Getting ready for the Pledge

I'm pretty sure I'm in the June 6 month batch of the greatest idea ever invented - I mailed Nikki Shell about the Wardrobe Refashion and here am I getting ready for it!

I'm pretty sure most of you peeps know what it is (crafty friends), but I'm imagining here that everyone is reading about my adventures (young, old, etc) and I'm very inclusive in my job and do a lot of 'resetting' (another re word - and one of my faves in everyday life). SO!!! The Wardrobe Refashion Pledge is taken by people committed to NOT buying new clothes, and refashioning old clothes & making new clothes.

Now, I'm pretty into this already. I haven't bought anything 'swanky' for ages and I hate paying over $50 for clothes when I feel I can give it a go myself for much cheaper. And then there's the recycling part of it. I have been going to oppies since I was 12 and into bargains (I rather like the Americans and their 'thrift' stores as opposed to Op Shops - but you can never not say OPPY can you?), AND now making stuff for almost 5 years - I calculated it from a very EARLY blog! 2001 was the year I got bored, and perhaps by the end of that I got handy with the sewing machine.

But, I've never been that good until recently! Here is another top I made on the weekend! The material is from an Op Shop in Gippsland - most likely Bairnsdale. And is a pattern - I'll add it later! It was pretty easy!






Can you tell which pic is the myspace angle?

Night!

Obi Won Fabric?

These all can be obi won belt sashes!

xoxox

You Forgot To Iron Your Shirt

I wore this to work today, and most people didn't realise it was a made shirt - even when I pointed out the oddly coloured stitching on the button holes and the drunken like staggering stitching around the hem!

From afar it looks normal to people and that's fine by me! I think I look a little matronly and buxom - and the cute front necktie (detachable) puffs it out even more! BUT, I like it nonetheless and with a big black belt and a pencil skirt I reckon it's sassy librarian chic.





Not bad straight on - and check the big hair guys, that's the Brigitte look on me!




Not sure what made the fabric poke out the side there - but that's not an extra boob



Now I'm just watching my crime shows (see from above couch pic). I have cable, yes because I'm a media junkie, and because my husband loves music video clips. AND, I love forensic investigation (my second career will happen one day) and on Mondays they have Lisa McCune present a really long Aussie version - see her 'on location':



Wow, she's so serious, especially with that 'serious' straight hair.

I have stacks more green crinkly material, so can make a blouse for you - size 8-10 maybe even a nice tightly fitted 12 I reckon. BUT, can't promise you nice stitching! Gotta try the nasty overlocker!

xoxo

Great recycling

Another post about my re words and I found this chicka - she's got some great twist with recycled things and lovely found fashion pics!

Today I sewed half of my green top - the front and back bits of the shirt have great darts that aren't really darts - the pattern calls them tucks and they look alright so far - I've done the collar and it doesn't look tooooooo dorky! My big thing used to be dorky unbalanced collars, but I seem to have sorted that out in recent creations! See my husband's green floral shirt from a previous post - I can do them ok!

My biggest worry with this shirt is the machine, the cotton is kind of stretch knit only slightly, and the machine tension is all over the shop - I've tried heaps of combinations on the machine and can't get the stitch balanced, but whatevs - it works and it's on the inside anyways! I wanna wear this shirt tomorrow, but don't think I'll get the sleeves done in time for work tomorrow!

I chatted to this lovely designer in a convo on etsy about making dresses and agreed with her that if you make a whole bunch of stuff you get bored with the same thing. I've got my belts and my clips online, and wanna try dresses or tunics with some of my vintage fabric, so may set out to do a new bunch when things settle down. It's always so busy!

I heart the 're' words

Hi again,

I'm finding a lot of new friends in the online crafty community and thanks to Bec who commented the other day - great site and based in Sydney too!

Here are all the words starting with 're' that I love so far:

recycle
refashioned
recreated
renovated
reimagined
reused
restyled

What are other great ones that sum up the great eco-friendly world of fashion? I'm sure there's more!

I have set up the sewing centre after the easiest move in the world (different apartment, same apartment block) and have cut out the pieces for a light shirt. Green cotton stuff that I got on sale the other day, only $1.50 a metre down from $9 a metre. I'll be using recycled buttons and will post once it's done! Hopefully tomorrow morning and I'm itching to wear something new!

