dress in the works

lemon cream

the inspiration for this dress came from the work of my supremely talented friend and partner in crime, bronwen vaghan-evans (see www.kraftworks.wordpress.com).  for our monthly market, she started to make brooches, pendants and earrings from well known sweeties and biscuits.  she has a knack for turning every day things into something cool and wonderful.
my favourite biscuit is the lemon cream.  traditionally this would have been a lemon cream sandwiched between two plain sugar biscuits.  these days i think it’s just a lemony sugary mixture between two rather ordinary biscuits, but it still tastes great.
this dress is cut along traditional bustier lines, with a flared 50s skirt.  the hint of lemon is as subtle as the taste in the biscuit, including a lemon yellow zip at the back.  the biscuit is provided by the luxurious feel of biscuit-coloured satin.  the dress is lined to waist level.  pair it with your favourite pink shoes, and take it out dancing.

the piping detail is only along the two front panel seams, and the back center seam.  i’m still debating as to whether i should pipe along the top, and i’m tending towards yes.  i have a little time to mull it over.

New Skirts

I’ve been making these skirts in preparation for our debut at I Heart Market (info available on facebook).  I cribbed the idea from a skirt i saw at the Victoria & Albert museum in London.  This museum continues to astound me, every time I go.

The idea behind the skirt is to fake a slimmer line, or a shape that conforms more to the female form, by including a front panel that starts where the front darts normally would, and follows the female form.  It’s a trick of the eye, but the skirts are remarkably slimming.  From the side, you only see to the end of the denim, and from the front, you only see to the outside of the front panel.  This works particularly well when you use a slightly lighter shade material in the front panel, to the outer panels.

These skirts are made with Da Gama ShweShwe skirt panels and denim, so is 100% cotton.  They look fantastic with a pair of boots and chunky stockings in winter, and equally good with a t-shirt and sandals in summer.  I’ll be uploading them to the etsy site soon.

Cravat making

Making a cravat is very simple, and can be done in a couple of hours.  I have a pattern made up and in pdf format, so if you’re looking for one, drop me a line, and I’ll happily send it on.

Cravats traditionally have a silk front, with ornate detailing, and a plain backing.  You can go this route, or, as I have done, take a beautiful fabric for the front, and back it with silk; the feel of the silk on the skin is luxurious, doesn’t cause unnecessary sweating, and can provide warmth on a cold winter’s day.  As this garment is so quick and easy to make, you don’t have to resort to the hairspray trick for the silk, but you can if you just can’t face the silk without it, or a bottle of whiskey.  If you are going to do as I’ve done, and use a contrast colour for the back, choose your thread colour consciously – it must fit in with your colour idea for the garment, as you will be topstitching the garment.

You will need a front and a back – two or four pieces, depending on whether you choose to cut on the fold, or cut two pieces for each, and sew them together.  The fabric I use isn’t terribly wide, so I tend to go for the latter option.

The garment requires marking on the right side of either the front or back, as the folds are made once the garment has been turned right side out, and top stitched.  I find silk impossible to mark, so I mark the front with ordinary drawing pencils; make sure it’s a contrast colour that you will see easily.

Once your centre seams are done and pressed for the front and back pieces, pin your two pieces together, right sides facing, leaving an opening big enough to put your hand through.

Sew your edge seams together.  Once this is done, take the time to add a drop of fray hindering glue to the six corners of your garment – you will need to trim them quite close, and sometimes fabric frays through.  I tend to wait until the glue is dry, otherwise it gets all over me and the scissors, and invariably the next precious fabric I’m working with.  Then trim your edges, but leaving the opening untrimmed; trying to hem it with a trimmed edge isn’t what I’d call fun.

With regards to overlocking, I have decided against it for this garment for two reasons.

1. all seams are securely sewn to the inside
2. it may add bulk to the garment

Turn the garment right side out, making sure that your corners are pushed out as best you can.  Lay the garment out on a long, flat surface, and start pinning around the edges.  I pin regularly, as silk likes to move.

Top stitch around the entire edge of the garment.  I like to put my needle on one click to the inside of the garment, and keep the standard line on the edge of the garment.  I find this gives me a uniform width with minimal effort.

You now have a solid garment that is beginning to look like it could very well be a cravat.  Next step is to make the folds from the neck down to the vertical seam; this is why the folds and vertical seam were marked on the right side of the fabric.  Pin the folds in place up to just past the vertical seam, and then press.  The pressing is important, as this is one of only two measures taken to keep the folds in place; the second is top stitching.

Once pressed, and before you take the pins out, top stitch the centre seam and the two vertical seams.

All this top stitching obviously pulls through to the back of the garment, which will look like the picture below – this is why it’s important to choose a thread colour that fits in with your overall colour idea for the garment; I like the fact that the stitching is visible from the back, but I want it to be a complimentary colour.

Finish off the garment by sewing the threads into the folds, where no one will see them.  And voila, you have a finished garment.  Easier than pie, and lasts much longer than a good pie would too.

Enjoy!

Fixing a Red Chinese Silk Dress

Mending a Red Chinese Silk Dress Working with silk is not exactly what one would call fun. It’s akin to going to weight watchers, waiting for your weigh-in, knowing that you went out three nights last week, drank wine, ate pasta, and generally had a smashing time – there isn’t even the remotest chance that you will have lost any weight. You can’t even hope for maintaining your weight. It’s a guaranteed loss.

