June 2019 Projects

ctmidd
Jun 30, 2019
5 min read

I didn't have too much planned for this month as it was my mums 70th birthday and we went away to wales for a few days. We had a great time walking on the beach, mooching around castles and the botanical gardens. I took a lot of pictures, I'm going to add some to my photography page as soon as I choose which ones. I'm also heading to Bristol to hang out with friends, it always seems to be crazy hot when I go to Bristol so I have been altering some dresses for the heat. I also needed a new swimsuit for the fancy lido, that was an absolute chore to find, so few swimsuits have any decent support in them, any that do are stupidly expensive. I might have to get some sport lycra printed from one of those websites that prints what you want on whatever fabric you want, and make my own. I found a swimsuit eventually, it's not a perfect fit but it looks pretty good. I have also been looking for a flat/house to rent, trying to fit in viewings around work and trips is so hard. Anyway I ended up wanting to take my 50's dress to Bristol so I had to get on and make a petticoat, it's a shame to have such a huge skirt and not emphasise it.

Here are three of my fave Wales pics, Mum was massively taken with this boat, one of the gifts I had got her was a rust mix textile/yarn bag with lots of rust and blue shades in it, perfect for a piece inspired by the boat. I saw the nets when we walked a different way along the beach path, and the seed head was in the Botanic Garden of Wales, very cool place.

I had the spotted net fabric I got last year at the factory sale I went to, I bought it specifically for the petticoat project. I found a really useful blog that I read to prepare, I wasn't concerned about the process, I just wasn't sure what lengths of fabric I needed. http://sugardale.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-make-petticoat.html

I decided on the length I needed to fit comfortably under my dress and cut three 3 pieces of net. One 8m x 26cm using the selvedge, one 4m x 26cm and one, 2m x 23cm. I marked out my longest piece into 8 sections and stitched long stitches in each section on the machine. I divided the 4m piece into 8 sections then gathered each section of the 8m piece to fit the 4m piece and tacked it into place. I did the same process with the 4m piece and tacked that to the 2m piece. I cut another 8m piece slightly narrower, gathered it and tacked it to the same seam as the 1st to make a second layer. The petticoat was not full enough so I got some stiff net from Leicester market in a turquoise colour similar to my dress. I cut an 8m piece and a 4m piece, gathered the 8m and stitched it to the 4m, then gathered the 4m and stitched that to the 2m seam in the petticoat. I pinned the top to a cloth belt pleating it as I went and tried it on with my dress, It wasn't as big as I wanted it to be but it was ok and I have to confess I hate gathering and tacking, it's such a tedious process. I had bought 18m of blue ribbon in 3 different shades, I used the ribbon to cover over the seams and zig zag stitched it in place. I also used some of the ribbon to make the waist band, I pleated the top of the 2m section to it, put a second layer of ribbon on the other side and stitched everything together. I think the petticoat looks really pretty, it isn't as full as I wanted but I can always add another layer at a later date when I have more time.

I designed the stitch pattern I want to do on a white dress I got last month, I drew out a pattern for the front and the back. I did some of the stitching in Wales but the pencil I had taken was a little hard and made it tricky to sketch onto the fabric. That project is one I will do a little of now and again, I will probably change the design as I go along too, in fact I definitely will.

I did a fair bit of altering this month, I shortened the straps on an African print maxi dress I have as it's way too big, taking 2 inches out of each strap was the easiest way to it make less revealing. I put darts in the back of my 50s dress to bring in the waist a bit. I moved the buttons on my new pinafore dress, it had looked really boxy so I moved the buttons to again bring the waist in a bit to give it more shape.

My last project came about as I was looking at flowered hair bands in an accessories shop, I really didn't want to pay £8+ for one so I got some artificial flowers to make my own, I got purple too which hadn't been a choice in the shop. I got the flowers from the Barnardo's shop, one stem of purple sweet peas and one stem of Gypsophila for a total of £4, and way more flowers than I actually needed. I had a silver hair band I didn't want to wear that came in a 3 pack from the pound shop ages ago and I always have ribbon knocking around. I started by cutting the little teeth from the underside of the hairband with a Stanley knife. I cut a length of dark green ribbon down the middle and sealed all the raw edges using a candle flame. I dabbed some hot glue on the underside of the band about an inch at a time and wound the ribbon around the band Once the band was completely covered in ribbon I cut some of the flowers from the stems and starting from the middle hot glued the flowers in place working backwards, I added a small piece of ribbon over the stems of the last flowers to make it tidy. It's certainly not the most professional thing I have ever made, but for a cute thing to wear on a summer day it looks pretty good, I might make a hair clip using some of the leftovers.

I think in July I will continue with the stitch pattern dress, I also have lots of lovely fabrics that need to be made into something. I might be inspired when I go to Bristol.