Making: How to Add Larger Kimono Sleeves to the Bettine Dress

Today I thought I’d show you how I exaggerated the Bettine Dress sleeve and bodice to put a summery twist on this Tilly & the Buttons Pattern! You might remember this dress I made for wearing to the ever gorgeous & lovely October wedding… it was a cool light (maybe pretend) linen fabric and super soft for the warm sunny weather back in Australia. When I posted the sleeves on Instagram, Abigail asked to see the pattern pieces, so here we go with my behind the scenes photo series!

I loved sewing my first Tilly & the Buttons Bettine Dress over summer, it was very light in some rayon cotton fabric and comfortable on those hot days here in Shanghai. (I miss them so, it’s freezing right now!) And after picking up this very light linen (for the above dress) at the local fabric market, I just wanted something that wouldn’t be a full on kaftan but kinda like a kaftan. These gigantic purple & red flowers are just the best, and I didn’t want to cut them up!

So, onto some 'How To' DIY ideas... please let me know if you need more information anywhere... typing this at the hair salon, so don't have the pattern pieces in front of me! Here's the two pieces loosely placed over each other... the bottom piece is the new kimono-sleeved piece and you can see where I just wiggled the 'around about here' length, but I think I made it a little longer just in case.

Firstly, I got my existing front bodice piece of the Bettine Dress pattern (I traced all my pieces for this one)… and traced the shoulder, the existing neckline and the centre fold. In my mind, I wanted to sleeves to be around my elbow, and so I then continued that shoulder seam line out further and on the same angle… you can see all the measurements and shapes in the photos…

I should point out that my Bettine Dress bodice has a little shape as I graded up at the bust... so you can see the original side seam in pencil, but my changes is my actual cut out curve of the underarm...

My ruler is in centimetres btw! So you can see the exaggerated sleeve, the dropped underarm curve that's closer to the waistseam (which in the original Bettine is then elasticised so isn't the true waistseam)... and it was the underarm curve that made it a bit trickier… but it came up ok for me. So the ’T’ shape is more a thick horizontal rectangle… Mushroom shape instead of a T shape? More mushroom and less stem?

I added waist ties into the side seams a few inches lower than the original waistseam too... meaning that when I tied the ties around my middle it came up a more and created the floatier loose overhang (what can we call that?) upper gathers/paper bag scrunched look... (please don't send me to fashion school, terminology is not my strong point! HA!)

So I just made sure in my changes that the back and front pieces match up at the shoulder seams, but considering that the only difference between the front and back pieces in the Bettine dress is the neckline (it's a loose fitting top) it wasn't that tricky. But play around (with cheap drapey fabric) and see what you get!

I tested out tying the ties wrapped around my front first or my back first... it looks way smoother on my bottom/waist tying across the front first. I would tie the ties, and then pull little pieces of the dress out around the waist to see how it hangs best.

Anyways, let me know if you try it, and yay for a little exaggeration on a straightforward pattern!

Made in China: Shanghai Bloggers App

Moving to Shanghai last year has been quite inspiring for me, but also incredibly challenging. Learning a new language, leaving our friends and family and putting my radio career on hold for a bit; these and many other things are all contributing to the ups and downs of our new life in China. There are over 24 million people living in Shanghai, with around 150 000 foreigners (I think around this many in 2011… so maybe more now) and without speaking or reading Hanyu/Mandarin, you can float around in a little English speaking bubble by yourself.

But earlier this year, I started hunting down other bloggers in Shanghai, and came across Line Fricke’s blog Shanghai Habits. I then got in touch after seeing her Instagram post about a Shanghai Blogging Group… and last week, we all joined together to help Line and her project partner Nando Fonseca launch their new project, the Shanghai Bloggers App. My blog, along with many other wonderful local bloggers, are all featured on the app, and there will be many more blogs and features added soon. Personally I have never really joined any blogger meet ups or hang outs in the sewing community or the overall blogging community… in Australia, I didn’t find the extra social time I guess… but here in Shanghai, I feel so happy to be connected to such a great bunch of bloggers in this vibrant city!

Photo Credit: Blank Shanghai and you can see Nando and Line on the far right!

Because I’m really keen to showcase some different & interesting ‘Made in China’ ideas and projects (rather than stereotypes from what we know of that term in the western world), I asked Line and Nando some questions about their app, the blogging society and being in Shanghai… and you’ll see my fascination growing (as it has done since I got to Shanghai) with creative people’s passions and what makes them creative. So it's a different blog post for you this week!

