Frock 31: Yay for floral for Frocktober

Hey there,

Just updating you that finally "PHEW", I completed my month of making a dress a day for Frocktober. Darlings, you see here I did make a dress for every day of October. But I didn't really have the time to make it *within* the month of October... so here is the 31st dress!

Yay!

I'm trying the new blogger post layout thingie too, so please forgive me if I've got crazy with the image size etc, just testing! Beta darlings beta!

This dress was for the wedding on Saturday, it was ace, a beautiful darling wedding. Great friends and great foods and great wine and really ace conversation with everyone. I loved it. Totally my speed of wedding. I felt really happy to be there!

I woke up with an insy winsy hangover, from 2 other parties as you know, but was determined to wear something new! I've made this a few times before (floral green, a refashion, and another awards night dress) and it's always a bit different. As you know Sydney-siders it was quite hot on Saturday, so I knew I wanted it sleeveless. But I let Husbie choose the fabric, and I would never have picked this to work. He loves orange, so I can see why he liked it, but it was totes see through. It was perfect for the weather, but I had to line it. WHICH my darlings, wasn't that hard! Yay!

LUCKILY during my last trip to the op shop, the dreamboat shop assistant gave me all this white light material for lining as a bonus cause I bought so much other fabric. She said 'You should do lining', and I was like 'Oh Ok'... and totally didn't plan on using it. LUCKY! It's really nice light white with stripes, so feels quite nice on and I didn't get too sweaty-betty.

I put an orange button on just for my Husbie too:

It's my new technique instead of using metal closures on the top of zippies. Usually you can just get away with the zip (and most modern things don't use clasps etc) but I wanna use up all those stash buttons (in the 1000s and 1000s darlings) instead of buy more clasps. Reusing stuff is so much better, especially lost buttons.

Recently I have a few requests from friends for frocks, so I think I might start on a gallon of Christmas style fun party dresses. I love this style, so perhaps I'll tweak this and make some variations on it with some other stash fabric as it was maybe 3 hours to finish off... that's good!

Hope you all had a good weekend too, and thank you for your great comments on my fun bright party dresses from last week! Yay!

xoxo

Frock 30: My purps awards dress complete!

Check out my majorly oversized bow for my awards dress:


This is probably the best shot of the purple fabric, but later in the night (with loads of great drunkie faces) it still looked good, as the purple bits had metallic threads through it that caught the light. Very nice!

When I sat down the skirt was really mini, and the bow sort of draped over it! I was very happy with it, and how cute are my friends? You know my red dress of course, but my friend's ultramarine dress is actually by Marc Jacobs, not me! Hee hee! Great colours though!

So my party season has officially begun after this awards night. We had another farewell fun party on Friday (just wore a fun vintage frock to that one) and then yesterday we went to a wedding and luckily I wasn't that hungover from my 2 nights of parties so I made a gorgeous floral dress that I'll tell you about later today. My husbie took photos at the wedding so I'll go through those later.

We're going to the beach today with Doggie Darling and a friend, and hopefully it's a proper dog beach that I've finally found! I'm looking forward to reading the paper and lying around with loads of suncream on.

Hope your weekend is fun!

Frock 29: The Awards Dress in Red!

Hey guys!

My friends took all the photos on our awards night, so I haven't got a photo of me yet, but I crawled through some news sites and found my darling red frock that I made for my friend!


She looked SO cute! Those boys are pretty cute too!

So this was the art deco sleeved one I posted about here, And I cut it short, and skillfully hemmed it with a blind stitch on my machine. I did consider using bias tape, like you darlings suggested, but ran outta time. I was still making my gigantic bow as we were leaving the house and I stuck the final safety pins in whilst sitting in the taxi on the way there!

LOL!

It was so much fun though! So I guess with this other red dress and my purps dress I've made 31 frocks for October finally... will post them soon... it's funny that Frocktober really went for two months for me! It's such a busy time of year to do a dress a day, it worked back in June or July when I did the garment a day cause it was a little bit quieter in my life... but October and November are the busiest months as we plan for the end of year for work, and socially it's crazy because of the warmer weather here.

