June Projects

My arm took about a week to feel better, it was extremely frustrating not being able to do anything but painkillers, hot water bottles, muscle rub and rest got me able to create again.

Great news! My handbag was shortlisted for the #sewyourstyle2018 competition and has gone off to be on show and judged at the Creative Craft show at the NEC at the end of the month. I would really like to win as one of the prizes is a sewing machine, I love my machine, I've made some great things with it, but it's a really basic model it doesn't do a lot of useful things and fancy attachments don't fit on it. A better machine would really help me progress. Me and mum are going to the show on the Sunday, if I win I can collect my prize, if I don't win I can collect my bag.

Circus Bag May/June 2018

I wasn't planning too much for this month as I was going to be designing a project that I can't really talk about, half way through the month and I've not done anything but the minimum research.

I did make something for my mums birthday, she loves to garden so I made her a new kneeling mat. I got some foam off the local market, I squidged everything on the stall till I found a bit that was really firm but not too thick. I have some nice heavy cotton fabric in plain brown and plain green, that I got from the furnishing fabric shop in a sale. I covered the foam using brown on the bottom and green on the top. I stitched a piece from a yoga mat on the bottom so the fabric wouldn't wear too quickly. and I added some brown strapping for a hanger. I was really pleased with how tidy it came out, mum said it's too nice for the garden so I don't know if it'll ever be used.

Garden Kneeling Pad

Whilst charity shop mooching I found a monsoon maxi dress, dark navy with batik style flowers on it in white. It's a size 10 but floor length and 6 meters round the bottom hem, plenty for fabric to alter to fit me. I have unpicked around the 2nd tier of the skirt, I unpicked the side seam of the skirt and cut it down by 1 meter. I am planning to sew up the side seam and regather around the top of it. I'm going to add a waist band that opens in the front and add in the buttons and button holes from the original bodice of the dress. I am going to make a new v neck bodice front and racer back. It looks good in my head but I don't often make patterns from scratch so we shall see how well I do. A dress form would be really handy for this kind of thing but I don't have one. Using some spare cotton I pinned it to my underwear gathering and trimming till I had created the shape I wanted. I laid baking parchment over the cotton and drew a tidy version. I got my mum to measure my back in several places and drew a back piece. I made a toile and fiddled with it till it fitted it well. I redrew the paper patterns and because the pieces of fabric I had were not very wide I cut out out the dart and followed one of the lines through the bodice pattern piece to make it into two pieces. Turning the one bodice piece into two changed the drape of it a bit so I had to do some extra fiddling when making the final dress, but I was really pleased with the end result. I made some bias binding out of the extra fabric to finish off around the arm holes and neck. I added a t-shirt underneath for the photos so the shape is more visible, it fits really nicely and I have no intention of wearing a t-shirt under it.

Monsoon dress before

Altered Monsoon dress front

Altered Monsoon dress back

I did a little posy of flowers for the table on my mums birthday, all things picked from the garden, they didn't last too long so I decided to roll everything up in a piece of silk to see it it dyes at all. I laid all the flowers out on the silk, rolled it as tightly as I could manage, folded that in half and wrapped string around to make a bundle. I gave the bundle a short soak in vinegar water and put it an an electric steamer. I read in a magazine article about a woman who boils hers outside for hours, not practical for us, I'd end up with burned hens or charred fabric so I'm trying the steamer. I'm going to steam it for a few hours then leave it wrapped up for a few days. The dyeing turned out interesting, the eucalyptus gave a brown colour, the rose leaves came out well and the sweet peas left little purple blobs, nothing else left much colour.

Plant dyed silk

Me and mum went to the art shows at Loughborough uni, mainly to see the textile students work. There were lots of bright colours and bold flowery pattern, that are pretty on trend at the moment, I liked one that was based on photographs taken at night at a fair, and another that was scarves in really bright pop art style. There were lovely Japanese style things dyed with natural things, some really amazing weaving displays and some great stuff with bugs on, I like bugs. We also had a look at the foundation section, I wasn't too impressed with anything except one girls anime style graphic novel. The fine art section was far funnier than it should have been. I was looking at one display which looked like the mark making exercises I did at school, as I turned to leave unimpressed I saw the winner plaque on the wall and just burst out laughing. Me and mum giggled at quite a few of the displays, terrible behaviour I'm sure.

I finally found the thing that triggered my designing for my next big project. It's funny, you can know what you want to make, know how you want to do it but until you find that one piece of fabric, or the perfect shade of blue, or one inspiring item you just can't seem to get started. Well on my way now though.

I acquired my mums old digital SLR camera, she was going to give it to charity and I asked if I could have it. I need to make a carry bag for it, I have no intention of buying one but I can't leave it lying around unprotected in my jumble of a room. I have a large piece of printed leather, I bought it years ago not realising how thick it was, it has lived under my bed waiting for a project for a long time and now I can use it. I will design a case that mirrors the shape of the camera with a space for the spare battery and maybe a purse pocket.

I might add an update after Sunday when I will know if I have won the competition or not. I haven't received my complimentary ticket yet, I'm told I can get one from the show office when I arrive though.