Line, from Denmark, came to Shanghai in 2012 having never been to Asia before and up until a short time ago she worked with corporate events. Nando is from Colombia, and for the last five years has run his own credit company, and he ventured to Shanghai in 2013. Together, they first came up with the idea for the Shanghai Bloggers App after talking over how difficult it was for bloggers to reach readers, and as Nando points out, he saw two main problems, “It was very difficult to find the bloggers in Shanghai, even when I was spending a quite amount of time searching. The second problem was the amount of time it took to read them.” So he began thinking about an easy way to flick through and read blogs on his phone (mobile works best here!), like a reader or Bloglovin’ but just for Shanghai blogs!

Photo Credit: Blank Shanghai


Photo Credit: Blank Shanghai

The app is completely a DIY project for Nando! That’s also one of the reasons it’s a ‘Made in China’ feature this week on my blog! Not only did he learn to code over a period of 6 months, he built the app himself, and discovered it’s not that difficult. WHAT! It’s just like all the wonderful online sewing resources, but for code! He found tutorials and helpful information out there online, which saved a load of money and time. DIY for the win here! They’re both now committed to the Shanghai Bloggers project, and hope to see it become a must-have app on all phones here in Shanghai!

"​I want to see Shanghai Bloggers become a window for the readers to see the city,” says Nando, and for the app to be "the first source of news and information for curious expats that want to explore the city or just want to have fun reading all this amazing stories from our bloggers.” Definitely the personal stories and the variety of blogs that are involved can offer newcomers and travellers a lot more than a tour guide or map-type app. Personally, I went though a lot of apps when I got here, and never really settled on one I liked… many local apps in English are not updated regularly, so you don’t know if businesses are current and things change a lot here in Shanghai, and quickly!

Photo Credit: Blank Shanghai and it's Melissa from The Pursuit of Snackiness

Of the expat community here in town, Line believes sharing information and telling stories is easy! “Everyone loves to share and kind of ‘show’ they are a Shanghai expert in some field. In general the expat community is very kind,” she says. Nando notes, "I have been amazed since I arrived in Shanghai, how the expat community is willing to help each other and share information etc. and how curious we all are about information of the city. With the right tools, and the right people, sharing information in Shanghai can become an easy task.”

Moving to Shanghai has been a whirlwind of information gathering, and there’s so much to take in. I have been swept along with the new-ness of being in the city, but also so inspired by the crazy cross culturalisms, the new and the old surroundings, and the contrast of communism and consumerism (Shanghai is the financial hub of China, but in a communist country). But also, there’s such strong creative vibes here… like any big city, there’s street art, beautiful independent art galleries peppered through downtown and the Former French Concession and massive international art spaces (the Shanghai Biennial was here over wintertime) and I’m sure so much more I haven’t had space or time to discover.

So I asked Line and Nando about creativity, and whether they feel like creative people… Line says "Yes I do. I find it in taking it easy and taking time to appreciate life around us and small moments everyday. My challenge is to express my creativity and ideas - whether its verbal or in design.” and Nando adds, "I consider myself a creative person, but my surroundings helps me a lot. Living in a city full of people with great ideas and new things going on everyday is definitely a source of inspiration."

I think we can feel creative by taking the time to appreciate our lives and what’s around us. No matter where we are in the world, but it certainly helps being in Shanghai for us to get motivated and see how different our lives are here than back in our home countries… or it is for me.

Photo by Blank Shanghai

And here’s a couple of questions that I hope to ask everyone that I talk to about the topic 'Made in China'...

What's something Made in China that you're amazed by? That you love?

LINE: I am absolutely fascinated and a bit obsessed with Traditional Chinese Medicine. Currently studying it every weekend and hope to start blogging and sharing about it to get more western people hooked. It's all about balance, holistic health and long term sustainable solutions in regards to our health - not short-term quick fixes.

NANDO: ​Authentic things made in China, like food!

What can you do or find in Shanghai that you can't do or find anywhere else?

​LINE: Such a mix of ​West vs. East, Old vs. New and Charming vs. disgusting.

NANDO: People full of new ideas and a great expat community. And REAL Hotpot!

