Remember when ...

... I was to busy with exams to have time to think let alone sew?
... when I had to use my mobile phone to take pictures last time because I couldn't find the cable to get the photos to my laptop?

Well that camera broke down on me shortly after that. And I passed the tests with flying colours :) Go me! And as a reward my parents want to give me a gift. Yay! And it might be that the camera broke down, or that I really want to make the evening/dance dress work and show you lot's of beautiful pictures, it might also be that I won the give away at Country Girl Couture  and that while the mail is being terribly slow I already have everything planned out and of course I'll want to take thousands of pictures of that and it's also possible that I want to join didyoumakethat's WIP Pitch and tantalise you with detail shots of unknown work in progress. And any or all of those might have made me blurt out "A camera!"


My parents both know a think or two about cameras so faster than you can say "Boo!" they started debating over which camera to get me. But then they decided that as someone who finished as one of the best of her year in a good part of the exams I should be allowed to pick my own camera.


I'll mostly be using it to take said detail shots and shots of my self made projects. So question to you: 


Which camera do you use? Do you like it? Why? And could I ask for it without -you know- ripping my parents arm of? Because I really don't want to do that.


Butterfly

I will spare you the photos

Beautifully finished with a double zig zag*

After sewing so many toiles of my dress I finally felt ready to sew my real fabric. I don't know why but I was terrified of that fabric. I have already (successfully) sewn more expensive fabrics, more slippery fabrics, fabrics that where more prone to fraying and any other hardship you might think of. But this fabric truly scared me.

Quiz question: How much fun is turning a corner with this fabric? I actually poked  a n 8 mm knitting needle right through several times. How can this even happen with such a tight weave?

So after psyching myself up with all those toiles I told myself to get a grip and just cut into the cloth already. And so I made lots of notches and hand basted all my seams (even the straight ones), tried out the best tension settings and stitch length on a scrap piece of fabric. Then I decided that sewing the lining first really wouldn't be procrastinating. 

One of my favourite seam finishes: Fold and stitch. In this case a zig zag stitch on the lining seams.

When I finally started sewing I was still afraid. And there was this nagging doubt that things would work out as nicely as in the muslins. But I kept sewing anyway. And then I tried the dress on. And quelle horreur! It has stress lines in places none of my muslins or the lining had them. And a ripply zip fastner! The zip was fine on just the lining and I had a notch every 5 cm to match up my seams. And for some reason you can see the facing peeking out in some parts!

No rippling when  lying flat. Also: This fabric can only be sewn once and I had already started unpicking here. Hence the pulled treads.

As fate would have it I all that procrastinating meant that I had to wear the dress out ripply zip and all. I had a great night and I got a lot of compliments on the dresses colour and cut and even more for being able to sew something like that. But I felt like Everyone was staring at my back and the ripply horrors there!

Couldn't they have noticed my perfect rolled hem instead? Both from the wrong side.

And the right. Isn't the fabric beautiful? Even  though the colours are of ...

The question remains: What am I going to do with the back. I have a feeling that a cool pin tuck design might help. But if it doesn't I'll have completely ruined the fabric.

Butterfly

*Once again sorry for the bad picture quality. I couldn't find the cable for my camera so I took all the pictures again with my phone.

Sewing my muslin(s) and sketches ... lots of them

Some sketches that didn't make the cut for various reasons.

Since I want this dress to fit really really well, I'm actually made a muslin. And then another one after I noticed that it looked amazing in dance posture but had some weird wrinkling and bunching when I'm standing naturally. Since I want the best of both worlds I made some alterations, decided that cut outs in back would be perfect for reducing fitting issues (with dance dresses they're always in the back, that's why most dance dresses don't have a back to speak of). And then I made another muslin and some alterations on that. And then another one.

Long story short: I'm up to muslin number four by now and it's "hopefully" (fingers crossed!) going to be wearable. Since I need a LBD I'm going to sew it in black with a different skirt. I also have enough fabric to swap the back to a "normal" one after I checked the fit.

Have I already posted my sketches? I know I drew a bunch with the intention of uploading them ... Please forgive the bad quality ... I can't draw to save my life and my scanner wasn't co-operating :(

The first couple of ideas I had ... I'd already thrown them overboard when I started these sketches. But I always find it fascinating to watch other people's ideas evolve and so I thought you'd do to ;) I just might have watched a lot of Ginger Rogers an Fred Astaire before drawing the sketch on the right. Here's a better view of the dress.

