Totally stuffed

Look at this lovely lot of soft fill in my hand.


It looks so fluffy and soft and cushy and almost like a heap of frothy light bubbles, glistening in the light.

Well it's NOT. Do you know how much of this you need to actually stuff anything?? That amount you see there looking oh-so-innocent would probably be able to stuff something smaller than those little pellets with a toy you get in a Kinder Surprise. Just.

Stuffing anything larger than the aforementioned pellet takes a surprising amount of time and energy.

I now have very sore fingers. Stupid soft fill.

Burdastyle dress: 114-5/2010. Take 2.

So I wasn’t 100% happy with the Burda dress I made before and decided that I’d try to change a few things about it and make another version using a navy cotton with a large amoutnt of white print on it – I thought the use of white would make it a lot more summer-y.

I loved the print the moment I saw it!
The Plan
I thought it through and decided I wanted to do the following:

1. Make the back section more conventional instead of having the cross back pattern
2. Eliminate the need for 2 pieces for the front of the dress
3. Make the skirt either a gathered skirt or a pleated one, without the tiers.

1. The Back
This was fairly easy – I just used the original Burda pattern as a guide. I made sure that the tops of the shoulder straps still matched the pattern so they’d line up with the front shoulder straps, then drew a curved line from there to meet the underarm seam. I did this freehand since I didn’t know if there was a particular technique around on how to measure this up. It seemed like a logical enough approach in my mind.

2. The Front
Now this was a piece of cake. I just took the front piece and cut it on the fold (taking it in just a tad as the original pattern called for the 2 front pieces to overlap).

3. The Skirt
This step had me torn. Part of the reason I had picked the particular material was because it was thick enough not to need any lining. As a result, it was more likely to add bulk to the join and make me look a lot thicker around the waist. Based on this I reluctantly decided to have a go at pleating the skirt instead of gathering it. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I find pleating hard work! Still, I figured that avoiding doing it wasn’t going to make me any better at it so a-pleating I went.

The Execution
I started by drawing evenly spaced lines on the back of the material for the pleats. I had no idea how much material I needed and how to measure how many pleats to put in so I just decided that I would just pleat the length of material and then cut it to fit as the skirt option.

Pencil lines
I had a lot of trouble working out the best way of sewing these up. I ended up folding the pleats on the pencil mark, pinning them in place and then sewing up and down the seam using the machine foot as a measuring guide so that I'd be able to replicate the measurements across the skirt.

I really don't know if this was the best method but it seemed to kind of work...
So I kept repeating the pattern across the length of fabric I had set aside for the skirt and ended up with a consistent pleating pattern throughout.

On and on and on - it took ages!
I actually lie as I managed to get distracted along the way and incorrectly sew an extra seam where it shouldn't have gone. Urgh. Luckily it was close to one end of the fabric so I was hoping that I wouldn't need the whole length for the skirt - either way I was so exhausted from all the pleating that it was either pretend that it hadn't happened or chuck the whole project, so there are no pictures of the stupid thing to be posted :)

I then basted the skirt to the newly-fashioned bodice to get an idea of what the dress would look like.

Finally - pleats!
The Result
I'm loving the look of the dress using the fabric but I have to say that after all that pleating work (did I mention that it took FOREVER?) I was really disappointed - the pleats have made the dress look really matronly.

It looks quite shapeless on the hanger but it gives you an idea of how it just isn't quite working
So now - what should I do??

I don't have any more of the fabric left to start over but unpicking the pleating will take a huge amount of time - probably longer than it took to do the pleating in the first place (and like I said, it took a really really really long time - there must seriously be an easier way!).

I think I might take leave of this particular project for a bit - it's causing me a bit of frustration to say the least.

Sigh.

Fabric in a can and pain everywhere...

New technology in clothing creation - fabric in a can.



On a separate note, I'm off for a 2 week holiday tomorrow night and have spent the past 2 days in bed struck down with some nasty flu strain. My head/joints/throat hurts, and a summer dress for the trip based on the burdastyle tiered dress I previously made has been left unfinished on the dining table.

Not happy.

Panadol and sleep time.

No zipper love

Quite a few of the patterns I've been looking at call for an invisible zip. Unfortunately the machine that I'm using didn't come with one so I decided to mosey on down to the shops to buy a invisible zipper foot. I saw a couple in stock and they all pretty much looked like the same assortment of bright plastic bits so I decided to buy the Birch branded ones since I was buying a few machine needles of the same brand.

I got home, opened up the packet and seriously could not make head or tail on how it all worked.

