The dress in it's environment

This week for me has been a frustrating blur of nothing much being done except waiting around and getting annoyed it seems.. I've done quite a bit, just not enough of what I wanted to do, but I think I need to take some time for myself and slow down a bit.  Hopefully projects will start coming together within the next fortnight.. too many ideas and too many obstacles in the way!

But here's something nice that happened - lovely photos from a lovely client.

Here's the full view of the dress that I showed a peek of earlier.

I thought it worked quite well, and everyone had a lovely wedding and party. 

I can see the hallway!

It's true!!  Nothing like finally getting around to it (with the kick in the pants of having a total stranger for dinner).  I've had one side of the hallway stacked up with boxes - boxes of fabric, stuff for the opshops, stuff for other people to look through, stuff that I just haven't got around to sorting.  In short, it hasn't been clear in quite a while...

The other side of the hallway is a shelf with custom made cardboard boxes.  Originally we'd planned to put the fabric in them, but they proved just too heavy and I had too much fabric (for 25 boxes 38 x 38 x 30cm) so that involved another change around (and the reason I'm citing that it took so long to finish) and I put in my sewing pattern collection. Previously I had them in big plastic containers under my pattern table, (where the fabric, or half of it now lives) but now they're much more easily accessible.

I also got a chance to use up all the lovely bits of paper I'd collected over the years (which were just sitting there and I never could figure out what to do with them!)  

Darkcloud suggested it looked like a patchwork (recent topic of conversation for us)  I'm pretty happy with them, and very happy it's finished!

Shirt!

I've been quite bad at getting photos lately, so I'm determined to take them when the garments get picked up from now on....

This is the third shirt from the same pattern for a client.  Each one has been totally different due to fabric choices, buttons and detailing.  This shirt is a cotton crepe (I'd never even seen that before, and it's lovely) with an asiatic feel, maroon piped collar, thicker maroon piped cuffs (with contrast lining) and fabric closures that I managed to find to bring out the red of the fabric and they're flowers to boot!

It's always nice when someone leaves the studio wearing their new garment, it gives me great job satisfaction, that I'm doing something worthwhile (albeit in a small way) and balances out the dramas that crop up!

Yay! Green Things Are Growing!

The seeds are up!  These are some of the broad beans I planted a couple of weeks ago.  They are going to share a trellis (lovely hard rubbish find by darkcloud) with some jasmine, hopefully they'll kickstart the jasmine into a growth spurt.  Last year while at the fodder store for chook food I thought I'd get some seeds as well.  I said a little bag, and I ended up with a kilo of broadbean seeds.  That's a lot. So yesterday I just put the last of them in the garden. 

I'd already stored seeds from last years crop, but obviously missed a few, as every time I went to dig a new patch there was already stray broad beans there.  They'd sat on top of the soil baking all summer and had swelled up with the recent rains and were ready to go again - nature's amazing!

I think now I've got 7 patches of them...... possibly could have done one big one, but they still need a little support, so they went near fences and posts and in the end I did a big patch near the compost bin because I was sick of it!  It'll be interesting to see how many come up, and how many ways we'll eat them....lucky I've been collecting recipes!

The chooks having fun distributing hay.
I just wanted to put these up to show that things are coming back to life - thickening up and looking green and wild (which is much better than brown and half dead)  That's the echinacea up top, a friend gave me a bit of root and it's taken off, so I've starting splitting it to spread it out in the rest of the garden.  And the succulent patch below, which has recovered from the burning season and is getting nice and healthy looking again.  My plan is to extend this patch back to the chook fence, another 3-4m and remove most of the rocks, because even though they look nice, they just end up baking the plants in summer.  So I've been taking cuttings/pups from these as well.  Free plants!

JamFactory Glass Pregnancies

yep, posing in front of a furnace.  

this is my latest frock, a bit different to everyone else's maternity gear, but I still say I'm going to swan around in purpose built dresses!  This one is made from curtains I found at a jumble sale I went to with Darkcloud in March.  Wasn't trying to collect more fabric, but just thought it would be fabulous with the pattern.  Will get a pic of the dress with the pattern soon (once I find where I put the pattern again).

We are posing in order of due dates, first to go is on the right.

My day/main job

These are glimpses of a frock that got picked up this morning.  I'd put the entire picture up, but shall wait until after the event.  It's a 50's style dress with a full circle skirt (4m+ circumference with 6m+ of ruffle at the bottom (that's a lot of pinning!)  It's made from a sari and incorporates all the different elements of the fabric, heavily woven red top section, heavily embroidered orange silk, the plain silk and the border band.

Basically the types of clothing I make can be sorted into two categories, with a bit of overlap from each other.  I make garments for hard to fit bodies, and garments for people who aren't pleased with what's in fashion.  I don't really make things that can blend in with current trends, rather I hope, garments that stand the test of time because they're made for my client's tastes, so they'll want to keep wearing them forever!

I generally make simple clothing with detailing and contrast.  I hope to be able to make some things for myself that have a lot of embellishment on them.  I just need to fit it in the schedule!

fun with machines

I was very luckily given a knitting machine by my Aunty Sue, an Empisal KH 68O push button to be precise a while back and I saved it to learn this year, because I knew that I wouldn't have the time to devote to it last year.  I think it'd been stored for quite a while without use, I'm guessing maybe 20 years, but could be off.

I started teaching myself step by step care of the 'friendly instruction manual' (I think you've got to worry when it calls itself friendly) and here are my first samples below:

plain knitting with increasing, decreasing and a purpose put hole; various types of pattern textures (which were really cool!); playing with the lace carriage (quite a dropped stitch problem and tension issues with the cotton) and my first proper cast on and cast off!!

The first three I did by myself, and then realised I could be trying to teach myself out of a book for a long time, when instead I was itching to get into cool projects, so resolved to get a teacher.

I actually found a machine knitters guild and have since attended two meetings (separate chapter groups) and have picked up lots of tips as well as arranging some lessons.  The ladies all are very friendly and most are at least 25 years older than me, some up to 40 years older.  I think I'm a bit of a novelty to them.

My plans for the knitting machine is to make fabric pattern pieces to incorporate into garments, free form sculptural objects and plain mucking around.  However, after my first lesson, my homework is to do:

2 backs, 2 sets of sleeves and two fronts up until the neck section.

This is the machine, and getting ready to make the rib hem.  

And these are my two backs.  the multicolour one is a bit skew-if, I was doing a fabulous job of decreasing, but kept forgetting to put back the empty needle on the left side, so it kept adding more stitches.  The striped one on the right is (hopefully) correct.

I did a small jumper because I just want to learn the techniques, not because I think I'm going to have a boy and am preparing for when they are two....

I'm hopefully going to add some textured bits to the sleeves or front, just to make it a bit more interesting to do.

I think my favourite thing so far is using the yarn winder, to make a ball where the yarn flows freely from the centre.  it's such a lovely action, I might take some photos of that!