Confessions of a Lazy Bee

Bitonale memorial cushion

2011-04-21T09:54:00.000-07:00

Last week we killed and ate one of three geese that live at our house. If you're not up to speed on the goose story, you can read about it here.
In order to use the goose in its entirety, I made a goose cushion. Not quite enough for a pillow, but a nice little cushion.

Beppe washed the feathers in some ammonia mixture, and left them to dry under netting.

The pillow fabric was an upholstry sample I found about the place and some of that satiny yellow cotton that i made the puffy sleeve shirt out of (the one I haven't photographed yet.)

Not having any decent cording for the edge, I twisted some knitting cotton and made it myself. Thrifty.

As a finishing touch, as I was closing the pillow, I embroidered the name of the dead goose; Bitonale, Two toned.

(I am not an embroiderer)

Lace and silk- coming together!

2011-04-14T13:43:00.000-07:00

I'm almost done with the top I wanted to make to show off the very old lace found in a house clean up. Remember this? I've also added some border lace found in the same box. The border lace was cleaner than te square pice though, so I carefully rinsed it in a very diluted bleach solution. I then staked it out to dry.

Concerned then that the waistband wouldn't hold up to washing, I've made it detatchable with a couple of snaps.

Maybe someone in Australia remembers the book 'Playing Beatie Bow?' We studied it at school, and the story came back to me with this top, of a girl who makes herself a top with some old found lace and travels back in time. I liked that book.

This top is still quite victorian, and I don't know how long this kick for silk and lace blouses will go on.

I still must finish the yellow top, it only needs a hem. Procrastination. If I was a racehorse I'd be the first out the gate and the last to come in.

Meh

2011-04-03T08:15:00.000-07:00

Its been a hard week. Last Saturday my (brand new!) laptop was stolen from inside the house, as we were out in the garden. With it went a whole lotta good humour, an intended trip to Berlin and my sewing mojo. It's hard to get past the funk, but I'm working on it. I only managed to do the slightest additions to my shabby yellow blouse, adding the sleeves and collar.

I'm fairly happy with the sleeves, though initially fearing that they'd be too poofy. They are, but acceptably so. The collar I should have done without a collar band, but for now I can live with it.

Also gone are plenty of little projects I'd worked on in the last couple of weeks, including a skirt for my mother in law.
So, yeah. Meh. By posting today I'm hoping to get back on the wagon of sewing and posting. Leave me a comment if you can. Cheer me up. Go on.

Shirt progress and new project

2011-03-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

The yellow shirt is taking shape, inspired by the Downton Abbey episodes I've been watching and a new love for lace. What was initially going to be a fitted shirt with the detail in the collar has become a full, ruffled shirt with a yoke and lace detail. Flexibility is good, particularly when accidentally tripling the ease required. Whoops.
I'm happy with how it's looking

The sleeves are also going to be gathered, and I created the pattern for them by cutting up a regular sleeve like so:

Why do one project when you can inefficiently work on two, you ask?
I've had the antique lace stuck in my head and so sketched a top that would show it off under the bust.

the lace

the sketch

It seemed slightly familiar, so I check my pattern stash, sure enough:

the 70's pattern envelope

Yep, totally original.
The good news is that with a pattern I'm less likely to accidently turn a slim dress into a muu muu.
But it could still happen.

Home finds

2011-03-21T07:10:00.000-07:00

Hiya!

I've totally fallen off the wagon with Me Made March (where I vowed to wear something me made every day), but I was back on it today with three homemade pieces to make up for my three days of jeans and other pruning outfits. (Olive pruning has started, see my other blog here for more)

My flatmate was cleaning out an old drawer belonging to his aunt yesterday, and I was able to profit from some of the old fabrics going out. This lady kept everything, from the cuffs of trousers she'd had shortened, to offcuts from reupholstering a couch.

Amoung the best pieces were these pieces of handmade lace, in a beautiful box:

I can see this as a centrepiece to a drapey, silky top

I also scored some interesting fabrics, the first a blue damask. The colours are a bit wrong here because I wanted to show the weave.