The dress on the right is basically the inspiration dress I posted a while ago in longer. Even though I made fun of the lower back design right after drawing it I do actually kind of like it now. Unfortunately I don't think it offers enough eh em ... support

The upper back designs look kind of weird and again there's a "support-problem", which is also existent in the bottom right one. The one on the bottom left is of course a classic. But I wanted something a bit different. But since I liked the cross at the back the most I decided to improve on that. Which ultimately led me too ...

The two "winner" designs. They where morphed together. See ho they'd have worked with both the princess cut and the triangles and circle skirt design?

What my dress will ultimately look like remains a surprise ;) What I can tell you is that the muslin will be sewn as a shorter version of the triangles and cirlce skirt dress. I will only post pictures of the muslin after I have checked the fit and converted it too a halter top.

In case anyone's wondering ... here's what the pattern for the "circle skirt" looks like:

Weird, no?

And here's how I got there:

A lot of slashing and pivoting. It looks like an eye! The white pointy thing was a dart. 

I have some fabric marking to do! See you soon!

Butterfly <3

Look what I found!

I don't even know why or where any more but while I was thinking about what to make for my summer wardrobe I saw a picture of an Indian woman wrapping her saree (or sari). What really spiked my interest was the that you could see what we westerners call her "sari blouse". Indians call them choli blouses as far as I know. They're midriff baring, made out of cool linen or cotton fabrics, they come in bright colours and I think they're worn without bras. Or they can be anyway. All of this makes them perfect for summer. I don't think I'll dare to wear them as a normal top (it has actually cooled down a bit but when it gets warmer ... who knows?) But me thinks they'd make a perfect sports bra or sleep top if they're sewn with a bit more ease.

Wouldn't this make a perfect running ensemble? It's a choli top (I might have forgotten to draw in the three bust darts) and a wrap skort (which is going to be longer than that due to the fact that minis don't suit my body shape very well).

So much for bright colours :P

I wanted the skort to mimic a sari. Looking at the video bellow I could tell that I'd need pleats with lots and lots of fabric gathered into them (they've got to walk somehow right) and a wrapping section after that. I might drape the wrapped over part a little bit to mimic the draping going up to the shoulder.

So as soon as the idea hit I started looking into the making of choli blouses. I found this video series which is great. It would be perfect if I could actually understand what they're saying. I'm quite sure it's English thanks to words like "margin" and "dart" and I've always prided myself in beeing able to understand as good as every person who speaks English. Yep even Chinese Business English. But this? It feels like a completely different language :( This is the earliest video I could find. You'll have to go to their channel and search for the others. I'm not through all of them yet since searching takes up a lot of time. Time I'm stealing from sewing my evening/dance dress muslin.


Look! No back stitching, no smooth curve at the end of the dart. I imagine it would be under quite a lot of stress since these blouses have no ease so that probably solves the nipply-dart-problem but why doesn't the stitching become undone?

Butterfly

Can you tell?

... that I have time of college? After weeks of writing one test after another I finally have time to lounge around my parents house, cook, sew and write blog posts :) Today is all about my personal colour palette. And how to find yours if you're hard to fit into the classical four colour seasons or the 12 or even 16 flow colour seasons.

Summer crept up on me!

A sudden heat spell seems to have come over all of Europe. Unfortunately I don't have enough summer clothes. Since I really want to sew something anyway I'll be making new ones for myself :)

What I need

• something cool to sleep in (I might have slept in my undies and filled a hot water bottle with ice-water last night ...)
• tops - preferably out of bright and cheerful Egyptian cotton - Those that I do have don't seem to tight in the bust and to loose in the waist. That's a good thing, but slightly annoying since i thought I'd just get out my summer tops from last year. I also don't want to use knits since I find that they cling and as soon as they're thin enough for such temperatures they're really see-through. And don't even get me started on people with knit tops and sweat-stains EVERYWHERE.
• shorts - Once again I can't wear those from last year since they're to tight in the rear and to loose over my abs. I also feel like I might fall out of them since they're not long enough to give enough coverage in the back
• skirts - something loose and knee length since I already figured out that mini skirts just aren't cutting it for my body type. Circle skirt anyone?
• shoes - I'm not going to make these myself :P But dancer's feet are really ugly so I can't confront my fellow earthlings with sandals ...
• a tunic to cover up in the sun - since it's quite humid this probably isn't going to help me stay cool but I burn really easily
• DRESSES I always need more dresses 

The problem(s):

• I could really kick myself for this but I still haven't perfected my new foundation pattern. I know, I know! It took ages to find someone willing (and able!) to take my measurements. In the end I just showed a  measuring tape into my little sisters hand. So I'm still making alterations.
• My pay check arrives in three days and I'm pretty close to my have-some-money-in-case-something-unexpected-happens-limit. So no fabric shopping until then :(
• I still haven't completely found my way through all the colour advice

But I finally have time for some serious sewing.