Contents of the packet

The instructions were highly useless. They listed what type of machine each adaptor (blue bit) was for but that didn't help since I had no idea which category (options were short shank, long shank, slant needle and low front) my machine fit in.

Looking at this sure didn't help me work anything out

Thanks to the interwebs, I found a really helpful post from Kim of the All Things Mum blog that had a clear picture of how the foot is supposed to look when it's on the machine. Adaptor B for me - Hurrah!

It actually fits!

It wasn't really all that hurrah though as I soon discovered. As you can see from the photo below, the foot fits well on the shank and the screwhole is visible on the right side of the foot.

Yup  that's where the screw goes

On the left side of the foot is a whole other story.

Something isn't quite right here...

That's right - the screw needs to be screwed into the hole that just isn't there! I tried to slide the adaptor section up or down but there was no way possible it was going to budge. I thought that maybe, just maaaayyybe, I would be able to use the foot without having to screw it in but I learnt pretty quickly that that wasn't going to work.

Looks like for now I'll continue using my normal zipper foot like I did for the Macaron dress - the result for that wasn't quite as 'invisible' as I'd like it to be but at least it gets the zip in.

I'd really like to use a proper invisible zipper foot though - without having to fork out to get an exorbitant fee on a metal foot specific to my machine (a Janome Decor Excel 5018). Why waste the moolah when there is a chance that I might be able to use a cheap ugly plastic one? ;D

Anyone have any ideas or come across the same problem?

active feet indeed!

Today I started Week 4 of my C25K program. If I was going to be really particular about it I should really be midway through Week 5, but my stupid knee has been playing up again so I decided to pace myself a little. I think I'll do a post on the program once I finish it but for now I have to say that even though I'm not really enjoying myself during the jogging intervals of each session, when I'm not at the gym I've been thinking about how I'm going to finish it all and be awesome at it *YAY*

Anyhoo, this knee issue has been quite the pain in the behind. I asked my physio if there was anything else I could do to improve the healing rate or prevent this from happening again and he asked if I had old or ill-fitting shoes. The 2 pairs I use aren't particularly old but were bought with my wide feet in mind. I had also had my feet assessed by the folk at The Athlete's Foot (who knew the name included the word 'The'?) and using an assessment pad that they get you to walk over, they found that my feet didn't over-pronate (i.e. roll in too much), so I was recommended some neutral shoes. Mr Physio took one look at me standing there in my bare socks and said that my feet looked like they did roll in. Needless to say I wasn't very impressed and decided to get a reassessment.

My suspected foot behaviour (pic courtesy of Philadelphia Runner)
I was quite reluctant to go back to The Athlete's Foot seeing as it sounded like they had gotten it wrong twice before (annoying!), but didn't know if I really needed to see a podiatrist. Mr Physio said that there was another option, a happy hybrid if you like, where I could go to a shop run by podiatrists who assessed the way your feet moved by putting you on a treadmill. I had never heard of such a thing - most likely due to my aversion to exercise - but it sure sounded worth a shot!

I visited a branch of the active feet chain over the weekend and the place was packed. Who knew there would be so many people with ungainly gaits around? After a bit of a wait, I got to chat to one of the staff, let's call him Fred, about my feet/knee/exercise issues and my shoe-wearing history. I then jumped on a treadmill that had a camera attached to the wall behind it, so as I walked my feet were projected onto a large screen in front of me. According to their website, this 'allows the individuals own biomechanical foot function to be assessed and a shoe selected to suit that individuals foot type'. Hurray for technology!

I must say I really didn't realise I had such an odd walk! Oh and also massive calves *cry* but I decided not to point this out to Fred as I figured new shoes weren't going to fix that issue and his care factor would be pretty close to zero.

The screen showed that my feet rolled in a bit too much before lifting up off the ground, so I needed shoes that addressed that problem. Fred brought out some shoes he thought would correct the issue, and then I got my walk and run re-assessed on the treadmill. As the original treadmill was occupied, we used a different one and guess what - my calves aren't all that big after all. Turns out the first camera was distorting the projected image :D

The shoes seemed to do the job well but Fred offered up a couple of other choices which were also assessed on the treadmill. What I found pretty amazing is that I was told to go for a 50m walk/run outside on the public pavement, which is something I guarantee most shops don't let you do, and I think that really helped me in my decision-making process.

So here they are - my new beauties!

Fresh and new Brooks runners in the box
As Fred explained to me, these particular shoes work well for my feet because the grey area under the arch of the foot is made out of foam that compresses less than the white area - so it stops my foot from turning it too far and corrects my gait when I walk/run.