We're going to a friend's wedding today, and I invested all my energy in making the awards dresses that I haven't planned anything to wear... Oh dear, will have to check the stash today and make a quickie dress. It's a garden wedding, so doesn't have to be too posh, but I'd like to wear something new!

xoxo

Dress 27: Pastels!

Hey darlings. I've been a bit busy AGAIN but ticking off a few things here and there. TICK!

Mostly my day job happenings... big TICK as the year winds up. There's only 3 major weeks left and then I won't know what's hit me.

Today proved that I can be productive with white wine. VERY productive! Why did I stop drinking in October then? I should have kept at it, been a fatty boom bah and screamed through my Frocks for the Frocktober Challenge.

Anyways, happy to report this frocko turned out quite well!


Sorry for the inside shots, but it's late and husbie is out at a work function. But it seriously does look really pretty on, and it's the weirdest mix of pastel 80s colours, that just works!


I've tried to make each dress (3 from 1 remember?) just a little different, and this one has no sleeves or frill and I've tied it at the front, kinda greek style:


But I'm rather proud of my construction (although these pictures highlight the snags and rumpled bits I'm afraid) because I taught myself about lining.

Friends, I'll be honest. I cut corners. I only have stash fabric, and rarely go to the 'real' shops for material and haberdash. Even the other day in the op shop, the shopkeeper was insisting I take whites and light cottons that she'd got and I was like 'why?' and she was LINING DARLING, LINING. Even if you just line the bust bit or whatever.

So it's with strange delight I announce that for the first and proper time, I've made up some lining, that's not only the bust bit, but the ENTIRE FREAKING DRESS. And it was only because this fabric was slightly sheer.


So I'm heaps proud, of course, but I can't even begin to explain how I did it. I think I worked it out halfway through construction that the fabric was a bit see through. Then I decided that I'd make it for myself, so used a white fabric from some holiday trip. I think it was supposed to be a sari. But it was really light and flowy like the dress material. Then I put together the whole thing, but didn't sew any side seams or armhole bits. And then I roughly measured out the bodice bit (it has gathers/darts/tucks you see) and then attached the lining to the neckline first, ironed it all flat then used bias tape for the armholes and overlocked the whole sideseams from lining through to dress fabric.

Voila:


I also attached just a bit to the zipper, like 5 inches or so. Sorry about my explanation, I'm just a terror at these things, and my terminology is through the roof.

Yayz, I'd never thought I'd like pastel colours, but I like this!

Frock 26: Summer's here!

So, I always love a challenge right guys? J-Mac is making 1 pattern but 5 different ways, using different material and I guess doing different things to them... so I've got 3 bits of fabric and 1 pattern (my old trusty fave) and I'm getting into finishing up my Frocktober Challenge and starting a new challenge at the same time! Thanks darling J-Mac for the idea. WOW (am I retardo or what?)

So the three pieces of material are all stash fabric, you've seen the pink flowers before and maybe the green stuff in a totally bad dress I tried a while back... but that grey 80s shizzle is a new (but vintage) find from the oppie a few weeks back. The 80s shizzle will be for me if my hair goes with it!

And number 1 finitos:


It's been a gloomy day here in my town, and this darling colour surely has brightened it up for me!

It's for Kat, a darling reader of this blog, and a very patient one too. I promised I'd make her this a few months back, but it's just in time for summer I guess!


I get excited about making clothes, but I've got to stop wanting to try new things out, and in the end it's Kat, who misses out because I have a short attention span with my garments.

DUR! It's the old 'grass is greener' in my brain, where I think it'll be fun to try new things and sometimes end up stuffing them up, and I should just try new fabrics and use some of my trusty patterns.

Anyways, with this one I tried for bias binding instead of the pesky facing, and it's so neat and easy. I was a little worried because of the square-ness of the neckline, but it turned out fantastic! Tres proud of myself!

Finishing off for Franca...