Enter, a damaged Chinese silk dress from a client. She is of a petite build, reaching only my shoulders in height (I’m only 1.66m). This beautiful red Chinese dress was too big for her upon purchase in Singapore, specifically around the waist area. She took it to a dress maker to fix, who charged her a lot of money to not take enough in. The dress was still too big. Her mother then attempted to fix it for her, and what I’ve received tells me that she got the fright of her life upon putting a needle into the fabric, and attempted to do as little damage as she possibly could. Her reaction is neither unfounded, nor uncommon. These are pictures of some of the damage I was to fix.

This is the sort of thing that makes you want to lunge for the whiskey bottle at ten am. I didn’t touch this dress for days. I thought long and hard about how I was going to approach this, having had the conversation with the client that this may not be fixable. I probably shouldn’t have said that out loud, because the stubborn little girl in my head said, “uh-huh? We’ll see about unfixable.” She’s not always the most helpful little girl.

I settled on a two-fold attack: fray hindering glue, and fusible interfacing, over which I would sew the seams back together. The reason for the glue is that this fabric frays faster than I do at a shoe sale, and generally with no assistance.

If I was going to work with it, requiring ironing, some tugging, and just a little sewing, it was going to need to be stable. The glue worked a charm, but what I found is that it bled into the fabric a little. Fait accompli, I’m afraid, but a lesson learnt nonetheless.

 

 

 

 

 

Ironing the interfacing on re-introduced my sewing kryptonite – always check that you’ve got the right side down, otherwise, you have to clean the iron. At this point, the stubborn little girl had gone off to look at something more interesting at the back of my head, and was pointedly absent.

 

 

 

 

From the outside, this approach worked. The seams appeared fixed, and would hold provided no weight was gained. Not even a gram. My next concern was how to make it look prettier on the inside, given that interfacing needs stabilising on both sides. This concern had to take into account that you can’t do slip stitching on this fabric. Next battle commences.

I ended up simply trimming the interfacing on the dress side, and overlocking the two seams together, was the least messy of the options.

 

 

It’s worked, and everything looks very neat.

 

 

 

 

 

What I’ve taken away from this is the necessity of seam binding in the form of ribbon. The same client has asked for a similar dress to be made out of blue Chinese silk; I’ll make the pattern so that the dress fits her body, and will bind every seam with silk ribbon, given that these seams won’t be lined, and will be visible when the dress is inside out.

cravats

whoda thunk it, but the cravat has come back into fashion.   i think they were in fashion when my dad was a young man, and as i’m 32, this was possibly quite a long time ago.  before that, there was the scarlet pimpernel, and i’m sure adam ant wore one once.  no fear, the fluff and dandy look is not welcome in my studio.

i first started searching for a pattern when the dad of the first paragraph requested one for his 75th birthday.

i’ve taken distinctly african fabrics, from traditional shweshwe, to dutch wax prints,  and lined them with silk, to create a luxurious african look and feel.

finding a pattern for cravats is something of a trial, as any search on the internet for such will tell you.  i finally found one from joanne greathead, which i’ve modified slightly based on cravats borrowed from peoples’ dads; thanks peoples.

so, this is the result.  i’ll put a tut up in the next week on how to make them, it’s dead easy, and so rewarding.  if you’re interested in buying any of these, find them me on etsy.

red lipstick that rocks the mostest

i’ve always been a fan of red lipstiffie (lipstick in afrikaans), as is evident by the red lip marks on all my friends whenever i wear it.  it happens to children too.  about a year ago, i embarked on a search for the perfect shade and make, so this required some patience; i don’t like lipstick that you have to use turpentine to remove all trace of, and if the shade is wrong, well, it’s just wrong, and with red lipstick, you’re not exactly being a wall flower.

for the shade, a local magazine, real simple, ran an article on how to choose the right shade, taking into account hair and eye colour, and skin tone.  fantastic article, made complete sense, and helped me no end.

for the make, i have always been partial to mac cosmetics for their innovation and guts with regards to colour and products.  also, i really like the fact that they’re keen on recycling.  i was helped to find mac matte russian red, which i now swear by, and attempt not to leave the house without.  check out their site for helpful hints on how to apply red lipstiffie, cos let’s face it, if you put it on in the back of a moving car, you’re not doing it, or yourself, any justice.

brave new world with jz in it

hello everyone.

i have officially left my luddite tendencies at the door, and am now immersing myself in a techno world.  thank you to all my friends who will not laugh at me when i ask stupid questions.

the purpose of this blog is to tell everyone about the beautiful clothes that i make for beautiful people.  i believe that women are human, not stick insects.  i believe that they have hips, boobs, tummies and sometimes even thighs.  i also believe that there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have sexy, kick-ass clothes as well as everyone else.  afterall, we have cleavage, and probably the best shoe collections out there.  now, we just need something to wear with them.

i’m taking my inspiration from the late 40s and 50s, christian dior’s new look.  it was all about the feminine, looking fantastic no matter what, and a great red lipstick.  granted, it was also all about tiny waists, but where would be we be without innovation?

please let me know if you have any suggestions, drop me a line, keep in touch

s