Twin Peaks Girl

I've just been esty browsing (again) and found Art and Ghosts and her blog!

She was recently tagged (as I was too by Anna Laura but I don't have enough blogger friends yet) and listed all these things about herself! So many of them sounded like me! Geeky! She lives in Manchester and creates photo montages. Very childish bedroom memory-like and hence the Twin Peaks feel, she even noted that one pic is very Laura Palmer. She even lists Jan Svankmajer's 'Alice' as one of her fave films, and I keep remembering his work from time to time - I might have to see if they are on dvd yet.

There are a plethora of things I loved that have missed the internet retro-cyle. Things like Monkey Magic (and sound grabs) were online once it all began, but things like Sean's Show (Sean Hughes) has never even had an online ether presence. It'll have to live on in my head...

Melting Vinyl & Refashioning

Hey!

The husband will kill me if found me googling for this, but I've found a site that helps you melt vinyl and it got me thinking about melting plastics in general! We do have an awfully lot of vinyl in our house that isn't played, but what about records at the op shop? the many many dean martin ones... or the scratched ones? I wonder what could be made from them?

Also I found a new blogger in WA (well new to me!) who is part of the Wardrobe Refashion and I'm really really really interested in doing the same! Since I don't really shop for new things anyways, it'll be kinda easy, but imagine about saving doshola! The husband won't kill me over that one!

Still haven't got the sewing machine up and running, bloody big boxes in front of my table! I'm home alone tomorrow night, so will get into it for sure!

xoxo

I'm so happy

I have sold things on my online stores! My Etsy store is going along slowly slowly with a few things out the door already, and My Mintd has had a sale too! Thanks to my lovely friend Alicia who started off that store.

BUT, with moving house my internerd has been down, and today we just remembered that we could use dial up! And it's soooooo slow! What a net snob I am these days! I haven't been able to update my blog and do anything in my sewing corner (there's still a few boxes left over from the move).

Anyways! The hairdresser was great - Sue is a babe! And I got 2 wolf whistles after leaving the hair salon so I totally scream bombshell Brigitte Bardot lookalike. Hopefully that's what wolfwhistles mean these days, and no I did not check out who made the whistles as that is something you never do. (ala Lakes Entrance 1996)

See you round! Hopefully after my sewing stuff is set up ready to go.

Moving Day

We've been moving apartments today!

I'm having a quick break and then off to get pastries for us! But it's going ok, we're actually only moving apartments in the same apartment block! It's just a lot of back and forth and I think some neighbours are annoyed with my wheeling stuff around as it makes a lot of noise on the outside tiles!

You should see my sewing table, I won't be setting it up for a while that's for sure! Boxes galore!

One crafty point - One hair point

Okay! I'm going to the hairdressers today and have included these photos as inspiration!


















I'll talk to Sue and Eliza about my fringe (non existant today) as I feel like I want big hair but with a fringe! I look EXACTLY like Brigitte btw.

On the crafty point today:

I have started a beanie cap thing for my huzbie and have been using a combination of the following pages to keep up with it all:

My Crochet Stuff - the actual pattern and cool chrochet person - crochet is so hard I have problems spelling it even! I might put a permanent link from my blog on this one!

How to do tricky things - this page has some weird sketches on how to do front post and back post, as the pattern above says you need to do it, but I have no idea what it means and will just keep on doing hdc (half double crochet) stitches all the way round this circle:



Another Crafty Me Page - This is also really helpful, on this site is where I learned to do the perfect circle thing that starts off the crochet - cute!

Ok, better get to work!

Super Keen Craftstar

I've been reading heaps of etsy profiles and stores, a favourite new addiction! And I found how great Whimsy Girl is at recycling! Reusing old objects has always been one of my fascinations, and most of my creations have come about from my collection of materials and vintage things!

Anyways, I've been reading Whimsy Girl's Blog and she is so 'go get em!' with her crafty adventures, hats & berets off to her!

Here are some of her rings:




How great! I think she's super keen by grabbing a soldering iron, or working out how those forks can curl up, and bottle tops!... How great to reuse those simple things! (watch out for random Husband rant) Why do boys drink so much beer!???

I've added some of my obi wan sashes to mintd, but as a normal seller I can only have 3 products up there. Not sure if I'm professional enough to become a regular seller!

Night!