Work in progress

I usually don't get around to post a lot of pictures during the making of my projects. But I am determined to do so with this one!
First, a small introduction.
My mother is getting remarried in March. At first it was supposed to be a really small event, so she didn't even want anything particularly special to wear. But then, as seems to be the norm with these things, the plans became bigger and I immediately said I wanted to make her dress.
The dress we are working on is by no means the kind of gown like wedding dress, but instead more of a cocktail dress. She chose a very simple almost 50s style silhouette, but there's going to be an embellished belt.
Our first idea for the top part was this

The idea was taken from a design from the current Andrew GN collection and I really like the look, but as a I suspected, it doesn't look quite as nice on a normal person, as it does on a model. As soon as you put someone with curves into this, the folds at the front start to gape and the look is lost. So we scrapped that and went to an even simpler design

This is the look we are going to go with. A simple top with 3/4 sleeves, a small collar and princess seams and a wide skirt with box pleats. My mum has yet to try this muslin on, but it should hopefully fit her (I made the pattern especially for her with her measurements) and I can start on the dress proper.
Speaking of...

This is the fabric we bought. It's a really lovely wool georgette on the left and on the right is the lining. The colours aren't spot on, off-white is reeeeally heard to photograph ;)

That's my progress so far.
Next up: hoping the muslin fits...

KITTENS!

One of my best friends got two kittens a little while back. Their names are Finn and Bonnie.

All together now: AWWWWWWW!

As I love cats, but can't have my own in our flat, I am now officially their godmother. So it was only right to make them a little welcome gift:

I used some fabric scraps I had left over and sewed a couple of little mice. The ultimate gimmick: I put one of those little balls with a bell inside into each of the mice. So now when you play with them, they jingle! So much fun for little kittens!

They've grown quite a bit already by now but are still very cute

I feel like it might be time for another present from their godmother. Something furry this time I think, they seem to love that!

Love Champagne

I actually don't love champagne. But I made a couple of tulle dresses for an event of that name! :)
The male model Papis Loveday is now selling his own brand of champagne and one of my teachers was involved in organizing its launch party.
They still needed two tulle gowns for said party and she approached me to make them. It was a pretty straightforward project, but I had to make them during a really busy time, so it was all very stressful. It was pretty cool though to see the dresses in use at the party!

The party was held at a store and they did a window live show. Very awesome!

I made the pink dress...

... and the green dress

The girls with Papis in his window show outfit (the girls were VERY duckface-prone...)

And me with Papis! Yay for pictures with famous people! ;)

I actually should have a picture with me and the two girls somewhere, but I can't seem to find it. Too bad. After all, after taking that picture I was basically covered in glitter because the girls were wearing glitter body makeup... Oh well, if I find it, I'll show you at a later date!

All the excuses

So, first of all: I'm still alive. Which might be hard to believe, seeing as I last posted in October (!).
The second year of fashion school has kept me super busy and the little free time I have I like to use to do absolutely nothing ;) I'll try to do better with the blogging from now on (but isn't that what I always say...)
For now, have a couple pictures of a very old project:

Super simple cut, just a slightly gathered sleeveless top and a circle skirt. The waistband is scalloped, but unfortunately I don't have a good picture of that.

This dress shows my obsession with piping once again ;) It's just so pretty!

It's also really good for time travel.

Harness

Oftentimes I'm not exactly thrilled with a lot of the projects we have to do for school, but I love this particular one! We had one day to create a leather accessory and their suggestion was to do a harness. I love those (I'm somewhat into Steampunk which probably comes with my love for all things Victorian) so I was super happy! And I think the final product turned out really well, too.

How do you like it? I'm thinking of making a couple more of these harnesses, maybe even selling them on etsy... thoughts?

SO MANY!

I'm super super busy right now with things for school, but I wanted to share this beast with you before it gets contained.
The picture is really bad, but what you can see right here is going to be burdastyle's Larissa jacket.

I made life hard for myself once again by deciding to do a patchwork lining (you can see the two colours on the right) but sometimes I just can't stop myself with these ideas.
The pattern already has over 20 pieces and hacking up the lining into smaller areas added some more and of course most pieces are needed more than once. Also, I'll use a thermo-layer in between outer fabric and lining and then there's always interfacing. So all in all, I was cutting out for four hours (!) today and ended up having about 100 separate pieces.

Oh my God.

Swimming with glee

So you might have caught on to the fact that I love the TV show Glee. It just lifts my mood.
Last season the girls were wearing these georgous retro bathing suits and I noticed how similar burdastyle's Alison pattern was to those.

And so the idea was born to sew a bathing suit.
I heard quite a bit of critique for the Alison pattern so I made a test piece. It turns out I only had to lengthen the torso a bit and everything was dandy.

It's bathing suit fabric obviously, apart from the stripy part, I couldn't find bathing suit fabric in this pattern and colours. So I doubled white lycra and striped viscose jersey. It takes a little longer to dry but other than that it's perfect, not see through or anything.

My little changes to the pattern were making the "legs" even more low cut and leaving out the back strap. That's perfect for a beach and splashing around bathing suit, but for one I wanted to swim a lot in, I would keep the back strap for stability.

I love my new bathing suit! And for all of you wanting to try the Alison pattern, don't get scared by the confused or displeased voices on the burda-forums. The instructions aren't great (but Isabelle has some great ones on her blog!), but it's not really a hard pattern to make and as for the fit, I only had to elongate the torso a few centimeters. I you make a test piece out of some jersey leftovers you should be fine!