That sure is a lot of correctional foam
So what was the verdict today? The shoes were comfy enough, they felt really supportive and now that I understand how my feet work I think they really did help with my exercise session! I now understand why my ankles got sore once in awhile as well - I used to think I was just weak and bad at exercise but I just wasn't getting enough support! No thanks to The Athlete's Foot. Admittedly the knee is still sore but I wasn't expecting miracles.

active feet : 1
The Athlete's Foot : a BIG FAT 0

A (not-so) simple skirt

I was randomly surfing the net the other day in the hopes of getting some sort of inspiration when I came across this little DIY gem on how to make a simple skirt with an elasticised waist.

The tutorial looked simple enough and was pretty much perfect for a speedy feel-good project so after a quick trip to the shops I found myself armed with a lovely length of miscellaneous grey knit (suspected flannel stretch of some kind but the tag was missing) and some black elastic.

The fabric looks perfect for winter
I figured the skirt would take me an hour or two seeing as I haven't really worked with knits before. This was factoring in the measuring, cutting and sewing. What I hadn't anticipated though was having to redo the stitching of the skirt. After gathering the skirt and pinning it to the elastic, I straight stitched the two parts together. All seemed well until I went to try the skirt on and I heard a big riiiip! Stretching the elastic had busted the seams!

When I thought about it later it did make sense as the seams weren't going to be stretching along with the elastic but as nothing was said in the tutorial I just went along with my standard stitch. Probably a silly newbie mistake on my part, so I made sure that when I was sewing the band to the skirt a second time around I used a straight stitch and then reinforced it with a zig-zag stitch, both of which were sewn on while I stretched out the elastic band.

Looking oh-so-innocent on the hanger
Other than my newbie mistake though, I had a terrible time with this one. My machine decided to suddenly act like an item possessed. My needle broke, my bobbin jammed a bunch and my thread snapped 6 times. I was close to just calling it quits but there is a stubborn streak in me that kept persevering. No machine shall best me *shakes fist*.

Anyhoo after all of that, I worked out that the thread I was using was a cheap and nasty spool that had been lurking in my thread box for a long time. Annoying.

Unfinished 'chic' (at least I'm hoping it is)
I didn't bother hemming the bottom of the skirt. I had made it a point when cutting to use the selvedge for the base of the skirt since it was such a simple *cough* skirt and I wanted to stay with that simplicity. Or I could just have been being lazy. Either way you can see the ends here look unfinished but I have had confirmation from workmates that it looks like it was styled that way on purpose, so I'm not doing any more work on it!

Moral of the story? Chuck out all of your cheap thread! It is EVIL.

Oh and if I do decide to make another one of these - the elastic band needs to be a lot wider. I thought it was fairly wide when I purchased it but now that the skirt is made up, I'd prefer it to be at least 2 times the width.

Housebound.

This fake flu of mine has really hit me hard. I have hardly any energy to do anything - even watching tv is a bit of a struggle :( Not only have I missed out on some busy times at work, I've also missed out on Mally's thesis submission picnic and a baby shower for the soon-to-arrive Baby Nooby.

Lucky for me some lovely friends have been visiting to drop off food and groceries to me - I think I'd starve otherwise.

Got a trip up to Sydney next week to see Princess S and Little Miss M so I'm planning on making up a dress each for them - I figure if I split up the fabric cutting and the sewing I should be able to rustle up enough energy to get the job done. I'm thinking dresses made up using the Get Creative pattern I used previously for a little girl's top. I'll need to work out the difference between View A and B and then decide when I can utilise some brain power.

Seeing as I am house bound, I'll be making use of cotton from my stash... I'm thinking polka dots... or maybe those are spots in front of my eyes from concentrating too hard ;P

Time for another nap I think.

Melting Monday

I am usually really happy when the weekend comes about but the next few days are going to be pretty warm, building up to a scorcher of a Monday. Check out the forecast!
I'd like to stay in the confines of my house with the AC and sewing machine running (bliss!) but unfortunately I have a few things on this weekend, and the killer 41 degree day had to fall on a weekday where I'll be commuting in to work.

Heat + public transport = unhappy me :(

UPDATE It reached 43.6 degrees!!!

Slow progress on Vogue V8229

Apologies in advance for the poor quality pics - I like to work into the night so lighting is never great at 3am ;)

I decided to make the Vogue V8229 dress after being inspired by Christina on her Assorted Notions blog. I thought all 3 versions of the dress she made looked great, and based on her experiences I wanted to try my hand at making my version in a silk to avoid it being potentially sack-like.

