None More Black Bustier Top

Hello, remember me? I fell off the blogging map for a bit. My excuse? The computer imploded, and despite being married to an IT genius, I had to survive on an ancient Mac laptop that was basically help together with several reels of sticky tape for the next few months. My hands have been far from idle during this period - this bustier is one of a number of items I've sewn up but haven't had time to blog about yet. 

I intended this to be a wearable toile, before cutting into my fancy fabrics. The material came from two old skirts - a corduroy one that had seen better days, and a velvet skirt that had already been partly incorporated into a pencil skirt. It was also lined with some scraps of double-knit jersey from my stash, to prevent any potential chafing situations. 

The bustier was based on Burdastyle 01/2012 #127 - it comes with a pattern for highwaisted pants which I will attempt sometime soon (in Spandex perhaps?). It's a relatively simple pattern, with three pattern pieces - centre front, sides and back. I also added some thick straps to it, which were traced from New Look 6675. The straps help prevent any embarrassing clothing malfunctions, and also stop me from having to hoik up the bustier every 10 seconds or so. The bustier was lengthened by about 1.5 inches, by attaching the waistband of the corduroy skirt to the bottom of the bustier. I felt that this gave it a more finished look, turning it from lingerie-style top to a proper 'outside' top.

I made it in a size 34 bust, and used the size 8 for the straps. Unfortunately, my shoulder-to-boob ratio (proper technical term) is slightly shorter than the long lithe creatures they usually design for, so the straps were just ever slightly too long. Which I only found out after wearing the top around town for a day, constantly fiddling and pulling them back up onto my shoulders. So I ended up unpicking about half the machine-sewn stitches and cutting about 1cm off the straps. The top fits so much better now but let me tell you, I could have stabbed someone with a seam-ripper when I had to do that correction.

The double-layer of thick fabric was perfect for April, which was when the bustier was finished and when these photos were taken. It was perfect over a high-waisted skirt or trousers, and under a light jacket or cardigan. However, the temperature has risen considerably since than, which means that I end up with a rather unglamourous line of sweat between my boobs. It's a very comfortable top for these warmer temperatures though, so I will be working on one of two more versions in the near future, made with much thinner fabric. 

Sunglasses - vintage (op-shop)
Necklace - op-shop
Denim jacket - Levi's (bought new about 15 years ago)
Bustier top - self-made
Belt - Sainsburys 
1970s skirt - op-shop

The Garden Party Dress

The warm, golden sunlight in these pictures will probably alert you to the fact that these pictures were taken months ago. Oh well, best get blogging about this dress before winter finally gets here!

The impetus for this dress came about when an acquaintance handed me the invite to her wedding. Dress code - 'formal'...which always brings to my mind some sort of Disney princess dress (like this) - you know, floofy skirt, lots of sequins and tulle, the works. The type of dress that I would wear to a Manowar show, but felt a bit uncomfortable wearing to a mid-summer, outdoor wedding reception. Thus began the hunt for a 'grown-up' dress pattern. 

A quick online search lead me to Butterick B5281, a reissue of a 1946 pattern. Those illustrated babes looked so elegant and sassy, so a few clicks later and I was on my way to replicating that sassy elegance. Unfortunately, elegance is a foreign country to me, as evidenced by the above photo of me hanging on to 2 wine glasses. Oh well, I'll go for sassy then.

On to the technical bits. For the bodice, I decided to trace a size 10 at the bust, graduating up to a size 12 at the waist seam and skirt. The other change I made to it was to hack about 5 inches off the skirt, because I have short stumpy legs. Since it was rather more complicated than my usual patterns, I decided to make a toile first, in the same fabric that would later be used for the lining (a pink polycotton sheet for the bodice, and a navy blue acetate for the skirt, both from the opshop). The dress fabric was two metres of slightly sheer ikat-looking fabric that I purchased last year at the Wimbledon car boot sale. It's most likely a wool/polyester mix - it has no label, but I have a skirt that feels exactly the same, and is about 70% wool/30% polyester.

Constructing the dress was suprisingly easy, although the shoulder-flap bit on the left threw me a little.The trickiest part was probably inserting the side zipper - my first! I took my time and yelled a few unnecessary words, but managed to fit it in without too many wrinkles. It's a lapped zipper, which I thought fitted the whole vintage pattern thing a lot better than an invisible zipper.

Although it wasn't too difficult to sew up, it did take a lot of time though...so much so that I was sat at my machine at 10.30pm the night before the wedding, trying to finish fit the lining in. I cheated in the end, and set in the sleeve lining with big rough basting stitches. The skirt was roughly turned up and sewed with big machine basting stitches. No-one else could see it, and I've since managed to clean it all up. 

Dress - selfmade, necklace - vintage, brooch - vintage, tights - Sainsburys, shoes - from Hong Kong

Queenie and Ted

Queenie and Ted are lovely ladies who create unique upcycled, customised jackets. As of yesterday, they also became proper shopowners with the opening of their little shop at Columbia Road. 

