Andy Warhoo? Dress

The Big Ones for ’68 Paper Dress by Universal Fashions, USA, 1968. Photo: Panos Davios. © ATOPOS collection. via the Barbican Museum

 

As soon as I saw the faces fabric at IKEA I had in mind the paper dress with 1968's famous faces, painted by Andy Warhol.  I used a vintage mail order pattern from the 1960s to make the dress, which looks like a simple shift dress from the front but wraps at the back to do up with two buttons.  It is a fun dress that turned out just the way I had hoped

Blogtoberfest Day 24: 60 in 60

Tomorrow is the 25th, so just two months until Christmas.  It will go fast, I'm sure.  One of the things I've decided that will help make this last part of the year enjoyable and manageable for me is to keep focused and be productive. To have a goal to work towards.  A goal that allows me to celebrate achievements along the way.  In that vein then, I have set myself a stretching challenge: to make 60 garments in 60 days.  It will be a big ask.  I already have events and days committed to other things, so it will be more than a garment a day on some days.  I was going to make it 50 in 60 days, knowing that would be challenging enough but then thought, what the heck, why not set myself something that would have me reaching hard to make it.  So what if I need to burn the midnight oil on one or two occasions. And so what if I dont make it - I'm going to have fun trying. And if I do manage to pull it off, I'll be over the moon!  So tomorrow is Day 1
What about you?  What does your ride til Christmas look like?

Blogtoberfest day 2: Old or New?

Are you a new book person or an old book person?  I know some people love old books. The smell of them. The feel of the paper. The hunt for them. Finding them serendipitously in all sorts of places.  Some people love the typeface in old books. The printed plates, the cloth covers.  Me? I'm a new book person.  I like shiny new books. With graphically designed covers and beautiful photographs. I like the idea that the thoughts or the story or the techniquess are new too.  You can tell this by looking at my recipe book shelf in my kitchen.  So, it is unlike me to be pleased to find and purchase a book printed in the 1950's.  I searched for it on the internet and ordered it.  It arrived in the mail today and it is all that I hoped it would be.  It has a great section on drafting patterns. That's the real reason I wanted it. It also has lots of information on clothing construction techniques that are not seen very often anymore - like the kind of tacking used to help collars roll nicely.  I was surprised to find steps to insert an exposed zipper.  I thought that was a thoroughly modern technique.  There seem to be quite a few copies around - if you are interested.  It was used as a textbook when young ladies of my mother's era were expected to learn to sew while at high school, so maybe that is why it can still be found without much trouble.
So how about you?  Do you like the forgotten treasures of days gone by or new releases?

Successful Dressmaking.  Written by Ellen and Marietta Resek. Published by Colourgravure Publications  by The Griffin Press Adelaide (no date)

Purple Flower Week Top

Walking on the weekend in a nearby park I noticed lots and lots of purple flowering native plants. I came home wanting to make something with purple flowers. Found the floral fabric in my stash. It is a beautiful light gauzy voile.  It was probably originally bought to make a dress.  I have already made a skirt from it but there is still rather a lot left. It was just the kind of thing I had in mind.  I've used it to make sleeves on this blouse.  The rest of the blouse was once a men's business shirt.  You may have noticed that men's business shirts are frequently made from the finest cotton and that they feel beautiful and wear really well. I've been having the best time cutting them up and remaking them into other things.  This shirt has raglan sleeves and an elastic neckline. Also elastic in the cuffs.  The pattern is self drafted but it is a simple one that can be found in lots of Japanese pattern books.  Kwik Sew, New Look and Butterick patterns all have a version as well.  I have kept the original hemline and the front buttons. 

Beautiful Flora and Fauna

Today I've been sewing a skirt out of three beautiful fabrics: a lovely high quality stretch denim that is an unusual shade of blue which I bought from The Fabric Store,  a print from Alexander Henry and a magnificent blue wren hand screen print from Ink and Spindle.  As I've been stitching I've been thinking about the last time I saw Blue Wrens.  That was in January, in Tasmania. In several places.  Near Wineglass Bay was one place.  The males of the species are such a lovely blue.  And I really like Tegan Rose's classy rendition of this sprightly little bird.  In fact Ink & Spindle have many beautiful screen printed fabrics.  Someday soon I am going to order some of the Kangaroo Paw print.  I've never taken much notice of this flower, until I noticed pink ones in the nursery before Christmas which now grow in the garden here.  Their hardiness through the extremes of heat and wind, when no other flowers much seem to hang on, have endeared them to me. As has their velvety texture.  Typical of many Australian native flowers, they are understated, easily overlooked but once attended it is hard not to be drawn to their charms, made more so because the looking was deliberate.

How to make pockets with rounded corners

Sometime ago I learned a very handy little hint for making pockets with curved corners.   It makes the process of turning the seam allowance in so much easier, and generally improves the finished result as well.

First trace the pocket without the seam allowance.  I usually use template plastic for this because I can put the plastic over the top of the paper pattern.  Then cut out the plastic template. Now use this to very carefully trace around on a piece of cardboard.

Next cut out the cardboard template.  (oh, and cut out the pocket in fabric using the original paper pattern that has the seam allowance, if you havent already)

Fold back the top facing on the pocket and stitch - as directed in the instructions that come with the pattern. Clip corners and turn the facing so that the new seam is on the inside.

Now, on the ironing board, slip the cardboard template onto the pocket.

Using the heated iron push the seam allowance over the cardboard.  Make sure it is on the dry setting or you may burn your fingies (ouch!).

Once all the edges are turned over and you are satisfied with how the curve has formed, turn on the steam and press.

