Great news! Another sale!

The Remnants Warehouse in Alexandria and it's old site in Marrickville are having another sale.

Yippee!

I love these guys, they're so nice and friendly! I've got some great fabric from them "over the years"* and will be going there the week after the sale opens! Yippee!

Here's some of the things I made last year! Loads of dresses!

I've made a tutu for tonight's work Christmas Party, so will hopefully show you some cutie photos soon!




* I've only lived in Syds for 2 and a half years!

Sailor Moon - Outfit Number 39

Sailor Moon, originally uploaded by Veronica Darling.

Here's a lovely winter's day dress... only now the sun came out!

I made it from an 80s pattern I got recently at the big Salvo's in Tempe, and as the weather of the weekend here in Sydney was quite gloomy, all I made was darker clothes!

I'm testing this blog post out from flickr to see if I like it.

Yay!

Outfit 38 - A Slinky Stash Number

So last night I went through my vintage patterns, and found about 10 that I've never tried before. I juggle between choosing patterns and then choosing material from my stash.... to picking up material and throwing it around and then choosing which pattern would match that material. What a dilemma. Too many patterns and too much material.

But I think it is a skill to match the best material with a pattern, cause you can have some weird garments if you get it wrong (I'm thinking outfit 36/100 for me - but it still kinda works).

Here's a 60s maternity dress, with some silky (but stretchy) stash material:

That's the front above, and the back below:

I did most of it with the overlocker, and changed the neckline a bit. The pattern asked for neck facing, which would mean a rounded neckline, but I invented the ribbon neckline (3 inches wide, and over a metre and a half long) and so you can see it ties with a super big floppy bow at the back.

As the material is incredibly drape-y I thought a gathered maternity dress would suit, especially cut off short to show off great pins. It's really flowy and I might wear it to my friends 'wedding' party next month (they got married in India earlier this year and returning to Australia for a big party) with slingback peep toe heels. The colours are blacky blue on grey, so a bright red handbag and lipstick would look great!

The material I got at an opshop in Gippsland, and as it has a stretch in it, I did away with the zipper the pattern asked for! So the dress would be approx $3 in materials. Love it!

Number 37, the Awards Night Dress

I know you may have been screaming at me silently "Where's the dress you wore to the ARIAS???"... (and quite possibly not as well)! Finally here's the gorgeous taffeta early 60s dress, it has the occasional dart, and as I was in a hurry I didn't do any facing bits for the arms and neck, and that made the material pucker slightly. But do you think anyone at the ARIAs noticed that?

For you overseas types the ARIAS are a music industry awards night, and kinda commercial, but a bit rock n roll, hency the short skirt on this dress. As it was a 60s pattern, it should have been twice as long, but as I'm so short, I wanted to show off my pins.

I wore it again the other night with a big daggy bow attached the front, it's massive. And I think it's quite a sweet cocktail dress! Oh, and it's totally a pattern from my bestie, her auntie had a clean out and came from her stash! My bestie of course being Friday's Child over at etsy.

Today was supposed to be dreary here in Syds, but I've worken up with sunshine all over the place. I'm going to potter a bit around the house, but last night I picked out about 10 un-used vintage patterns from my stash that I would love to try out over the weekend. And if I have enough zippers I'll do the lot!

I'm really focussing on second hand stuff these days... I did use new materials for the ARIA dress above and a few others recently, so I'm aiming for decreasing the stash (either for my store or for myself) so I can do a massive op shop when my husbie and I go roadtripping on the holidays!

xoxo

36 outta 100

I made this dress a while ago, but forgot to post, so it's therefore number 36 out of my 100 outfit goal. It's material I got very cheaply in Marrickville, and it's pretty daggy, but I've worn it out a few times with my cowboy boots and it looks pretty funny! Great rack, mad cans etc are usually the comments, as it's got that cutie bow bust line... great to make... but the material is just weird.

Does anyone else just start making things, knowing as you go along that it's just going to be weird, but you've started so you have to finish it. And it turns out weird. ?????

Nonetheless, the style is AWESOME and a few girls were like "I want one in red!" etc etc etc... they all want mad cans too!

xoxo

I love my baby friends!

OK I have been sewing, just not photographing and totally not blogging.

Here's a collection of stuff I've been making for my babies (friend's babies - I'm Aunty these days to many children) and I'm pretty chuffed with the cubes the most. I didn't put bells in them, cause I could just imagine how annoying that would be after a while.

Accessories Galore!

A CD pouch, each side holds three cds, and as I'm sending it overseas to my darling bestie, she'll be able to use to travelling around, but also it'll protect the cds via airmail.

Gorgeous little softie building blocks, the tutorial is below in a previous post, but they're made mostly of scraps (especially the cord and denim - old skirts and cut off jeans) or special material I've been holiding onto. The darling blue elephants are kinda flanney soft. These are for my darling besties' little bub.

