Color Inspiration

I made this collage last week. It’s more of a spring summer palette, but still inspiring to me :)

The images I used are from Pan Am (screenshots), rookiemag.com, tahti, fancy fine, esme and the laneway and google.

September was really busy, soon I’ll be working less so hopefully sewing more :)
One thing I did sew was this sweater:

Well, I altered it, it’s from H&M and the exact color I’ve been looking for! Since may I’ve been looking for the perfect mint mohair fitted sweater, and this one was perfect except for the fit, it was waaay too big. And now it’s not! :)

(btw, how amazing are rotary cutters? I was so blown away when I first tried mine!! I barely had to press! AMAZING!)

Hope to be back sooner this time, finally have my camera at home again.

Working on a small collection

What I’ve been working on:

Following Gertie’s tutorial, I’ve been making these felt roses over the past couple of weeks (in between working on the project below, anytime I feel I need to create something tangible). I want to make my own fascinator, like the ones she’s selling, when I have enough.

These are just a couple pages from my sketchbook. I feel a bit weird sharing all these sketches and inspiration pages, since I haven’t actually made any clothes yet, but I need to get back into blogging, and I guess sharing progress is motivating. Helps me keep track of how much I’ve done so far.

I spent a few weeks sorting through all of my inspiration folders on my computer (so many! ugh). I have about 1’900 images (some are duplicates though, say I have an image of a girl wearing a blouse and pants, I’ll put a copy of the image in each folder “blouses” and “pants”, and if there’s a special design feature, another copy in say “knots & bows”).

I’ve been trying to figure out what I want the theme of this small collection to be. Sorting through inspiration images is definitely good though, I feel like it’s a slightly frustrating (I feel like I’m not actually doing anything) but important step, and I don’t want to rush. I think the central, inspiring themes for this collection are: 1950s fashion/silhouette, insects/insect anatomy and art deco. I know at first they may seem relatively unconnected, but that’s what I’m working on figuring out :)

I got and altered some vintage dresses in may, but I don’t have photoshop to edit .RAW files at the moment, so it might be a while before I can share those unfortunately… but I made something else earlier this month (not a garment though) that I want to share later this week!

Sewing Plans!

It’s getting really cold here, which means I need to start making some of those fall/winter dresses I’ve been dreaming about since July! My plans (I love daydreaming about what I’m going to sew next!) with their fabrics:

 

First up: the Lucille Bluth Dress (butterick 2907), view B with the collar, using a purple wool crepe (it’s so beautiful! But always looks blue in pictures, had to edit this one a bit), but first I want to make a muslin to make sure I like it (not going to waste that gorgeous wool crepe!)

After that, I’ll try to squeeze in another (hopefully) quick butterick 2952, this time another one like the pink one, but from a houndstooth wool, and with a waistband (somehow I always picture myself wearing that (still imaginary) dress in paris, with a big fancy hat on and a crocodile leather purse, walking a big black poodle. I might start calling it the Poodle Dress :)). I’m thinking about making a (removable) collar for this one.

sketch by me, Lady with the Red tights is lauriana, Ad from Chanel, dress to the right by postmodest

Then the Tweed “Chanel” Dress, which will be a slightly bigger project, because I need to draft the pattern. I first wanted to make this when I saw laurianas version, and then kept seeing more versions of this kind of dress! In Paris I finally found the right kind of herringbone fabric (it’s not tweed, but I like to call it the “Tweed Dress” anyway :)). I might also change the design to include a waistband, I’ll see if I like it on the Houndstooth Poodle Sheath first.

Gertie in her Bombshell Dress, Coco Rocha wearing Zac Posen, pattern from the bombshell course

And finally, I want to sew that Bustier Dress from Gertie’s online course! I bought 3 different colors of shantung when I was in New York, this dark seafoam one will be the one I use first. I’m excited for this one! I’m going to take my time with this one (my first time using boning!), but I’m excited to try out a few new techniques :)

Hopefully I can get started on the Lucille Dress soon! I’m a little scared of the wool crepe, pre-treating it is a little complicated from what I’ve read (steaming the entire thing with the iron…), but at least the pattern is fairly simple.

Embroidery

I’m back home now, but alas, my fabric is not! No worries though, I just shipped it over so my suitcase wouldn’t be so heavy… I have to say though I’m excited for it to arrive! The first thing I do will be something easy, another sheath dress perhaps…

I haven’t forgotten about the mint dress! It’s basically finished, but I need to fix the drooping facing of the scallops on the skirt, and I have to make the waist a little bigger.

But what I wanted to write about in this post is (duh) embroidery! I’ve been wanting to start embroidering for a while now, just because I love the feeling of hand sewing on a piece of stretched fabric (does that sound weird? I don’t know, it just feels nice!). It also seems (to me at least) that embroidery is a bit of a trend in the sewing world at the moment (been popping up on a lot of blogs lately!). But I don’t really know anything about embroidery. Just learned about iron on transfers though, and ordered some! The last “kick” of inspiration (that I really needed) came from the blog “The Little Red Squirrel“:

Click here to see all of Katie’s posts on this project (really, if you haven’t seen this project yet, take a look at each of the four different pin-ups!)

Pin-up embroidery! Isn’t that the best idea ever? With a lot of designs I’m scared they’ll make my clothing look a little too childish, but these are perfect! And embroidery seems like a good thing to work on when I don’t have enough time to sew (I like to sew when I know I have at least a few hours so I can really get into it).