Yes, the food in Shanghai is absolutely incredible and I haven’t even eaten hotpot yet!

with Kimberley Tai - from Gre3n

So, today, I want to send a big congratulations and thank you to Line and Nando, for creating their new app and including little old Veronica Darling (now sewing in Shanghai!) and I look forward to connecting with more bloggers and Shanghai locals now! Happy reading and writing to all. *gush*

If you know of anyone visiting Shanghai or moving here, please send them to Shanghai Bloggers for details on the app, and you can find blogs for everyone! There are foodies, photographers, cartoonists, artists, scientists, stylists, fashion lovers and many more… people from all around the world all writing about their passions and life in Shanghai.

Notes: All the photos by Blank Shanghai are by Eric and Gloria, and the photos on my camera with me in them are taken by Combustion SH

I'm part of the Shanghai Bloggers App, but am under no obligation to post about it! I want to share with you things from my life in Shanghai though, but don't fret (if you do fret!) because we all know this is a sewing blog, not a blogging blog!

Meeting other bloggers is fun, why didn't I do this more often earlier!?!

A Massive Mustard Larf

Yay! I actually used the overlocker for this! Yes, it may be incredibly simple, and yes, it really was a long piece of material and I just overlocked the ends together. But by George! It's SOMETHING and I made it! YAY!

I realise now that this wash on the photos has made the colour less mustardy on this scarf/loop = larf, but it gives you the idea. (On the larf - here's the discussion/post we came up with the name!)

I made it quickly for the Laneway Festival, just in case the weather changed, and it was good coverage for the breastfeeding situation I often find myself in.

It wasn't as cold though, so I only put it on for the ride home, but I've worn it a few more times this week, and I betcha I'll wear it once autumn comes along. We're getting SO many summery days this year, it's amazing. Hope you're enjoying your weekend! x

Sew Weekly: Pretending it's summer!

Hello, and thank you so much for all your darling happy comments on my post last week! I just read them all now, and it makes me so happy! Yippee! Here are my final photos from Magnetic Island in Queensland (Husbie and I went for rock walk!) which we took after my brother's wedding. Thank you all for the well wishes, and it was a very nice affair indeed.

This week I've been in Sydney for work, so hence my lack of posting! It was really fun as I got to work with a bunch of my darling Sydney based colleagues and see some great bands and eat some awesome food and smash some yummy champagne. I had a panic on Monday that I'd left my crochet at home, and I'd get a crafty craving (honestly, I sometimes do get a niggle when I'm away from the sewing room, CRAFTY NERD ALERT) but it was just far too busy all week to even sit still.

This dress is for Sew Weekly's Summer Dress theme, as it's now Summer in the Northern Hemisphere and all you loves who live there must be happy for some warmer days! It's officially winter here in Australia of course, but I thought since we were in Queensland I could make a versatile dress summer AND winter. I've worn it a few times with tights and a cardigan but I'll be able to wait til our summertime for it to become a comfy beach dress.

At the moment, I'm writing this at the Sydney Airport, and I'm planning on some more posts and different ideas for my blog! All great things (I hope), but more on that soon! Of course, I have some funny photos for you as well (in case you missed my post on Sew Weekly, the little creature is a rock wallaby!):

Chat soon!

Weird Shapes but a sweet pinnie

Hello again! No, it's my Husbie's scooter! I don't ride that kinda bikes! Only pushies!

Back in January I made this dress for the Sew Weekly challenge, the Unrequited Love Theme, and at the same time, I followed the bodice pattern and cut out this blue fabric my Mum had given me. The skirt part it basically a large rectangle sewn together, and once I realised I'd made the bodice a little bigger, it didn't need a zip!

As the material is light cotton (I think Mum got it overseas in maybe Vietnam?) I'd made it thinking I'd be able to wear it in the really hot days of the Melbs summer, but then they frankly went away. It's been so cold (although yesterday got hot again) and I've worn tights too many times!

At least I can wear my Melissa Troupe's in summertime! AND, I'm using up more of the blue stash!

Hope you're having a great week! I'll post my Sew Weekly Theme (Seeing Red - for Val Day) tomorrow! We got some GREAT night time photos, so they're pretty cool!

xoxo

Yayz the mail came all the way from Scotland

How great is getting parcels in the post?

Franca at Oranges & Apples had a giveaway recently of varying prizes, and I won a runner up one, and she sent me a darling pattern to make!

I love the collar options, and I'm totally into straight skirts since my weekend's floral efforts!

Thank you darling for your parcel!

