Outfit Number Three

3/100 is this gorgeously light and summery Built By Wendy/Me top! It's made from vintage fair 2007 material (approx 4 metres for $10, and the first outfit cut can be found here.) and contrasted with quilters fabric white cotton.

Here it is!!!:::




Important deets from me to remember: It's size 10, Built by Wendy Simplicity 3964, and instead of doing the facing on the yoke and centre insert, I felt the white cotton was thick enough for summer with just one layer. Yay!

So 3 outta 100 outfits done! Doesn't seem like much hey? But I'm extremely positive I'll get them done, perhaps by the end of summer, but I'm planning a big sew off this week (on hols at last!) so we'll see!

xoxo

Outfit Number Two

Here's my top from Built by Wendy/You:




It's size 12, made from leftover dress floral material, and secondhand black lawn cotton. This is exactly from the pattern, as it was my first cut (I'm making another one, size 10 now, and altering it a bit, will post later)... so I'm pretty happy with it. Especially how there's no notions at all, makes for a pretty cheap top.

V. excited as it's my last day before Christmas Hols today - Yippee! Next year I'm starting at 5.30am instead of 10am, so yesterday at work I did a practice run of the work hours and it was just SO good! I worked really hard when no one was there, then mucked a little but left at 1pm! Then we looked at 2 houses, Mr Veronica got his haircut and I went to some fabric stores with 25% off! ANDDD I went to a personal trainer class! Then I started another top for my friend. CRAZY!

I'll give this red top to my friend who's expecting, she moves state soon to have her baby, and will prob get a few wears out of it with the bump, but it's a nice light easy going top to wear when racing around town with a new bub! YAY!

Starting Outfit Number TWO

Hey again!

I'm making the built by wendy/you pattern I featured in a previous post with some light cotton fabrics, the first a great black and red floral material and then just a simple black cotton stuff for the contrasting fabric, so the floral will be the bottom part and the black the cutey sleeves and the v shaped front! Exciting stuff!

So pretty much this is 'undercontruction':



I got a few orders after I wore my blue dress (also featured below) to work, and I told my friend about the top/dress pattern, so am making a test outfit for her (she loved the blue material - so if the test outfit fits, I'll make one up for her in the blue stuff!). I'm soldiering on quite well in my 100 outfit quest, so am quite pleased, as it's not even holidays yet and am still fitting the sewing time in!

WOO! Outfit Number 1

OK PALS!

I'm pretty excited! I started this dress this morning, got caught up in the moment and was a bit late to work! But after work got some energy from a fabbo dinner care of Women's Weekly online recipes and FINISHED it off! What do you think???




It's a vintage Simplicity Pattern, purchased from an op shop and is number 8832 'jiffy dress'. I added sleeves from a misplaced pattern (aren't op shops just great, buy a pattern and find other ladies handwritten instructions and heaps of lost pattern pieces!) and viola! A jiffy dress with cutie pockets and lovely bell sleeves. The material is cotton and I got it for $10 from the Vintage Fair in Canterbury I mentioned the other day. There's enough material left over for a top.

The only thing I forgot to do was sew the darts on the shoulder back piece, but it still sits ok. AND... I just had a look closer at the material patterning and the trees are a little bit more detailed on the inside - but before I cut it, I folded it properly from those little holes on the edging (someone please explain this better) which indicates the wrong and right side of the material... but the print is so bold on both sides so it doesn't really matter!

Wow, and phew. So I've completed outfit number 1 in my 100 outfit goals!

100 Dresses cont.

I just sorted out my pattern pieces and got some ideas to start my 100 outfits. After a think today I prob could do 100 outfits as I can make some tops and some jacket/vests as well as dresses, so there's a pretty good range of mix and match!

The first style was easy as I got this Built By Wendy/You pattern quite cheap last week in Melbs:



I'm yet to sew it, but it looks so easy to do! I saw a few girls at style mob wearing Built by Wendy clothes, so I googled, found the online shop and saw that she makes patterns, but it wasn't until I was looking through Simplicity Patterns the other day when I saw them to buy here in Australia!