Self-Punishment-Skirt

Most of you probably know by now that I love to dance.  And you've probably seen the beautiful standard gowns. If not just Google it (They have very full skirts and lots of rhinestones. And even more rhinestones :P.). So as  you can imagine dancing in a skirt is quite a different feeling from dancing in pants. That's why I always practice in skirts. Mine and those I sew for others are usually sewn on the bias. It's how Ginger Rogers achieved that "swishy" look in her dresses. She also weighted the hem but I'm not doing that for practice wear ;)

So here's the deal: I managed to loose my practice skirt. You can go back and read that again: I lost an almost floor length skirt that flared out into two full circles. How do you do that you ask? Well ... and the rest is lost in mumbling as I bow my head in shame. To punish myself I figured I'd sew my new practice skirt out of knit fabric. I just don't like wearing knits. And you're heel catches in the hem during practice: I actually managed to get mine caught in the hem of the dancer next to me ....

My pattern pieces basically looked like this:

This is the half finished skirt: It has a separate waistband, that goes almost all the way underneath my but. The teal coloured fabric is a polo knit that I - obviously - never used. It's now serving the purpose of an interfacing. I just have another 3 meters to somehow use up ... I don't know if you can see it but I'm actually in the middle of pinning my waist elastic to my "interfacing". I like to do this on the body as it provides neater results. It serves much the same purpose as waist tape for full skirts made out of heavy fabric: Holding the skirt up. Only that it isn't gravity I'm fitting against but my own (and others!) dance shoe's heels. The knit is so light weight that even centrifugal force in quick turns shouldn't be a problem without a waist elastic, but the heels just won't stop hating knit hems ...

Looks like I'll have to repin ... the seam is supposed to be further down

1. While this knit fabric actually looks quite nice (better than I'd thought knits could look anyhow) it's somewhat see-through in the wrong lights (read: bright light, read: stage light and summer sun-light) so I'll have to sew a short lining skirt. 
2. I'm going to sew in short shorts like the those Ginger Rogers had underneath her dresses. Can you tell I'm a bit obsessed with her? It's perfectly normal for Ballroom gown (both Standard and Latin-american) and probably American Smooth and Rhythm gowns to have sewn in panties. You're not even allowed to compete without them. Yep there are rules for that. They're written down here. Some countries have "extra" rules though.
3. I'm still not sure if I'll 

          a) not hem at all (less for the heels to hold on to).

          b) use horsehair braid in the hem (probably to pretty for a self punishment                skirt but a lot closer to the dresses we'll actually dance in) which is                very much in vogue in standard gowns at the moment.

You can see some examples of horsehair braid in hems here:

Isn't Joanne's skirt just beautiful? I think it's has a  very full crinoline underneath and tulle flounces with light fishing wire in the hem. Anyone want to guess the meterage?

Butterfly

Preventing a sewing rehab

So I'm finding it incredibly hard to make my list of death and really develop a plan of what I should be sewing for myself. My body type shape is somewhat weird and I needed lots and lots of reading into dressing for your body type. The next step would be to find "my" colour palette. But once again that will take up a lot of time. But I feel like I'm in a sewing rehab until I have all that sorted out. But I don't really want that so I'll be combining my two addictions and sewing stuff to dance in!

I'm currently running some ideas past the lovely ladies at pattern review. They have a huge thread on sewing dance wear over there. But it's more about drafting for dance wear and selecting the right fabrics. I'll be sewing myself at least two long sleeved shirts for dance practice and maybe a new practice skirt too. I don't really need one but sewing all those - mainly straight - lines is fun and I'm still experimenting with getting the cut that looks most beautiful when twirling. I'll upload sketches as soon as I get the scanner to co-operate :)

I also found a really beautiful dance dress that I'll be copying - more or less - for my special occasion dress.
This is the dress unfortunately the link is down at the moment.

Until then!
Butterfly

The list of death

Good morning blog-land!

I can't believe how crowded the past few weeks month have been. I went from writing pages upon pages in my diary every day to writing maybe a page every three weeks :( I always just fell asleep before I got the chance to write anything. But thinking about my personal style and all the clothes I'm going to make when I have a break from university calms me down and helps me focus better afterwards. So let's get started shall we?