Today is a really wet dreary and cold day. You'd never have known it was boiling hot and 40 degrees on the weekend. So for the first day of summer it's pretty weird! We had fun at work today because it was the Opposition Party's turn to fuck things up, and they changed over leadership. LOLS a hoy for sure as we all watched tv together and joked. I have only a few days of work left for the year now, and I keep forgetting to get my leave form in, but I know it'll be approved. Next week I'm planning on sewing up a marathon, cause all I feel like doing now is making stuff from my stash. I've also been blog hopping and found a few interesting things like a neverending scarf to try (I'm a quarter of a way through), a cool sewing chick Zoe who wrote this blog piece for this sewing pattern place called Collette, and some of the patterns look pretty good! But darling design blog has THE best header over at Lipstick on Your Teeth. There are just too many good things on the internet!

But go and read Zoe's blog post on Makeshift ... it's really good! I hadn't heard of the Makeshift project yet, and as it's what I aspire to do 100 percent of the time (make and wear ALL my clothes even undies etc) but it sounds really cool, a mix of sustainable and a mix of new and reused. Zoe has a ponder of used fabrics etc, and buying new. I think about this a lot, because I like to make clothes for my friends to buy from me (they won't take freebies anymore, they all insist to pay me) and sometimes they ask for a navy cotton dress, and I only have a few scraps of navy left over from my op shop finds, and I know I can't really guarentee there will be navy cotton at the op shop on my next visit.... I tend to go to the Remnants Warehouse and buy new. But they are remnants of new things. So you can't buy a whole lotta fabric for big runs of a garment.

BUT, I really want to just make things from other things. Fabric from op shops mostly and found things. Then I think too much that I'm making these things new, and then on that consumer level that people have in their brains these things are new and then they get old and tiresome and then my things end up as landfill. Even though I rescued them from landfill in the first place (maybe).

I don't know! I do know that I like reusing as much as possible and I like seeing other blogs doing this too. Yay.

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.

Thinking of you!

A bit of a little post from my unpowered home to say I'm thinking of Gippslanders, Victorians and everyone with smokey eyes and who are short of breath.

My parents are packed, ready to go, but last I heard things are ok for them. But not so ok for others who have lost family members to the fires that took a hold of Victoria over the weekend.

Having worked several fire seasons in Victoria, I feel very far away at the moment. Very helpless and hoping the best for everyone involved. I'm typing from my home with ANOTHER power outage in our suburb, the reason still unknown... it's 8pm now, and we haven't had power since 12noon. I am terribly annoyed without power, but I cannot begin to imagine what it feels like to have lost your home in a bushfire.

Thinking of you. Hoping you're safe and your family is safe.

xoxo

Happy 2009!

Bring on 2009! Hope the year ahead is fantastic for you! I'm always positive about the future, and it's weird but the change of the year isn't a big one for me, and I think I've said before I don't do resolutions and the like. I like to be active all year round with positive things for me and my friends/family etc. Nevertheless, I do like how we've changed a few things in our house (it's still so NEW to us, it's been 6 months of nonstop busy work, and finally a break to be *in* the house to check it out properly) so here's an update!

So! We were a bit hungover yesterday and went to Dulwich Hill for shopping! I'd been there before by myself, but I wanted to show Husbie the second-hand furniture store and the opshops. You may know the big store on the bend along New Canterbury Road, if you're a Sydneysider!

Anyways, we had so much fun! We shopped, got bargains, ate a salad at one of the Turkish places and got some furniture for the house! A coffee table and a desk! Husbie wanted to set up his computer and camera equipment (and finally unpack the printer) and he's set up a really neat little 'office' in the kitchen/lounge room! And it's been so much easier to get the photos onto the computer and actually blog! I hope I keep this up! 3 blog entries in 3 days. YIKES! I don't know about you, but even though digital is really great etc etc, I find the whole editing of photos etc really boring, and just wished I could press ONE button to get the photos onto the computer, cropped, resized and uploaded to the internerd. Nevertheless, this desk in the kitchen is GREAT, as I hung out my new fabrics (from the Dulwich Hill Op Shops, where the fabric I liked the most was the cheapest!) and took some courtyard piccies and am here blogging in no time.





Can't wait to make some stuff with these fabrics on the new machine! Cause the weather's so good the washing dried in no time!

New Year's Day for us has been very dreamy as it's very hot outside! We went to Clovelly for a swim earlier today (Husbie has fair skin, so we can't get burnt) and made a big salad for lunch. But I wanted to show you a bit of our backyard:





The flowers of Chateau Veronica Darling... grass things (that are ok, but a nice burgandy flower/seed thing) and the frangipani from next door. I call it OUR frangipani though, because we're the ones sweeping the flowers up every day! I love it though.