Skip to main content

Sew much to learn


I am on a mission to relearn how to sew clothes. Back in highschool I managed to turn out a fully boned, strapless black taffeta dress, complete with scalloped over skirt trimmed with fouffy taffeta bows.

Sadly there are no photos of me in that dress but a small part of me wishes I'd kept it as a reminder of what I could do. I didn't sit at a sewing machine again til I was in my late 20s - making a belly dancing costume. As you do.

Last year I got a new sewing machine for my birthday and I tackled my first quilt and a dress for Olive. Pinking all those seams drove me crazy - Olive refusing to wear said dress made me crazier!


Last month was my birthday so I picked out a second hand overlocker (only used twice!) and a dressmaking dummy. I ordered the awesome Colette  book and a beginners dress pattern from local indie designer Blue Ginger Doll. I picked out some gorgeous fabric and matching thread. I sensibly made a muslin (test dress out of calico) and was stumped - my boobs were NEVER going to fit in that dress!

So now I am doing a crash course in Full Bust Adjustments.

I am impatient. I want to make this dress so I can move onto shirtdresses. This is my goal - a wardrobe full of lovely, perfectly fitting shirtdresses.

In the mean time I'm going to convert a beloved cotton sundress that no longer fits my boobs into a swanky full skirt and leave the zipper in (thanks to some tips I picked up from Frocks and Frou Frou).



 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Olive's Carrot Cupcakes {Recipe}

"Mummy, I'm hungry. Hungry for something sweet." Sound familiar?  If only it were "Mummy, I'm hungry for green vegetables!" Sometimes getting kids to eat something healthy is a battle.  The harder you try, the more they resist. We've been pretty lucky with Olive - she devours fruit.  And while she's adamant she'll never eat a tomato (too many Charlie and Lola bedtime stories), she will eat green beans, peas and corn (and sometimes raw broccoli!) without fuss.  The one veg she absolutely adores though are carrots. A carrot stick is a great snack for a hungry preschooler but when they're pining for something sweet, why not make them something healthy and sweet and bake some mini carrot cupcakes? These mini cupcakes are based on Stephanie Alexander's Simple Carrot Cake from The Cook's Companion . I like this recipe a lot because it uses olive oil which has lots of health benefits. If you have a food processor, you could ea...

Rainy Day Double Choc Cookies {Recipe}

This week Olive and I went on an eBay road trip to pick up her 'new' tap shoes. I could have just had them posted but I had an ulterior motive.  The pick-up location, although right over the other side of town, was reasonably close to my old neighbourhood which happens to be a mecca for great food and coffee. After picking up the tap shoes (and bonus ballet shoes the seller thoughtfully included) I was looking forward to lunch.  But as soon as I pulled out of the car park, the sky turned black and the rain started to pour.  Bugger.  I kissed my lovely lunch dreams goodbye and did what any sane parent of a three year old would do in the same situation - I headed for the nearest shopping centre with an underground car park. Ten minutes later I was sitting in the food court eating  ricepaper rolls while Olive got Happy (I think you know what I'm talking about).  Not quite the foodie experience I'd been hoping for. Every cloud has a silver li...

How to make sugar carrot cupcake decorations

The internet gods have not been kind to us this past week.  Apparently a static-y phone line can interfere with our ADSL connection, putting to bed any hopes I had to bring you this tutorial and Mr Di-licious completing an online test for his law course.  Sigh. At least I had my iPhone - I was still connected to the world so to speak, even if in a limited, small screen kind of way. But I digress. As promised, here is a 'tutorial' to help you make the cute as a button sugar carrots for the carrot cupcakes I made last week. They are embarrassingly easy to make.  Before you know it you'll have a carrot patch that's the envy of Don Burke (sorry, Aussie joke). Tutorial: Making sugar carrot decorations To make the sugar carrots, you will need: orange fondant (I used Americolor Orange to colour) green fondant (I used Americolor Avocado to colour) a skewer or pointy modelling tool to make a dent in end of carrot small, fine paintbrush water ...