I wanted to add a grey stripe to the edge of a charcoal dress I made a few weeks back, but started to get anxious about how I'd topstitch it... considering I'd already made it up, and usually you add a ribbon or a lace during your construction (well, I don't add this, cause I've never tried it before, but I'm imagining that one would do this if one were to do this more frequently that me)

LOL

Anyways, I kept putting it off in case I'd stuff it up, but this morning I topstitched it with no problems at all:



CUTE! It's for Franca at Oranges and Apples! Hope she likes it!

Frock 25: Hot Ribs*

Oh hai, just busy old me again.

I was waiting for Husbie to get home from work before the Purple Partay tonight, and finished the last of the small run of tshirt dresses:


I was using this grey/cloud blue ribbed knit as the pattern (ie I cut the fabric using the tissue stuff (making my own alterations of shortening the bodice, cutting my own sleeves and scooping the neckline on both bodice pieces compared to the original Built By Wendy dress pattern) and then use this cut fabric as the pattern pieces for the rest of the other tshirt dresses I've made recently.

I find this way is easier and quicker, but as I've made my own fit adjustments and cut it the way I like, it's more my own design. And tissue can get a bit annoying.

But whilst this dress turned out okay:


Can you see what happens to rib material?

Puckering as well!


Have you every sewn with ribbed material before? I've never tried it, and so just went along as normal. It was at the neckline where I went 'Hang On!'.

At least the hemline looks normal (no hem, just the overlocker):



Anyways, still cute:




Oohh gotta go!



* I was thinking of a really LOL-tastic title for this post with a pun on ribs, as in the meat dish. I don't eat meat, can you tell from how lame my title has turned out?

Frocko Twenty Four: Purps!

Frocktober is still going in my sewing room, and here's Number 24, another simple tshirt dress but in thrifted sweater material:


It's the kinda gym material that you'd imagine they'd be dancing around in during the film Fame (original darlings) and all I need is some off shoulder floppiness with this one BUT of course I do things normal and straightforward on the old machine. I like to follow my own rules and as I've said before these dresses take only half an hour to make (once you've cut them out) so I don't really improvise at all.

(Unlike my daring and rockin' out dancing I'd be doing now if I was in Fame of course.)

I've got a midweek party on tonight, and the partyperson loves purple, so this one should be great.

Don't know about you, but for me it's that time of year where I'm anticipating, planning and focusing on good results for the next few weeks that I'm finding it hard to be in the 'now'. My work is gearing up for a big 'hurrah' which climaxes on Dec 4th (day before Husbie's birthday) so it's 4 and a half weeks of busy city times ahead. What really helps is having sewing as a hobby, but having Doggie Darling too. She's so good to be 'in the moment' with, where we can play a quick game (she's totes into fetch and tuggy now, so that's good!) and just focus on the 'now'.

ANNNNNNNNYYYYYYWAYS, hope you're having a good Wednesday and not planning your life away too quickly. xoxo

Dress Twenty Three: Candy Yellow

Another tshirt dress!

I told you I had a few ready to go!



It's a total stash fabric, and only a little bit leftover from a dress I made ages ago, but enough for this darling Frock!

The colours are cute! It was a light airy dress that I cut really short for some reason and I think I sold it on etsy... (I just had a retro look at my blog for this photo/post)... Yay here it is:


I think it was back when I did the 100 Outfit Challenge and it was one of the first 20 outfits I sewed up. I can't believe how much better I am at construction and everything now. I know fabrics a lot better too, thanks to the overlocker and trying out new things!

YAY!

Dress Twenty Two: T Shirt Dress Again!

One of the busy bee things I've been doing is cleaning. If you know me (like Husbie) you'd be laughing to know this is one of the 'things' I've been doing recently, as I never ever ever ever clean. I am a bit of a messy moo.

But in the Great Clean Up of 2009, I seem to have tidied up so much I've misplaced the camera thingie that connects the plug thingie etc and thus, poor old completed Dress 22 for Frocktober is a bit of a dark photo:


My new MacBook has a camera (you know this right, I've taken WAY too many of these Photo Booth pics already!) so luckily saved the day.

I hope to find that plug adapter thing soon!