In my last post about body shape and personal style I came to realise, that I am an hourglass with shoulders that are just a bit to wide. It might just be my preference for pear body shapes over hourglasses. I don't know why but I also prefer heart shaped and inverted triangle faces over oval ones. Contemplating why that might be is a matter for another post though. So my aim today is to find a list of desirable properties for my clothes and also a list of things I should avoid at any cost.

Since my ideal body shape isn't the same as the “ideal body shape” all body shape bibles etc. talk of I had to piece this together for myself. I mainly used two great websites to help me do so:

• http://www.insideoutstyleblog.com which is simply amazing! Imogen Laport – who runs the site – defines more than just the standard four body shapes and even shows photos of different women for each shape. All the tips are very well thought through and coherent. I found her hints for minimizing square shoulders especially helpful.
• http://bodyshapestyle.com is also a great place for advice. I especially enjoyed this article about the whole skin vs. shape dilema and also the butt vs. bust if you go for showing skin. Though it is meant only for evening wear I think it can also be used for every day wear. There was also an article that contained the sentence: “Use the best type of fabric you can afford.” What's not to love about that?

So I started with the list of things I shouldn't wear:

THE LIST OF DEATH (not melodramatic at all)

• high necklines, especially turtle necks as they make my shoulders look wider and overemphasise my bust
  
• cap sleeves or gathered sleeves: again to much emphasis on the shoulders
  
  Since this is a fluffiness issue extra fullness at the hip and emphasis on the waist could work
  
• frills and colour accents around the shoulder line
• this one goes without saying: baggy clothes! No-one looks good in baggy clothes! And I don't sew for myself only to have clothes with horrible fit either.
• 
  
  Wide necklines – I'm taking this to mean necklines that go past my bra strap as necklines that just about cover them look great as long as they're not to shallow.
• Chunky fabrics – I'm not objecting as I like “feminine”, drapey fabrics that move in the breeze much better
• anything strapless as I like to be able to dance in all of my clothes and I think a strapless bra sliding up and down all the time wouldn't be very helpful
  
  
• this picture also illustrates that I have to be careful with short hemlines as it tends to look cheap very quickly (but I'd be happy to accept other opinions on this … do you find this dress appealing on my figure?)

On another note: These pictures make me realise that my ribs seem to be sticking out quite a lot. That might explain some weird fitting issues I have around the waist and under bust region. Do you think I could/should wear a corset for formal events to push my ribs in? It wouldn't need to be industrial strength as I can just push my ribs in with my fingers. A long line bra might be all that's needed now that I come to think of it. That might also help with the strapless bra problem. Does anyone have experience with wearing a long line bra to go strapless?

Butterfly

PS: Thank you for the nice comments :)

What are you cooking?

Because I actually don't know what I'm going to make. But lets start at the beginning shall we?

 Every morning I eat muesli. With milk of course, but a few month ago I stared to wonder if might be lacorse intolerant. And then I decided to let it get checed out since I was getting really bad stomach cramps after breakfast. The results arrived and I can tell you it's not lactose intollerance. I'm actually allergic to  milk protein. So now I'm stuck with not beeing able to eat any dairy products at all.

It's not quite as bad as it sounds though. I actually like soy milk a lot better than cows. It migth just be my body's way of sighing in relief but it tastes good either way. What I'm really concerned with is cheese. living as a vegetarian for years I don't really know what I should put on my bread. Or how to replace mozzarella (yep, concern number one)! Or pesto for that matter. Does anyone have good milk-free, vegetarian recipies?

Sounds familiar. All of it!

Butterfly

A new dress for me!!! Let's look at what I should be wearing ...

So I have three month until I need a prom dress. That gave me a real kick in the butt to continue contemplating what looks good on me and what doesn't and also what I feel comfortable in because it's just so me :)

So first things first: My body shape! After looking at the photos from my last post again I decided that I'm really more of an hourglass. I'm still confused about the difference though. It seems to me as if a cello is just a plus-sized hourglass but then again they said, that size doesn't matter ... I think the hourglass would have needed a more fitted top to truly show the proportions of her waist. And a better bra. Or it might just be my weirdly high bust that makes me think everyone isn't supported as well as they should be.

But the thing that tipped me in the end was the legs and the high hip. Mine just look more like the hourglass' to me. The hourglass has more rounded calves and the thighs have more weight towards the crotch instead of resembling cut of cones.

The cello's legs (on the left) don't seem to fit mine, the hourglass' come closer to the truth.

The hourglass' high hip is also more dramatic which also more closely resembles mine.

The hourglass' high hip (on the right) seems to flare out like mine does.