The other, a yellow cotton sateen, has a beautiful drape and sheen. As you can see, it's already washed and on it's way to becoming a shirt. Or two. Both of these seem to be offcuts from a tablecloth. The tabecloth is long gone, but these offcuts, thankfully, were kept, to live another day in my wardrobe.

happy monday!

50's dress finished!

2011-03-19T05:49:00.000-07:00

I went against all my laziest nistincts and pulled the skirt apart. I cut about a metre off the width, and then ironed, gathered (dental floss), ironed and sewed again.

It was absolutley the right thing to do, as the dress now doesn't weigh a ton and has plenty of twirl to it. I was much more careful with my gathers this time too, distribution and stitching were much better.

So without further ado... the 50's dress!

This must be the first time I have a dress with the waist at my waist, which means breathing without a waistband around my ribs! What a sensation!
Here's me looking demure:

You'd never guess that right after these photos I killed a mouse and climbed a tree would you?

Following Gertie's suggestions I used a horsehair braid on the hem, though there must be different weights, as I don't quite have the 'loft' I was hoping for. The expression is very serious for hem considerations.

I've started working on several other projects this week, including a blouse, a skirt and a rehabilitation of an abandoned dress, so I'll try to post more this week to get through it all.

I have managed to post a coupleof times on my other blog, the 'work' blog, www.caperandco.blogspot.com,, and there's some lovely Friday Flowers from yesterday up there.

In conclusion, I love this dress, and will wear it lots. In closing, the twirl:

Too much?

2011-03-16T01:47:00.000-07:00

Oh dear.

I'm afraid I've overdone it on the ruffles.

As I said in my last post, I let the fabric decide the width of the skirt, and eyeballed a couple of pattern envelopes on line. I could have asked any one of the very friendly blogging sewists out there, but the laziness won out.

So heres a close up of the ruffling;

I measured the skirt width (yes, after ruffling and attaching) and it's close to four metres. On pattern review I found a comment stating that 3:1 ruffle is adequate. And Peter at male pattern boldness is making a skirt which has a width of just over 2 metres.

So now it seems, instead of finishing the dress today I'm going to be pulling it apart, measuring, ruffling and reattaching the skirt. -Sigh-
Can someone tell me I should keep the width?
Better now than laterI guess.

Here's the dress as a puddle. Isn't it pretty?

50's dress! Yeow!

2011-03-14T04:29:00.000-07:00

After a couple of days doing only that which could be done from bed (a suprising amount really), i'm out and charging with the 50's dress project, which I all but abandoned here.

I cut and pinned first, deciding to leave off the original collar. The fantastic buttons are off a coat I inherited last year. The coat got different buttons and these have now found their home:

The amount of fabric used in the skirt was a straight guess. To gather the skirt I used a technique found on www.patternreview.com and sewed dental floss into a zig zag stitch around the miles of skirting. You simply pull the floss to create the gathers and a nice side effect is the fresh minty smell.

I loves learning from the internet.

I decided to do button loops rather than bound buttonholes. It'll look good and its easier, so win/win. So this is where I was at last night, with only zip, buttons and hem to go, and all on pause until i can buy a zip.

Front

Back

One small thing that infuriates/ delights me is how shops close at midday on Saturday to reopen on Monday afternoon. Thats a long time to be without a zip fix. Oh and then you can't buy fabric and buttons at the same shop, and the button shop probably doesn't sell thread or needles either. And there is actually a shop in Florence that sells only zips, and anyone else is likely to tell you that what you're looking for doesn't exist. Its kooky. And it's infuriating/ delightful.

I'm still me-made-marching, with at least one homemade piece each day, and I'm suprising myself. With computer troubles and a cold I haven't been taking daily photos, but I'll see if I can work up the enthusiasm for the rest of the month.

An amazing exhibition!