And finally, another wonderful thing I can make with my overlocker! A little beanie! It ties up cute or you can flop around like a cute little bunny if you'd like too. However not sure if little 2-3 month olds know about bunnies and flopping, but I'm sure my besties' bub will look HOT in red.

Here's the CD Pocket Tutorial if you need it. I actually googled for ages to find one, so there's not many tutorials online... I suppose they're kinda straight forward to make and if I had more time I'd have drawn up my own version. I'd have like to make it a folder type book, but this one is fine!

Ok, will post some more dresses soon too!

Wardrobe Refashion - For Life!

I took the Wardrobe Refashion pledge at the start of the year, having tested it out for a few months prior. And it's AWESOME!

If you guys haven't heard of it, it's a pledge you can take in order to re-use your current wardrobe, or pretty much stop going to the shops and buying new things. OR if you're stuck, by handmade or second hand items first.

I've bought one pair of yoga pants this year, but now I've got an overlocker, I can make yoga and stretchy stuff, so I've decided that I'll be a Wardrobe Refashioner for LIFE! It's a big ask, but I'm totally not into going to the shops for my clothes. I would always pop by the op shops, but on the odd occasion call by Target or girlie shops for something every now and again, but I get crushed seeing stores like Supre have clothes made SO cheaply and so badly. They surely are using cheap labour (not a fact, I could research before I post but whatever!) and I feel a little terrible knowing a lot of it ends up in dumpsters or whatever... these stores are just SO overstocked and fashion moves pretty fast for us females. Anyways, I love doing my small little bit to stop this consumeristic nature of our western worlds, so give big kisses to Nikkishell who's been running Wardrobe Refashion singlehandly for however long!

There's a big group of people refashioning these days, and it's so good making something yourself or buying handmade... and it's not that hard to do! DIY has gone crazy since I started, and the web is full of great places to learn stuff!

My goal along with being a LIFER on WR is to actually post my stuff there! I'm hopeless! I make so much stuff that I never photograph and I've got to get some sort of system going (I'm just too lazy to get the photos of the camera most of the time!) so hopefully I'll see you over there!

xoxo

50 Book Challenge Begins!

Cause I'm not busy enough I've signed up for a 50 Book Challenge!

I was reading The Crafty Librarian's blog and she mentioned the 75 Book Challenge, and I thought I'd give myself a slightly smaller goal of 50, as I've been reading a lot recently but earlier in the year I was treading water... I'd hardly finished 1 book in the first six months! Yikes! I think 50 is a pretty good goal for one year!

I've started with 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay' by Michael Chabon as I was given it for my birthday and so far so good. I'm not much of a reviewer, so don't stress, this is still a craft blog, but I want to give myself more goals of DOING things rather than talk about them all the time. I'm SUCH a good talker these days and not much of a Do-er type.

This morning at work I felt a tickle on my arm, and thought it was my long locks on my bare skin, but I looked down and it was a SPIDER that I yelled at, "Spider!" and then brushed away, but all day since I keep thinking there's more on me! My hair really is tickling my neck now, but I keep thinking more spiders have come!

Isn't funny, the first think I did when I saw it was to say "spider" and then flick it off... what a dork! "Spider!"

Old outfit worn today during travels

Still on the road!

Woke up in Adelaide this morning, and donned an older item of Veronica Darling's (gosh she's good) it's an aqua jiffy dress, with bell sleeves



Looked quite cute but ate a bit of rice on the plane, which fell down the front mid flight. Had to shake it all about and jump up and down to get rid at the end of flight... but cute dress nonetheless! Cotton, aqua, palm trees, Canterbury Vintage Festival last year... xoxo

Next Stop Adelaide - Outfit 35

And here I am wearing my latest Outfit 35 on the road for work.



It's a very 80s moo moo type material, and it was really hard to sew with, cause of the silk like texture, I think it's just synthetic, but could be silk blend. It was like only $6 a metre and I only used a metre and a half cause the dress is so short!

I wore it to work today, felt fine, but just saw a photo of myself earlier on facebook and I looked way fat! It must have been a bad photographer!

xoxo

On the road!

Hi there!

I'm traveling around a bit for work, so thought I'd post my outfits as most of them are handmade by Veronica Darling... yep ... by me.



This is a tropical lovely jiffy dress (according to the pattern) I made for my hen's night party... it was great with heels! Today I wore it with my cowboy boots and a side pony.

I was REALLY hungover so it was very comfy and slouchy. It's not smocking around the waist, there's four pieces of elastic in casing (which is on the inside) so works in the same way, but heaps easier. Although I've not tried smocking before!

Cheers!