So I'm an hourglass. But what the pictures also showed is that my shoulders are squarer and also wider:

This might just be the result of a weird camera angle (photographed by tiny tots), but I know that my shoulders are pretty square. Therefore my primary figure type is an hourglass, my secondary is probably a goblet even though my back is anything but wide. So what does that mean for me?

I'm going to stick to all clothing recommendations for hourglass body types. And I'm going to pick out anything for goblets that I think applies to me. Even though I might just take the hints for cornets instead since they are supposed to minimise only the shoulders and not the bust and I kind of like my bust ;)

Remember me?

Once upon a time there was a little butterfly, who started to write a blog. And she was really exited to finaly have a place to show of her work and ask more advanced seamstresses for advice. But then she fell into a most terrible sewing de motivation factored by two things:

• The new sewing machine she was supposed to get for Christmas simply wouldn't arrive. She drove by the shop on a daily basis. The shop owner always saw her coming in and before she could even inquire about her new baby he made an apologetic face and lifted his hand's in an it's-out-of-my-power-gesture. Now who would want to continue doing anything creative under those conditions?
• The one thing this little butterfly loved more than sewing was dancing. Unfortunately spending twelve hours per week at dance practice resulted in some mayor changes in her figure. And so she'd have to unpick everything after less than a month and do alterations. And the little butterfly hates unpicking seams.

But eventually the sewing machine arrived and the little butterfly at least started to write her blog again in order to ask people for help with defining her new shape.

So uhm I'm back again :) As you probably realised I'm the little butterfly. Even though the story might be just a bit melodramatic.

But let's get to the point shall we? Nothing fits any more! The practice skirt I'd sewn for myself now looks like a sack of potatoes on me. If I hadn't sewn in a waist band elastic by hand it would just fall over my hips. It's not all due to weight loss though since it went in the tumbler and the stretchy fabric came out permanently stretched.  I'm still not sure if I want to sew a new one any time soon. It still looks better than the other practice skirts in my formation. They're just meters upon meters of jersey gathered to a too tight, too thin elastic waistband. They also have a lot of holes around the gem because your heels will still get caught if you shorten the hem to 30 cm of the floor. Paint a bad enough picture yet?

What I'm currently concerned with is finding out what my new body shape is and what  would suit me now.

What body shape am I?!

 I took this picture right after breakfast so my stomach is a bit puffed out. It's usually more concave. I also had ten hours worth of dance practise the day before so I'm still half in dance posture

But lets get started on analysing that shall we?

I seam to have:

• equally wide hips and shoulders
• a high (short) waist, which looks average since ...
• my bust is a lot higher than most peoples
• my widest point from the front (just around crotch) is not my widest point from the side (butt)
• I have muscular thighs from dancing on slippery floors (the "quicker" the floor is, the closer you get to squatting)
• my calves are also well defined from the rise and fall action in standard dances (rising unto the tips of your toes and going back down in something that resembles a sine wave)
• I screwed up the arms because they are actually more muscular than some of the boy's I know (thank you seven years of climbing)
• my waist is my smallest part

That would leave me as an hourglass wouldn't it? But the side view doesn't look very hourglassy to me. It's more like an inverted triangle with shapely legs .... What do you think?

Since that didn't really help I tried to find which body shape I am by layering these pictures over my own:

After a bit of stretching I could finally start looking for my body shape.

I'm not a vase since my shoulders and hips peek out and her waist peeks out behind mine. Can you see what  I mean?

And then I can't be sure if I'm a cello or an hourglass since both pictures seem to "fit" my body equally well. Of course that leaves you wondering at what the difference between the two is. Anyone want to help me play spot the difference?

And still no sign of my sewing machine :(

Warning: Rant incoming!

I was supposed to get a new sewing machine for Christmas. And it still hasn't come! It's just a small Brother and it isn't as good as the other one ...  but I have a feeling I'll only start sewing again when it has arrived. I don't use complicated stitches or methods:

• I love rolled hems and I never use anything else
• I never use anything more complicated than a zig-zag stitch (does anyone)
• I often feel crushed by all the fancy stitches my sewing machine has to offer

Most of you would probably use this as a travel machine. It would be the  perfect everyday machine for me though. So why can't it just arrive?

When it does I'll finish the sweatshirt jacket and sew in the zipper on a bright pink skirt. But until then I can't even be bothered with knitting or sketching. The only thing that keeps me sane right now is coming up with crazy, beautiful, new sewing projects and keeping a lookout for the perfect fabric.

Butterfly