So I got myself the transfers from Sublime Stitching, and can’t wait to get started! I mean, I need to decide what I’m going to put these on, a light-colored fabric would be best… and I think a skirt is the perfect garment for it, because then you get a simple skirt with a little something special that’s not overpowering (like a really wild print), to use as a basic with different tops!

Lace Dress – Inspiration

Ok ok, I know, I’ve been “all inspiration – no sewing” lately, but that’s because I don’t have enough extra money to spend on fabric at the moment, and I’m going to Paris soon, so I’d rather spend it there! Hopefully there will be lots of sewing after I get home from Paris!

So this post is about the Lace Dress I have been wanting to make for ages.

The Lace Dress from burdastyle member pampula is amazing! Go take a look, the back is unlined and has a row of buttons, and the hem is really nice too. The other dresses are images I’ve collected over the course of the last year, so unfortunately, I don’t think any of them are available anymore…

Gertie made a lace dress too, and it’s pretty much what I want mine to look like!

amazing.

Her inspiration were these:

I got two lace dresses for my birthday, and they’ve helped me figure out what I want the pattern to look like. The thoughest bit for me to figure out was the lining, couldn’t decide what I wanted it to look like… but now I know I want the bodice to be lined completely (not like the topshop dress above) and the 3/4 sleeves unlined.

These are the dresses (sorry for the crappy pictures! I have my graduation ball tonight, and I’m wearing the red one to that, so I’ll have better pictures soon) :

The turqoise one is great because it gave me ideas for constructing the dress: the hems are finished with a satin-y bias tape, which feels really nice against the skin, and makes the hems look nice and clean. The fit wasn’t perfect when I got it, so took in the back a little more (just sewed the darts a little tighter).

As for the color, I want to make it red. I know, I already have a red lace dress. But I want to make one! Plus the one I have is a kind of cotton-lace (if that makes sense?), and I want a more delicate lace, and mine will have a slightly lower neckline (or not? haven’t quite decided yet…), and the bodice will be different (darts instead of those two curved seams that go from waist to should – what are they called?), and well, I will have made it!

I’m really craving red at the moment… the one I got is my first red dress since I was like, 8 years old! There will be a “red dress” post in the near future :)

Flower Dress – Inspiration

So, in the post before this one, I explained I want to reuse an old skirt I made, of which I still have enough fabric left to make a dress out of it:

And here’s the inspiration post!

Tasia from Sewaholic

Betty Draper

“Betty Draper Part 2” by Sian O. on lookbook.nu

I’m not really sure about the neckline though, I’m considering one like in the picture above from lookbook, or one of these:

first dress from halens.ch, the rest is from modcloth.com (old ones I’ve collected in my inspirations folder)

I do know that I want to make it sleeveless. A nice, summery dress :)

I want to use the pattern drafting book I got for my birthday to draft the bodice. And I want to make this dress prefect on the inside! Going to use underlining (don’t know what kind of fabric yet…), an underskirt with a nice trim, add a waist stay, a hand-picked zipper etc. I’m probably also going to make a muslin first, because the fabric is just a children’s duvet-cover I found at the thrift store, so I don’t have that much to work with. It’ll be a “learning” project, want to try lots of techniques I’ve shied away from in the past.

As for the skirt, I’m just going to take it apart and redo everything.

The Betty Draper Jacket

I was browsing the blog “Tilly and the Buttons” when I stumbled across this image:

Wow! I like the “recent” scallop trend, but until now I couldn’t think of a way to use scallops in anything (except maybe the skirt of a dress, but that’d have to be the main focus of the dress, and I’m not gonna make a dress only so I can use scallops), but this is great! I always find it hard to pick the right jacket when I wear full skirts, the only “tight” jacket I have that doesn’t make me look completely figureless (you know how with a full skirt and a wide jacket you look like a bag of potatoes?) is this cheap fake leather jacket from H&M. I feel like the jacket kind of kills whatever retro look I’m going for…

Well, going to the original post on Tilly’s blog, I got really excited!

Oh boy! I’m pretty sure this isn’t a coincidence, the woman on the pattern envelope is Betty Draper! :) (can you tell I’m obsessed?)

So after seeing that, I’m set on making a jacket like this. Only problem: I probably won’t be able to get my hands on this pattern, so I need to find a nice, fitted jacket pattern somewhere (probably some other vintage pattern will do) and add the scallops myself.

So, this is the newest addition to my Sewing-List, but I probably won’t start it until end of summer/fall.

Lace Bodysuit – Inspiration

I made a polyvore set out of a few bodysuits I found on there, as I plan to make one!

I what I like about these:

1. the shape of the neckline (if it can even be called a “neck”line haha) and the thin straps

2. a nice “modest” version

3. underwire for the bust

4. the fabric and the thin straps

5. + 6. + 7. like these alot, I might make a long sleeved one after the sleeveless one (which is the one I plan to make first).

However none of these really “nailed it”. I did find this on lookbook though:

Tahti wore this here (I lightened the image slightly to see more detail), and I really like the shape of the neckline and especially the front hook & eye closure. Not sure if it’s a bodysuit though, probably just a corselet-style bra.

This one is similar. I’m aiming for one that looks like these last two.

But since I want to wear the bodysuit as normal “outerwear” I’m going to sew a black, vintage style bra to the inside (better than wearing one underneath the bodysuit since that would be too many straps for me!) I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to try to make one from scratch, or take an old one and cover it with fabric and make the bra-band longer (to make it look like a corselet style bra). I think I might just use an old one this time and figure out bra-making when I have the patience to wait for my finished garment :)