All very nice, but what does any of this have to do with me? Well, I met them while we were neighbours at a rather pathetic craft fair last December, and they decided they like some of my stuff enough to place in their shop!

I went to the shop last Sunday to deliver my pouches and rings, but since Queenie and Ted (or Linda and Kally) had just received their keys that very day, it was just an empty space with nice white floorboards. It was fantastic seeing that space transformed into a lovely cosy shop in the course of only a week. 

These are the little pouches I've got in their shop - the outsides are made of layers of plastic bags fused together to form a sturdy, waterproof fabric. They're big enough to hold cards, money, or a small digital camera or mobile phone. I've also got some crocheted rings in stock there, but they were displayed in a cupboard and I didn't think of taking a picture until I'd left. Oh well...

That's Kally in the middle, with that wonderful curly hair. Linda is somewhere behind her, I think.  Visit them if you're in the area!

Queenie and Ted
144a Columbia Road
E2 7RG

Saturdays 11am - 6pm
Sundays 9am - 3pm

New Year, New Stuff!

How's your 2011 been so far? The first few days of my year have been spent lazing around in bed, sipping on hibiscus flavoured fizzy wine from Sainsburys. It's been tremendous fun, but, just like everyone else, I'm back to work now.

To ease the inevitable 'back to work' pains, I've put most of the items in my Etsy shop on sale, from now to 19th January. Prices have been reduced by 15% - 20%, and I'm giving Woolly Two Shoes readers an additional 10% off.  Just type in the code 'Goodbye2010' when you're checking out, and you'll receive the extra 10% discount!

Happy shopping!

Pendulum

Check out what was laying in wait in the mailbox yesterday evening!

This sweet little package came from Julia of Rennes, who did a little giveaway a couple of weeks back.  Yours truly happened to be one of the lucky winners, which is how I came to possess this sweet little necklace below. 

Anyway, if you're interested in something similar, go check out her lovely Etsy shop, where she's got a range of fantastic brass necklaces. As for me, I'm still saving up for one of her little gables satchels. 

Finders Keepers

Coming soon - lots more Keeper necklaces, made with cotton thread from my various dyeing experiments.

The Big Five-Oh!

Nope, I'm not 50 years old yet, but my little Etsy shop just made its 50th sale late last week, and has now gone on to it's 51st sale! Yay! I guess some shops make that many sales in a week, or even a day, but I'm still tremendously excited about it. It's a pretty strange and awesome feeling to think that these items produced in a little room in South London (and Sydney's Inner West) have made their way around the world. Go, internets! Thank you, thank you to all of you who have bought something, you're fantastic, and obviously gifted with great taste!

There are also a couple of new items in the shop right now - this little Peter Pan collared dress, and a necklace with the most amazing blue glass beads.

The Susie dress

Blue Skies necklace

Simply click on the captions under each picture to get to the listings. 

Urban Village Fete

I've been busy over the last fortnight making up heaps of items that will go on sale at the Urban Village Fete this Saturday. It's happening in Peckham (see flyer above for details) and will start from 2pm onwards.

This is going to be the first time I'm doing a stall this year, so I'm pretty excited about it! So excited, in fact, that I've got a huge box filled with stuff ready to go!

I've made up heart buntings, lots of cute little notecards and greeting cards (blank on the inside so you can fill in your own messages), quite a few tardigrade brooches, and I'm spending today making up lots of brooches using scrap yarn and some of my vintage buttons.

If you're in the area this Saturday, do stop by and say 'hi'.

And The Winner Is...

Ana!

Congratulations, your tardigrade brooch will be on it's way to you soon.

Thanks for all the entries for the tardigrade brooch giveaway. If you haven't won this time, don't cry, just keep an eye out for other giveaways I'll be holding in the future!

Tardigrades

Stephen Jay Gould's book of collected essays Dinosaur In A Haystack has been my requisite toilet reading for the last couple of months - which has led to me spending waaaayyyy longer than necessary on the porcelain throne.

This book is also the reason for my current tardigrade obsession. His essay Of Tongue Worms, Velvet Worms and Water Bears features a drawing of a tardigrade (or water bear) shedding it's egg-laden outer cuticle, and is also responisible for sparking my interest in these tiny eight-legged creatures.

So I decided I had to make one.

And one became two.

And two became three! (Very good to know I still retain my elementary grasp of maths.)

They're hanging out on my keyboard now, waiting for me to make more friends to join them. Oh, and if you're wondering why these ones have only 4 legs - it's supposed to be a side-on view, hence the other 4 are hidden.

Once I'm done with the felt ones, I'm off to make a couple of tardigrade softies. Complete with all eight legs.

I'm not too sure what to do with all these little felt tardis, but I might stick a safety pin behind and turn them into brooches so I can attempt to start a tardigrade trend. After all, they've only been waiting for their turn in the spotlight since the Cambrian period.