I managed to get some beautiful blue ex-display silk from Darn Cheap Fabrics at a decent price so I was quite excited about the whole project.



Cutting out the pattern wasn't too difficult. I decided that since I didn't want to have a ruffle at the bottom of the dress I would extend the body sections down to my knees so I could play around with the length. Also, I generally don't wear anything above the knee so I was hoping that the additional length following the line of the body would just magically look great.

After putting all the pieces together (and also making wonky darts at the back of the dress as per the pattern) I put a zip in to see how it all fit together.

There are a bunch of things I am unhappy with at the moment:

1. Poor fit
As you can see, the stomach area of the dress looks terrible. I suspect that all the wrinkling there is due to the dress pulling around my hip section - the sizing obviously wasn't generous enough in that area. This is of course why people should make muslins first to suss out pattern sizes but I am unfortunately too impatient. Also, the thin silk isn't very forgiving so any lump and bump that shouldn't be there *cough cough* is going to throw the dress out as well.



If I can be bothered I am going take the darts out of the back and let the dress out around the hips at the sides and back. I'm just worried that the silk may not like being unstitched and will show little holes.


2. To puff or not to puff
I am currently undecided about if I want to just hem the sleeves as is and leave thm long and flowy (right pic), or make them puffy (left pic) as per the design. I am leaning towards puffy since I am quite disgruntled about the lower half of the dress and want something about it to work out.




3.Long vs not-so-long
I don't know if it is because of the poor fit around the hips but the dress sometimes looks very frumpy. If you compare the top pic to the second one, it looks a lot better later on due to me standing a certain way, but I can't imagine I'd be spending the whole day standing around just like that. An alternative is to show some leg (look away now if you can't stand the exposure!) but I'm not sure I'd be comfy walking around with something that short.



Trying to fix everything in 1 go will be too painful and will mean I won't finish it since I have a short attention span and will get impatient/frustrated. I'll just take things one step at a time, starting with the sleeves I think.

Worse case scenario would be that I chop the bottom and make this into a flowy silk top - which I think I may do if the silk shows up too many holes when I try to resize it. I quite like how it looks as a top so it's no big loss - and when I have another bash at making the dress I'll have a better idea of what to watch out for!

Brrrrr

It's too cold in Melbourne. It's nearly December and it hailed yesterday. Booooooo

Fathermuckers

That is exactly what the British High Commission are a bunch of.

*cough*

So today I caught up with someone I hadn't seen for awhile. It was good to see her I think. My only issue is that I now stink of cigarette smoke and feel like my lungs are totally congested.

Now before there is any outcry of this being a whinge about smokers, I would like to point out that one of my best friends is a smoker, so I can't be accused of being anti-smokers (I am however anti-smoking, but that is a seperate, albeit related, matter) ;)

In all fairness, the congested lungs thing may be due to the fact that tropical weather and humidity probably makes the air, and therefore anything in the air (e.g. cigarette smoke) just that much thicker and clingier.

However.

I would like to think that there is such a thing as consideration for the non-smokers that one is sharing a meal with. In most cases, my smoking friends do not smoke while they or anyone else is eating, and are conscious of sitting down-wind so that their smoke doesn't drift into their friends' faces/food/drink/clothing/hair/etc. If for some reason the wind changes, no offence is taken if people ask to move or swap seats.

In this case though, I encountered blatant disregard for any of this etiquette. Open air or not, when the smoke drifts into your face, it kind of does spoil the flavour of the food (and air) one is trying to consume. Asking to swap seats was met with a look of 'wtf?' and then refusal in the form of a not-joke about how some people must be very sensitive to the Asian climate and have delicate lungs (?). I don't think I was asking for much, but I appear to have been.

As a result, I literally stink.

Honestly, it makes me wonder if it is worthwhile making the effort to catch up again. Sure, it seems a small price to pay - I can just shower the smell off - but the lack of understanding isn't something that can be sloughed away like yesterday's dirt.

Limbo

Not the kind that rocks, but the kind you are in.

I've been sitting here sweating on a daily basis for almost 2 weeks now. When is the stupid visa going to be ready? Stressed - I reckon I have a 50% chance of getting it approved. So in the meantime, due to the limbo-ness of it all, I haven't shopped (credit crunch, being unemployed, moving house to who knows what country, luggage space are all factors), and am becoming addicted to airconditioning and bad tv.

Sucks to be me.