Onward to the sewing rampage of T Shirt Dresses. They are so easy to cut and so easy to make up, so I've got 3 extras cut out (mauve, grey and yellow in colour) and more on the way.

Yay! Gosh it's hot today in Syds, my darling pup had no idea what to do, and doesn't know where the cool spots are in the house yet. She tried the couch and the bed, and I've been trying to get her to flop on the cool concrete to no avail.

xoxo

Dress Twenty One: Toddler Tunic

The sunshine made me so motivated on Saturday, and after we'd walked the dog and had a great time on Sunday morning, it all turned dark and now I feel like hanging in hoodies and watching tv as if I've got the flu. So I didn't sew at all yesterday. We watched Heroes Series 3 and I started knitting some more street pole covers.

Nevertheless, I finished this darling little bubby tunic today for my Frocktober challenge (and I've only just noticed it's the last week of October this week! Eep!) and will try and get some exciting frocks going for the few days!




I tried out a little vintage toddler pattern for this one, but omitting the side ties as I thought it had enough frou frou going on with the pattern of the leftover bedsheet material, and check out how lovely these vintage buttons are:


And my Doggie Darling has to see what's going on too (I just stopped her trying to chew on the dress, gosh she's naughty!


You have to watch her 24/7 at the moment. She chomped down on my blackberry, which still works fine but the screen has cracked. And this morning Husbie couldn't save Madame Bovary, my friend lent me the book, and it was totally demolished by Doggie Darling after he left her alone for 2 minutes. She loves the classics, she's already eaten George Orwell and some of our Oscar Wilde oldies.

Hopefully she'll be grown out of the puppy stage soon. But, gosh she's so cute!

Dress Twenty: Refash to the Florida MAX

I'm powering through my darling Frocktober challenge today (well totally catching up as well as today's the 24th and I've now made 20 frocks. Close enough!)

Here's a refash! A moo moo, this one was $3 from an actual vintage store I think:


It had some bits that were ratty and torn:


Now, as I did this pink one earlier, I kept all my threads the same on my machines and cut this one up at the same time and I reckon this one is more closer to my darling 12 year old Lush dress:


I'll be wearing this a LOT at Christmas time in Brisbane. Doesn't it scream FLORIDA DARLING? Thank you to my darling Husbie for the glam shot. I love his photos the best! Curses we're so busy as otherwise I'll have more glam model shots all through my darling blog.

I'm pretty pleased with today's efforts, thanks for all your gush and lovely comments on my challenge! I'll be making some more dresses tomorrow, but for now it's leftover tom kha (turned into a curry thanks to this recipe, you can google anything these days. Love it, it's a 'what to do with leftovers' blog) and Heroes Vol 3. We can't decide if it's turning too convulted or not, so we have to keep watching to find out if it all goes to the dogs (narrative style, or if it's the new LOST).

Bye darlings!

Dress Nineteen: Baby Darling

Using up fabric scraps is very good in my books. Recently I've seen a lot of scraps being made into great things over at the Wardrobe Refashion blog, but I'm in mixed minds about keeping scraps and what to make from them... I have some tiny scraps, big scraps and then scraps that you *could* make something from... LIKE A BABY DRESS:


After making the shift frock the other day, I found that I had enough material for this little dress and a little pinafore. This style reminds me of our old art smocks and you could probably make them just the same with more protective fabric! I'll have to keep that in mind when my darling baby friends get a bit older.


It's very easy to make, raglan-esque sleeves and bias tape casings on the inside for the elastic on the neck and on the sleeve ends. Tres cute.

Now I'll have to wait for my darling baby girlfriends to grow up and be born and then grow up so I can give them presents! Husbie thinks I should do baby clothes all the time, and sell them, under the name 'Baby Darling' instead of Veronica Darling... I think he's planning another set of labels for me!

It's a stunning day outside, not to hot, but dazzling sun. We're going to head to a waterside place for lunch and dog fun soon. Yay!

Dress Eighteen: Accidently Pink

You know when you think you're a very careful fabric washer, and when you think you're becoming the WORLD's best seamstress/fashion designer, and then it all goes horribly wrong? Here's a happy feel good story that was once disaster. Oh the Horror!