2011-03-11T09:07:00.000-08:00

I'm sick in bed today, so I can't be modelling my newly completed green stretch skirt. Boo.

But I can tell you about a fantastic exhibition i visited in Australia when I was there.

A friend, Marg, recomended it, and with my dear Mum I made a 6 hour round trip to check it out. A six hour round trip is dedication, and its awesome that my Mum was keen to go. It was most definitely worth the trip and the highlight of my visit to Sydney, both for the costumes and for the roadtrip with Mum. Here are some of the inspiring images of the costumes, which despite being around 100 years old wowed me with their colour, cut and varied cultural references.


A video showed the painstaking restoration of this gown which was destroyed by its time on the stage and years of storage.

Costume for a squid. I've found some gold fabric and blue, so I want to do something based on this..

The incredible tunic for 'the blue god', amazing detail..

Theres something about this picture.. it's one of the most powerful pictures I've ever seen. This is the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky playing the blue god in the former costume. He's beautiful.

Two-tweed Tuesday

2011-03-08T00:58:00.000-08:00

It's all about illiteration! In order to hold up my Me-Made-March pledge (in which I must wear a me made item everyday), I've knocked out a couple of quick tweed skirts.

I took the pattern off a vintage skirt that fit very well and made a wearable muslin out of a tweed offcut I had around the house. It's the oddest colour, yellow, purple and light blue in a fine tweed, the overall effect is beige. I'm not crazy for the fabric but it made a quick skirt, just to test the pattern:

(rather akward self take photo)

odd tweed

Then I made a long version in a beautiful fine brown wool.
It looked a little bookish so I made it oh so modern with a couple of strips of antique lace I've had stashed forever.

(needs an iron)

This look was inspired by my newest source of ideas, the website www.polyvore.com where I found this pic:

The idea of polyvore is that you can put together a 'look' and then shop your look. I just like all the pretty pictures.

I'm working now on a stretch skirt I've had cut for so long. Then I might get back to spring dresses, which are always the most fun item to make!

`

Stripey top finished!

2011-03-04T11:08:00.000-08:00

I've finally had a chance to model my stripey top, after a week of being inside with rain and snow.
So here's the front view:

The back view:

and, to my great surprise, we're reversable!

Don't I look pleased with myself? My first self-draped, long-torsoed reversable shirt.

I've been doing well with my MMM pledge too, and without photos, heres what I wore this week from my homemade wardrobe:

Monday: Woollen Thai pants
Tuesday: Wool pencil skirt
Wednesday: Altered long vintage skirt
Thursday: Floral skirt
Friday: Long sleeve shirt

Next week I'll try to get better organised and get some photos going.
And i desperately need some more winter clothes!

Stripey top nearly finished, and day 1 MMM

2011-03-01T13:10:00.000-08:00

The stripey top (which really needs a better name) is finally done. After much foot dragginh to finish it up, I'm right now putting on the buttons and snipping loose threads. I was procrastinating because I needed black bias tape and shiney black buttons to complete it as I had imagined, but of all my enormous fabric collection i had no lightweight, black cotton fabric. (imagine!) And of all my buttons (seen below) I had nothing suitable. Shocking.

But then I found some white cotton, and decided that my original concept was flexible. Sorting through the buttons I found these:

And I was again in motion. Happy day!
So, before the adding of buttons and buttonholes (this required a change of sewing machine) this is where I was up to. Top front:

and top back:

It doesn't sit quite right on the dress form (too short in the torso) but it works for me.

All I needs do now is crank up the heating and take a photo.

Day one of MMM (me made march) has been a success, with woollen Thai style pants and a brown wool pencil skirt for a work appointment, but if I'm to get through a month of this I need to get cracking on something warmer.

Sadly, its about three degrees here now and snow has been forecast. Sigh.

Me Made March

2011-02-26T10:06:00.000-08:00

I, Andrea, of Confessions of a Lazy Bee, sign up as a participant of Me Made March 2011. I endevour to wear one article of me made clothing each day for the duration of March 2011.

