to be heaven.


On Tuesday I had a day out with Mum. She had heard about this place a couple of hours drive away that bought up stock from fabric shops that have gone bust, and sold it at bargain discount prices. So we thought we'd go! And I tell you, it was UNBELIEVABLE!

I love rummaging through things, and there was a lot of things to rummage through! Imagine a big shed like an aircraft hangar FILLED with rows and rows of fabric! There was some crap, but you get that anywhere. There was also some unbelieveable bargains! Take this for example:


Isn't this the most amazing retro print EVER!!! Its on a silky microfibre type fabric which will be lovely in summer. I bought 5 metres at $5/metre. I have bought this pattern to turn it into a dress:

I also bought a lovely teal blue/green curtain fabric (no rubber backing though!) to make into a dress or maybe a coat... I'll worry about that later... and it was $7.50/metre. I also bought some white sheeting to make mock-ups of patterns from and it was $3/metre.

It was a very worthwhile trip - much enjoyed by both of us! And I tell you, I will DEFINITELY be going back!

Thanks for reading

Beccie
xx

Can I sew two dresses at once???

Of course I can!!!

After the success of my Dusty Pink Dress I thought I would make two more dresses in the same pattern. I got so many compliments when I wore it - it was lovely to be told that something you made was beautiful :) Unfortunately I don't have any photos - I think I need to set up a photo shoot to have someone take photos of me in all the dresses I have made. Hey, thats a pretty good idea!!!

Anyway! The weather ended up being not the best on the weekend, so along with a few other things I worked on two new dresses - the first one being the long awaited (by me anyway) Sheet Dress!!!


I purchased the above original 1950/60s twin bed sheet in its original unopened packaging on etsy (of course) and as soon as I saw the listing my brain exploded with ideas! I love it when I am inspired by something like that - has that ever happened to you? See how the flowers are densely packed at the top and bottom and sparse in the middle? Well I imagined a dress with lots of flowers at the hem, fading up to virtually no flowers on the bodice, with a little pink self-covered belt, and a pink jacket!!! Just imagine the entire look - complete with pink gloves, pink hat, pink shoes, and a pink bag!!!!! I'm getting excited again just thinking about it!!!!!!

Here is a close-up of the sweet little flowers:


Its going to look so beautiful!!!

Because I wanted the flowers a particular way on the pattern pieces I had to lay the sheet on the floor. My 18mth old puppy Stella thought she might be able to help:


She couldn't, just got in the way really... but I appreciated the effort :)

For those of you who can't imagine what I mean about the flower placement, I have outlined the pattern pieces on this photo in yellow:


The pieces on the right are the front and back of the dress. See how there aren't many flowers on the bodice???

Stella gave up trying to help after a while and instead sat in her beanbag and supervised:


So - for my second dress that I will make at the same time as the Sheet Dress I chose this lovely fabric from Gorgeous Fabrics - a sheer-ish green with laser cut, white edged eyelets in a flowery pattern:


I'm going to line the dress in pink so I have a green dress with pink flowers, like this:


I will also wear this one with a pink belt and pink shoes :) I love matchie-matchie accessories!

This will be an interesting one to sew together for two reasons:
1. The green fabric is sheerish, with holes in it, so my seams are going to show. They have to be neat (or bound maybe...hmmm)
2. Both fabrics are slippery and like to move about. I may have to actually READ THE INSTRUCTION MANUAL that came with my new sewing machine to see how to best tackle slippery fabrics.

Still, I like a challenge, and sewing two dresses at the same time, one of them with difficult fabrics should make for a good challenge! I will keep you posted on how they come along.

Thanks for reading

Beccie
xx

Remember that dilema I was having...

... well in typical Beccie fashion I didn't do any of those things, I did something else!

I had ordered some fabric a little while ago from Gorgeous Fabrics and it arrived!!! This is one of the fabrics I ordered:


Its a beautiful heavy weight cotton of the most beautiful dusty pink colour! Its a bit paler in person, but this just could be my monitor :) So I had a bit of a wander through my vintage pattern collection and I decided on this one:



A sweet little swing dress with little tucks under the bust and a divine short cropped jacket!

I started out like I always do - by making a calico copy to see if it would fit. This pattern is a size 11 (31 inch bust) and therefore should be way to small for me (36 inch bust). However, it fitted perfectly. Either inches have gotten smaller or this dress pattern has a ridiculous amount of ease in it!

So I cut it out and sewed it up. It really was the easiest pattern - I thought the little tucks under the bust might give me some issues, but nup! The hardest bit was when I needed to bring it in a little smaller at the waist to fit me - re-doing that seam where the tucks are was a little fiddly.

So here is the dress (unhemmed):


I have my blue petticoat on my dressmakers dummy to give it that poufy look :) And I would wear it with the powder blue petticoat too I think - gives a nice contrast and brings out the hydrangeas.

And here is the little cropped jacket:


Obviously, it is also unfinished - it doesn't have its collar on and I'd done none of the hems. But you get the idea.

It really is the loveliest ensemble, and SO EASY to make, which is why I think I will make my next few dresses from this pattern - sheet dress here I come!!!

I have since finished the ensemble and all its hems (which I did with a nicely contrasting powder blue bias tape) and I am wearing it to work today!

Which leads me to a post I read here about costume vs clothing. You should read it, Peter's blog is great. He wanted to discuss how people feel about the costume/clothing boundary. I love my outfit. Yes I am also wearing stilletos, victory rolls in my hair, vintage style make-up, vintage jewellery, and carrying a vintage handbag so its probably viewed as COSTUME by everyone that sees me. However this is what I wear every day, so to me its CLOTHING, albeit ecentric, but its how I feel that counts and I feel beautiful :)

I will get someone to take a photo of me and the whole ensemble and I will post it up on my blog so you can see for yourself what it looks like.

On a completely different topic my gorgeous fiance bought me a sewing machine as an early christmas present! Its a Janome DC4030!! I was sewing with my Mum's machine, but she wanted it back... how rude!


I love my new machine, it sews wonderfully well and I'm sure will last me a long time :)

Thanks for reading!

Beccie
xx