So firstly I got this really weird, stretchy material from the op shop one day. It was kinda granny but kinda retro, so could be kinda good somehow. It was WHITE with pink and blue random 'bits' on it.

I also got some burgandy tights from another op shop on another day, and was very pleased with myself because they were brand new in the packet straight from 1981 (or thereabouts, the packet was OLD, but the stockings were new).

And then I assisted my Husbie one day in doing the washing, and lo and behold we'd put both these said op shop finds in together ACCIDENTLY...

And thus the white material with bits of weird colour had miraculously turned a total GRANNY SHADE of PINK. Disaster. Or was it?

See the results of this frock in tres Granny Chic:


So it didn't turn out too bad! There's surely more terrible disasters in the wash to be had, but let me tell you how GRUMPY I was yesterday after a sewing catastrophe!


So whilst I'm actually really proud now of my fashion designing/mad skillz at sewing etc, yesterday it had all gone to the dogs. I have a gorgeous dress from Lush (on Brunswick Street in Melbs) that I've had for 12 years. THAT'S 12 YEARS. I actually had another one in black, but it started to come apart a while back, so I've just got this sweetie little blue-ish floral dress that has a lovely tie at the front etc but it's prolly going to get a bit threadbare eventually, so I really wanted to make up some dresses in that style. I followed a few patterns from the pattern stash to get the right shape, and then started on the edging (the ties and the neckline bits) and it just started going YUK!

So cause it's stretchy I overlocked the hell outta all the edges. Then I was going to turn it under and top stitch, but I tried normal top stitch and it went all bubbly and wonky and then I tried ol' zig zag (I'd read that it was ol' reliable on stretch materials) and that looked SHITHOUSE and my machine just couldn't cope. . . . MAYBE I had the wrong sized needle in (thinking about it now) or maybe I was going to fast on the machine. But after it looking so bad, I gave up and became a Masterchef at tea time (see below) instead... but today I was in a much better mood and....

Voila:


It's come together really lovely thanks to the ever so thin cowl neckline or OLD FASHION BIAS BINDING. SAVED THE DAY. So instead of looking like Holly Hobbie in a terribly bad mood, this dress is almost tres chic, even if the pink still looks a bit granny! (Can you tell I don't wear pink that much?)

And here's how I became Masterchef for dinner last night, by following this recipe and making the BEST Tom Kha I've ever tried:


I've been obsessed with Tom Kha (vegetarian not the chickie version) for a while now, it's the coconut, galagal, lime flavoured soup that's perhaps found in Thai places and it a taste sensation. It has sweet, creamy, sour and salty all together and I can't believe I can make it myself JUST AS GOOD AS THE SHOPS!

What a rollercoaster of emotions, disasters, fails and wins in the past 24 hours. Phew Phew Phew, glad it's over and glad I'm back to being fantastic again!

Dress Seventeen: Just a quickie!

Hey ho! Off to "work" I go... I've just gotta post this one (I hemmed it just now) so I can get back into the darling cool sewing room and start another frock!


Thanks to my darling friend Amy (who has a darling etsy store - did you know?), I own this pattern and when I was trawling through my 'quickie frock' patterns this week rediscovered it and was surprised that I haven't made it before*. AND even better, no zips and no buttons. How can it be possible? It's not even cut on the freaking bias?**


Well, here it is:



The only tricky thing is that cause I made it from a bedsheet (or as how you darling experienced blogger/seamstresses say 'muslin'???) the worn bit of the bed sheet couldn't be avoided (not that I tried hard to avoid it whilst cutting):



See you later!






* WHAT? A pattern that I, Veronica Darling owns, and has NOT used yet... WHAT HOW: please don't tell Husbie I have loads and loads and loads of patterns that I haven't used yet. PLEASE!

** I have NO idea how I even know this is a good thing for dresses to be cut on the bias

Dress Sixteen: Denim Va Va Voom

Hi Frocktober Friends... as you know I'm making a dress for every day in October, and because a month just doens't mean a normal month anymore, I'm calling it Frocktober and instead of *wearing* a dress every day, I'm sewing the hell outta my stash fabric.