Then remove the cardboard and your pocket with curved corners is ready to stitch on to the garment.

Yay!

PS. Please excuse my very grotty, many times scorched ironing board cover - time to make a new one, I think

Rainy Day

 

  

 

 Was it only last weekend that we sweltered in 37 degree heat?  Hard to believe that sitting here rugged up in wooly cardigan and chunky socks. Its rained all day.  My heart goes out to those battling flood waters in the north of the state.  Hope the rain lets up soon for them.
 
Its been a good day to be inside.  I spent this morning tracing some patterns from a lovely Japanese pattern book, Sewing Naturira Vol 5.  I'm impressed with the way these slit pockets are made - just by clever folding of the side panel.  This afternoon I sewed while listening to the live broadcast from Adelaide Writers Week on ABC Digital radio extra - bliss!

I hope you got to do something you enjoy today, too.
 

Savers

I've just discovered Savers, Melbourne's Recycle Superstores.  Dunno how come its taken me two years to find them - and even then it was only lucky that it came up during a conversation with a friend about op-shops.  After hearing about them I headed off to the one at Footscay the very next day. There I found some little treasures of fabric.  Two pieces are pictured below.  The first is an iconic Ken Done print, I think from the early 1980's.  I got two skirts out of this.  The second was a souvenir of Western Australia table cloth.  100% linen.  I love the colours in both of these.

 

The next week I was at a market at Brunswick and popped into the Savers there and found some more amazing pieces of fabric that I will be upcycling soon.  Cant wait!

A Merry Mishap

Some weeks ago I had an idea for a tunic that kind of lapped over at the back and which, I imagined would look great over leggings or tights and a jumper.  I drafted the pattern in three sizes - small medium and large and so enthusiastic was I that I didnt bother making a muslin first. I cut straight into some beautiful Echino linen fabrics.  Not once, or twice but three times. one in each size.  I sewed the first one.  Making some big blousey pockets.  All went well ... until it came time to test the garment on an actual body.  It looked suspiciously like an apron,  but still I was confidant.  On it looked dreadful  - like an old fashioned pinnie; a shapless sack.  I was so disappointed I cast the garment aside.  The only consolation was that I had only stitched up one.  The other two, I knew I would be able to use the fabric in some other way.  The completed one, though.... Normally, I would unpick a disaster and just start again but this garment had french seams on linen and a whole lot of binding. I couldnt bear the thought of all that unpicking.  So it stayed, sadly slumped in my sewing room for weeks.
One day I had another idea and got to it.  I'd cut the top off the pinafore, form some pleats, attach a waistband and turn it into a wrap skirt - with big blousey pockets.  And here is the result:

 

So happy with this result I went on and turned the other two cut out pinafores into skirts as well!

I've learned my lesson though,  next time I'll be making up new ideas in less valuable fabric in case I cant resurrect the disasters!

I bought this remnant recently purely and simply because it reminded me of Bright Star, the Jane Campion film about the doomed romance between poet John Keats and his stylish young neighbour, Fanny Brawne.  I won tickets to see the film when it was released last December and I went knowing nothing more than that it was about Keats, whose poetry I had studied at school. When the opening scene began with a close up of a needle pulling thread through linen and a soundtrack of ethereal singing, I was puzzled.  The connection soon became clear.  Fanny, the "well stitched Miss Brawne"; the first person in "Hampstead and Woolwich to have a triple-pleated mushroom collar"; Fanny, who boasts that she only wears what she has sewn and designed herself, is "Bright Star" to Keats and to us.

Her wit, innovative fashion sense, her healthy disrespect for social conventions suggest she is a young woman ahead of her time. It is Fanny's luminous life force that keeps the ailing Keats alive.

I have never seen a film that so promotes the beauty and creativity of fabric, sewing and style. Jane Campion embroiders and sews herself and tends to make films that champion the female gaze so it is not surprising that she intended the film to be "a poem of praise for the creative process".  There are so many scenes that are visually breathtaking - and many of them involve fabric.  Fabric conveys mood in the film from a light airy fine lawn curtain blowing in the breeze, to the romance of purple taffeta and blue velvet;  the joyousness of picnicking in pink cambric to the heavy black linen of winter mourning.  I'm sure it is no coincidence that sewing, embroidery and dressmaking are juxtaposed with the high art of poetry, both are crafted and we see that both are forms of creativity that require skill and imagination. And that both can result in something of beauty.  That which is crafted by hand and eye, as well as heart and mind matters, especially when it takes days to stitch or write.

Since I love sewing it is hardly surprising that i would be cheered by such a film as this.  I also came away with a deeper appreciation for fabric - particularly those that i think of as French fabrics - those cottons and linens that define the finished product.  I also came away with a desire to learn to crochet.  Those Sophie Digard creations that Fanny and her little sister wear are to die for.  No doubt crochet like that take years of practice to perfect.  Still, no harm in aiming high :)

Turning the Table(cloth)s

What fun I have had this week.  It started with a visit to my favourite op-shop where I found three tablecloths just begging for a chance to do something different with their lives.  The first had a beautiful hand crocheted edge, so needed to be something simple to make the most of this.  It was also quite a small cloth and turned out to be just enough for this top:

The pattern was Style I 

which comes from the Japanese Pattern book Sewing Lesson:

The other two cloths I made into skirts.

front view

side view

front view

side view

For the first skirt  I used New Look pattern 6637  to make the short version of the wrap skirt 

The pattern for the second skirt was Style 16 

from another Japanese Pattern book:  One Day Sewing No. 746