I'm seriously doubtful if i'm ready for this, I don't have nearly enough self made clothes to get me through a month, but maybe if I heavily layer summer clothes I might get through it! I did well in January in Sydney, but that was summer and now I'm lucky to squeeze ten degrees out of a day. So I may post some pictures. Not every day though, and I will be wearing the same thing most days. Today I'm wearing a silk cowl neck jersey top and courduroy pants that I've made, so thats encouraging.

Wish me luck!

Prep work for stripey top.

2011-02-25T00:58:00.000-08:00

The sewing machine has been largely idle this week, as I've only sewn this muslin from the draped pattern. Its really too cold to be trying on cotton summer tops though, so here it is on the dress form (she really needs a name doesn't she?) Do you see the black cross in the front centre? Thats her belly button. See the green cross a few cms below that? Thats my belly button. What did I tell you? Long torso.

I prewashed my fabric, both the black and white srtipe and the blue floral for the tiered was-a-muslin dress that i will get back too. No shrinkage or colour running. Good.

Then happy day, these arrived, and they fit and I'm in love.
They're Fly London and were 70% off.

Drafting, not translating

2011-02-22T07:21:00.000-08:00

So I SHOULD be working on a big translation job, but my dress form and this striped fabric have been calling out to me.

So while taking a completely unjustifiable break I did this:

Which is, I think, how one drapes a pattern. (Look at me with my technical terms!)
Its inspired and more than a little based on this pattern but it looked like a good opportunity to try draping and I couldn't wait for the pattern to arrive by post. I feel a little bad though, am i ripping of a indie designer? I'm not selling it, and it wouldn't be any good. Well, if it doesn't work I'll be buying the pattern anyway as it's just so pretty! I'm thinking vertical stripes, black bias tape neckline and black buttons down the back. I'm even going to muslin. And I'll get back to 50's dress one day. Soon.

Muslin progress and weekend skirt

2011-02-21T04:08:00.000-08:00

So my muslin for the 50's dress is now at this stage:

All done except the zip and buttons. And you know what? I've lost interest. This is still just the muslin, for a dress I am excited about, The final version is inspired by this Prada dress (please excuse picture quality):

In this fabric, which I picked up as a remanant in Milan. I think it was intended as curtaining.

So instead of pushing on with something I was becoming meh about, I made a skirt in a weekend! It would have been a day, but pizza and bread making duties (and some actual paid work) pushed it back again.

I drafted the pattern from my italian drafting book, cut, ironed, and topstitched on Saturday, and on Sunday inserted a zip, hand stitched the waistband facing and hemmed on Sunday! I didn't muslin, I didn't mark seam allowances, I didn't even prewash the fabric (though I'm afraid I'll regret that one in time) it felt so liberating!

The skirt was inspired by the fabric, the first that I'm using from my Ulladulla stash; a 5 kilo collection of vintage, bargain fabrics (my three favourite words!) brought back from Australia. A burn test revealed it to be a cotton, though its very smooth, almost satin. Beautiful print.

The urge to do it quick came because these new shoes are on their way, and I think it'll go brilliantly together for spring.Next up: a back buttoning blouse in this black and white striped cotton. Lovely.

Collar mistakes

2011-02-16T08:32:00.000-08:00

Without thinking I attached the collar of my 50's dress muslin like a shirt collar, trimmed and pressed it. It didn't look bad, but it isn't the design.

Old me would have come up with a work around rather than unpick it.

New me unpicked, stay stitched the trimmed edge, and resewed it sandwiched between the shell and facing.

Doesn't it look pretty? Newer me will read the instructions and not get in such a pickle in the first place.

This whole muslin thing is a good new habit, but I can't do all the work just to throw something out.

So see that blue flowery square? Its a vintage crepe(?) that would look dashing as a tiered and scalloped skirt. Don't you think? Those buttons won't do though, so I'm off to dive into the button collection that ate Grassina.