Also, the REAL Frocktober is for Ovarian Cancer Research, so if you're doing the real Frocktober and you follow my blog, I'll sponsor you. AND if I sell a dress I'll donate some dosh from that sale to the OCR Foundation too. I was doing a tally somewhere, but might wait until the end of October to add it all up and then donate all at once. Cause I'm too busy sewing darlings!

So dress sixteen is made from a denim fabric, thrifted (care of my Mother in Law) and has some groovy patterns going on:


(Sorry, just realised I took the only front on shot in the shade)


The back has a simple (thrifted) zip and once again, it's made from thrifted threads AND handmade bias binding. It seemed to work better on the thicker material, so perhaps that's a tip for us all?!


I do think the bias instead of facing is a better and quicker option.... BUT look another Lesson Learnt:


Don't let your stash material get near the sun! There's a faint faded line in the above photo, and it's from the freaking fold when it was on my shelf. I've heard of this happening before, and folding and refolding your stash fabric helps, but I guess thicker curtains and no direct sunlight is also best.

Anyways, I made this one as a prototype for my zexxy friend as I was going to make a black one for her if it fits... Discount for you if you like it, the faded fabric will probably all match up eventually.

Right?

Yay! So I AM a bit behind on the old Frocktober, but I've just started another one now. Thanks for all your kind messages as well, you guys are darlings and I love your thoughts on the dresses so far! The most common comment is 'I don't know how you find the time' when I talk about it with friends, and I have no idea either. You just can't mess around on the internet or go out much. I'm saving my pennies and not drinking at the moment either, so that helps.

See ya!

Dress Fifteen: Aloha Frocktober!

Yay, how summer is this darling frock?

It's totally vintage material (ie could be 2 years old, could be 30 years old - but feels a bit modern with a stretch) from an op shop somewhere. The zipper and threads (to match) are all freaking vintage or second hand or hand me downs...

And, deep breath, the bias binding (instead of facing) is freaking HANDMADE (a la J at One for you, One for Me...) and sits perfectly (on the outside, rather shithouse on the inside) here:


So it's rather va va voom, and ladies, it's a size 12, medium size bust. I'm going to shop it round my friends, but speak up if you want it listed, cause it's a little bit wiggle and would be perfect for a summer BBQ!

CUTE:


Now, to moan a little, whilst the bias binding was FREAKING EASY to make, the sewing in wasn't as shithot! I read through J's instructions, and then googled a bit myself (how to make it and then how to sew it in) and felt ahead of myself.

But then I did the sewing it in part, and it looked puckered, puffy and rather raised... as in it makes the sleeve bits look flared slightly. (I have told you before that describing sewing has never been my strong point, I can't get a hold of the terms and lingo for things)... but it didn't sit flat once I followed all the instructions. I did iron it, but either my tension was shit or my sewing was too quick... NOT SURE. But I have ironed it like crazy once it's all completed and it doesn't look bad or anything, but now I prefer the facing/lining of this va va voom dress as it sits flatter and profesh looking. Do you know what's going on here (and can perhaps explain it a bit better than I?)???

I'm going to trivia night now. I know a lot of random stuff, but often it's not the right kinda random stuff.

Dress Fourteen: Candy Stripes

Another springtime knit stretch dress, and the last of my series for Frocktober:


See how the colours are kinda pre-faded on some of the stripes too:


It's a recent op shop purchase, this fabric, and I've only got a smidge of it left, so I'm planning a few baby tshirts for friends.


It came up well (if a little creased - I'm scared to iron it in case the colours run) and now there's time to start another dress!

I have no idea what to make now, as I do have a couple of extra orders in for Frocktober too, maybe a colour floral pink dress for Kat? I do have my lighter tones in the overlocker dearhearts, so shall have to stick to it! I don't really wear bright colours, and totally not white (I'm too grubby) so I'll have to update the shop with these last few dresses.

See ya!