So, step one in my "Veronica Darling 100 Outfits" marathon is done! I have roughly 15 patterns that are very straightforward to make (ie hardly any zippers, inexpensive to put together AND simple for a big run AND alterable to make my own style). Most patterns I fix up or twiddle with, so the finished product will all be Veronica Darling flaired in a way. AND, as most of my material stash is vintage, all pieces will be a 'one of a kind'.

Awesome!

The Way We Wear

Hey pals,

My pals Dan and Bec drove me out to the Vintage Fair in Canterbury Racecourse recently and we picked up a few things, but a stall holder told us about The Way We Wear Fairs that are on and that they are perfect for a bargain! Whilst the vintage fair was good, it was very antique-like and my thrifty-ness gets a hold of me and I just cannot buy things that are too pricey. But apparently the WWW Fairs are just great! I emailed them and will find out when they're on in Sydders for 2008 - but there's other cities involved too - so check them out if you're interstate!

Then my pal Dan saw these darling clothes online - Mooka Kinney - a gorgeous collection from the States:



What great fabrics and designs! She said they reminded her of some of the clothes I've been making recently, and thought 'Wow! That's so cool!' as they are just great and very good tailoringlike!

I've been thinking about setting myself a goal of 100 dresses this summer, and I need a massive kick to get into sewing full on and as I've got some holidays coming up (only 1 and 1/2 weeks of work left!), I thought I need some sort of great gigantic number to start sewing. I have heaps of material ready to go, I have heaps of patterns and styles and I have this blog to motivate me - so why the hell not!??? And then what I don't sell around town I can post to etsy, and perhaps peeps will like them there!

In the past few months I've made 2 dresses for Splendour, 1 red dress, 1 shirt for husbie, 2 flippy dresses (shiny black one and my winter sailer suit), a daggy black shirt and and and... (thinking hard) 1 dress I haven't finished (vintage pattern turned into a size 12 when I thought it was an 8) ANDDDDD tailored a few trousers and what not for friends. I've refashioned a bikini top too for a pal!

So a big goal of 100 dresses for summer should be ok! Plus I'd like to make a whole bunch as the girls from work seem interested in what I do and then I could have a market before Christmas for them to check out!

Yeah Yeah Yeah, all talk! We'll see!

Cutie little character material

Just been clicking around for a while, and how fracking cute is this piece of material and the rest of the shop!??????



So cute!!! The shop's called Nuno Plus and just so cute I can't believe it!

Not being a quilter AT ALL, I'm confused with lingo. Fat Quarters yardage blah blah blah, luckily this Nuno Plus site lists the cms as well for us Aussies. Lingo reminds me that I am not a skilled seamstress AT ALLLLLL and should get some training some time. My bestie did promise me some birthday money to go to either a new machine or a session of classes, but I've never taken him up on it! Perhaps next year!

House Hunting!

As most our weekends are taken up with looking for houses at the moment, check out my arty-ness while hanging out for the digs to open up!




But mostly I wanted to show this great jacket I saw through Wardrobe Refashion:



It's Gloriana at A Mingled Yarn and love her jacket! She's been watching Project Runway! The 4th Season has just started in the US, so hopefully it'll be on cable soon!

So fingers crossed I get an email for the Wardrobe Refashion, I rarely buy new things, but I REALLY wanna be part of a gang and get blogging like everyone else! Sign ups are on at the moment, but I've missed out a few times, not sure why, but I'm sure Nikki Shell is very busy managing the site as it's grown so much even in six months!

xoxo

Red Frock!

I got around to finishing this red dress:



It's just ordinary red cotton material, but it's from a pattern that is an old vogue 50s style, but 'revisited' as new - just bought from Spotty. It's just so lovely and light for summer, but my bust is just too crazy for it! It's got lovely darts here and there, but I couldn't work out how to alter it for my bust, so I took it to work and a lovely girl bought it from me for $20! She looked great in it and got heaps of compliments, so I'm happy it's being worn! She wore it with a gorgeous belt and boots! Nice one! I'll have to get my thinking cap on to make another one that's more my size!

OMG TAGGED THREE TIMES!

I have been SO busy! Mostly work, but we've started looking to buy a house, and it's taking up all my nerdy internerdy time! CRAZY!

So, I was tagged yonks ago by Anna Laura and more recently by Summer Pickles and even cutie Pink Milk.

My prob will be finding the new peeps to tag... hmmmm

First the rules:

A. Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves.

B. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed.

C. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog....so off we go!!!

FACTS SLASH HABITS

1. As it was Summer Pickles who recently tagged me and she just got a DOG, I'll tell you that my favourite dogs are Staffordshire Bull Terriers, the beautiful black ones. We had one called Ziggy and she was my favourite pet of all time. I believe that when I meet other Staffies on the street, they know that I was friends with Ziggy and they are always really nice to me because of her.




2. I wrote my Honours thesis on David Lynch and hypertext theory. It was very 2001, and very bad, however I still got a pretty cool mark. For at least 2 years after I finished it, I had anxiety pangs because of how hard it was to write linearly as I found out through university that I am completely non linear and totally bad at academic work. TWO years of thesis anxiety after I finished it! A while after I met a young man who was writing his thesis on penguins on Phillip Island and I realised 'who cares' about my dumb thesis. But I still love David Lynch completely.



3. I love karaoke and most things Japanese actually, but karaoke above all. In 1994 I went to Japan on the regular school trip and sang karaoke for the first time in a room with friends and it was so weird but AMAZING! My main 'hit song' is 'I Will Survive' by Gloria Gaynor - it is a total party winner surprisingly. But last time I sang 'If I Could Turn Back Time' by Cher and everyone said that was the new showstopper. Hmmm? I also love sushi and cherry blossoms and most stuff japanesey!



4. I'm really good at life drawing I reckon! I really like form and curves, so women were my fave to draw. I never have time for classes, and am too boring to draw in my own time, but I'd like to imagine myself drawing and sketching clothes in the future to help my sewing. Hence my love of Project Runway.



5. A running joke with my friends is Anastasia Salamastrakis, she was our fave tv journalist when we were growing up, as she was only on regional news and had the coolest name we'd ever heard. You can read a sad tale that the ABC reported on in 2005, because I couldn't find a picture of her! Anyways, the story goes: One friend's dad would test you on how her name was spelt, and we'd just say her name a lot at high school, but when I travelled overseas I would tell people my name was Anastasia Salamastrakis so they'd leave me alone (hey I was a young blonde Aussie who got hassled a LOT!) and perhaps she's my inspiration in working in radio. Or maybe not!

6. I love Morrissey, and love his hair and his eyebrows. And of course I love mostly all of his songs (with the Smiths as well) even the daggy ones like Girlfriend in a Coma.



I have loads of facts and stories about Morrissey and I, but more recently I met the man who photographed Viva Hate (below) and I gushed! Better than meeting Morrissey himself as it was this first album I'd bought of Morrissey's and I sang it over and over and over to myself when I was little - perhaps I was 14?



7. Almost finished! Are you bored yet? I've never been to New York City but have watched mostly all of Woody Allen's back catalogue so I just know it's MY KINDA TOWN! We're going to move there soon enough!



8. I used to be addicted to The Sims, but had to take it off the computer as my own life was going down the BORING drain! My fave characters were Minka and Scotia and they got married and adopted a baby. Once or twice I was bad and they pee-ed their pants, but I never killed any of my Sims. My brothers's Sim characters died of starvation - the horror! I also used to talk like the sims to my flat mates - when you leave the house you say "su su!" NERDY!



AND YOUR TAGGED:

The Playground of Mischief
Honi Design - sorry babes - I know you've been tagged before
Lady Aimz Design

You guys are all my friends!!!

Shirt for my man

hey gang,

I've had a week off - and totally relaxed! Then I worked at the Splendour in the Grass Music Festival, saw some great bands and then back at work this week - It's TOO BUSY! There's just so much going on!

Nevertheless, here is my 'man' shirt:



I cuffed the sleeves after the photo was taken... but the cool thing is that I was VERY tight with fabric, as it was fabric my friend Sam picked out for a nice summer dress (she's holidaying in EUROPE as I type) and this man shirt was the leftovers! I'm pretty pleased with it, the collar has settled down since and I just am so proud of the pocket... it's the best I have EVER done... so simple but so easy to stuff up and get wonky...

Mr Veronica Darling wore it to Splendour on the Sunday and looked HOT with a vest over it when it got colder later on! And it got VERY VERY VERY COLD!

I made 2 dresses for myself but didn't get good pics of them! I was too busy working and taking photos of everyone else!

xoxo