I don't know where this new perfectionism is coming from, or where it will go. I think blogging is to blame. I feel beholden to make things well. Heres the big question: Do I really have the patience to make the same dress twice in a row? Or will I throw it all over once I'm past the muslin non muslin?

Revelation!

2011-02-15T04:47:00.000-08:00

Hi! I started this blog at the end of last year and promptly forgot about it. Not exactly, but I went to Australia for two months and while the internet has reached there, my sewing machine was back here in Italy and the only sewing I've done in 2 months is to hem a pair of jeans, convert other jeans into shorts and trace off a few patterns from some wardrobe staples that were past their best.

But I have been reading blogs and books, and I had an AMAZING trip with my mum to Canberra to see the Ballet Russe costume exhibition. I'll share more about that later this week.

On returning once more to my beloved sewing table, I did something I've been meanng to do for a while, and I'm embarassed to admit has taken me so long to get to.

I measured myself.

Of course now it makes so much sense, to get perfectly fitting clothes is why we sew at home isn't it? But I had just thought myself of standard size, shop bought clothes generally fit, and I generally fit a 10 to 12. So thats what I've been sewing. For years. Out of sheer laziness I never measured myself and have been painstakingly hand making my clothes in the wrong size. So my revelation is...

I have a long torso. Several inches longer than normal.

50's pattern I'm remaking.

So having learnt this, Im now making my first ever muslin, for a dress I have already made and never worn because its the wrong size. This also means my dress form is wrong, so I might get Beppe to do a magic act and saw her in half, I need lower hips.

My first ever muslin, and endangered dress form.

This is good, this is learning. I will try not to think of all the time and fabric I've wasted in the past and instead think of my future of perfectly fitting outfits.

Why we stash

2010-12-07T13:18:00.000-08:00

Do you see it up there? In the top left hand corner of my inspiration board there is a piece of vintage lace thats been waiting for the right project for at least a year now. Beautifully scalloped, I knew it should be on a navy blue background.

Perfect for my blue velvet Audrey dress!

In addition to this piece of lace, I've found a mother of pearly belt buckle in my stash, so, at least now the dress is fully accessorized, I just need to make it wearable.

Blue velvet Audrey dress

2010-12-07T13:13:00.000-08:00

While I have a load of previous sewn garments to show off, I'm going to save them for a really lazy day and instead start whining about my lastest projects.
The good news is I'm drafting my own pattern, using the Aldrich 'Metric Pattern Cutting for womenswear' book.
My fabric choice is a lovely blue velvet with a bit of stretch that I picked up on a remnants table in France last year (yes, that's what I do on holiday) i had wanted to make loads of different things with this stuff, but as winter and winter-desperation set in early this year, most of it has gone to lovely blue velvet curtains.

So what's left is enough for a minidress.

Now you don't know me at all, but with such a small amount of fabric available and a very new and negligible ability to draft my own patterns do you suppose I made a muslin?

If you so wisely said yes, you would be wrong.

Which has led to the following problem in the armhole:

Now, do I take the pieces apart and redo the whole thing? No I don't. I add little triangles of velvet to the missing armhole pieces, telling myself that blue velvet is forgiving.
(While we're at it, did I prewash my fabric, did i take it to the dry cleaners? Hell no.)

So we'll see how that turns out. (BTW, just to make any other sewers really cringe, all seams are directly overlocked, no basting, no pinning either) Im not really bragging. These are things I need to learn not to do.

In other news, Im making a shirt for Giuseppe. To do this I could have drafted a pattern, but it was late, and my pattern book (for menswear) is in Italian. Too hard. So instead I'm copying a short sleeve shirt that he likes.

I don't know if other people do this. I lay the garment on a rug and pin around the seams. Seems to work!
I have one of those wheely marker things too, and that can help transfer markings to the paper underneath.

There. So I have a real sewing post up finally!

First post!

2010-12-03T11:02:00.001-08:00

First post yeh!