Sewings of Fyre: hand sewing

Showing posts with label hand sewing. Show all posts

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Mum's wedding outfit

For the same weddings as I wore my strawberry shortcake dress, I made my Mum's outfit. I need to get more photos of it, and photos of the individual garments, and there will eventually be a jacket out of the skirt fabric, but here it is so far:

The jacket and shirt are made from green chiffon, the undershirt is made from a green satin, and the skirt is a gorgeous embroidered silk.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about this outfit is that it was finished. Eleventh hour sewing if I ever did it, it was finished the day before I flew across the country to Perth for the first wedding. I'm really happy with the skirt, undershirt and skirt, although the jacket still needs work. The silk one is going to be perfect. It doesn't have a choice :P

The skirt has a hand picked zipper and a hand picked hem - two of my favourite elements of this outfit. All the tops are finished with self bias binding.

Oh, and I'm counting this as my 'Mum' challenge for the sew weekly. (I decided to make the challenge my own, and rather than sewing something inspired by mum, I sewed for mum).

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Some Gifts - necklaces

Whenever possible, I like to give handmade gifts. I like the way that they are more personal, and that I often don't end up spending as much (financially) on them, although I do invest more time in them. As many others have, I have discovered a love of pinterest, and have pinned many many many things. One of my boards is dedicated to gift ideas, and pinned there is this:

Source: unique-vintage.com via fyrefairee on Pinterest

Cute, isn't it?

Using that as my starting point, I scoured my stash. I came up with lace and other ribbon like items, but fewer of the pearl like beads that I was drawn to in the inspiration necklace. So, I visited my local dollar store and came home with fifteen dollars worth of beads (and I still have a lot of beads left), and made the following necklaces:

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

red draped dress

I've wanted a 1950s style dress for a while now. Like, a full on, over the top, puffy skirted party dress. So, I decided to make one. I frankensteined the pattern together, and tried some new techniques. For the first time, I used horsehair braid, and pick stitched a zipper.

The dress is my Sew weekly, week 6 'Seeing Red' Dress, and I wore it to a Frocktober dance party, which was held to help raise money for Ovarian Cancer Research.

My inspiration photos:

Source: 1.bp.blogspot.com via fyrefairee on Pinterest

Source: wardrobechick.blogspot.com via fyrefairee on Pinterest

Source: vintageous.com via fyrefairee on Pinterest

The details:

Fabric: Thrifted red with embroidered flower crepe from stash; red organza from stash; red poplin lining from stash, free, additional 2.5m red poplin, $11.40
Pattern: Burda Style Draped dress pattern, used before, free; Butterick 5457, thrifted, 50c
Year: 2011
Notions: Thread, from stash; 8m thin horsehair braid $9.60; 8m horsehair braid $14.40; 2m velett ribbon $4.40
First worn: October 2011
Wear again? Yes, it was super fun to wear :)
Total Cost: $40.30

The inside photos show the colour much better - it's a red, I promise!

Friday, August 12, 2011

Mum's birthday present book

For her birthday this year, I gave my mother an embellished book. I recovered and re-bound it, and embellished some of the pages. Not as many as I originally wanted, but you have to sleep, sadly.

(This is a very image heavy post)

Front Cover

Inside Front Cover - the book is 'Crusts and Crusades' that I picked up from an op-shop (thrift store). It was written by the Right Honourable William (Bill) Hughes, who was one of Australia's war time Prime Ministers.