Best of 2009 - Top Ten (part TWO)

Hi again!

I'm just pausing from cooking my stuffed mushrooms for tonight's festivities to write you a little note, and reflect on this past year's creations from my darling sewing room.

Thanks for your beautiful comments from yesterday's post! You guys are the best! And so, here's the rest of the best!

Five - Cutie to bootie sheet dress

I got the pattern from an op shop in Wagga (where my brother used to live, he's just relocated to Townsville!) and just knew it'd be the cutest ever! I made this one from a bedsheet (and you probably can remember my hilarious photo shoot) and cut it really short (have to wear shorts underneath in summer ladies!) and I just wore it the other day over the holidays, so it still washes up great.

It's also a variation of this darling charcoal dress for Franca, and this bursting pink one for Kat and these couple of dresses (one of which my darling friend Kizza took as well - the yellow one) so it's a really dreamy style of dress!

Four - 24/7 Challenge - that's right!

I made something every day in July, a nice wintery challenge to get my sewing mad skillz on board, and it really worked! I'd thoroughly recommend it! Have a look at what I made through the month:

And click through the archive of July to see more, but seriously, a challenge like this is totally unreal if you're kinda good/kinda rusty at sewing. Sewing something everyday DOES require a bit of forward planning (hence all those easy skirts!) but is really is so rewarding to see all the work you do over the month. I'll totally do this again, and winter time is the time to do it (as my Frocktober Challenge in October got a little out of hand, and it took an extra month to finish off all those dresses!). DO IT!

Three - The Famous T Shirt Dress

I made SO many dresses in this style, after totally mastering the knitted dream, the OVERLOCKER. I feel so happy to finally 'get' this kinda sewing, and I tell you now, it's totally not as tricky as you think! Now that I overlock, I can't believe I avoided it for so long (my friend told me I'd think this too!) because the extra things you can make are endless, and these tshirt dresses prove it! Yay!

I'm kinda rushing because the mushrooms are done, the lippy is on and I'm looking kinda 70s at the moment, without the big hoop earrings though (don't have them pierced!) so I'll have to post the last few 'Best Of' creations later tonight! (Yes, we're daggy and watching the kids fireworks!)

Talk soon, Veronica Darling

Best of 2009 - Top Ten (part one)

Hey darlings, hope you and your families had a lovely Christmas! We just got back from Queensland yesterday with a stopover in Port Mac, so happy to be home. Husbie and I saw Avatar today, so we're a little bit googly from the 3D-ness of it all, but it was really great and I'm happy it wasn't shithouse after all the hype.

YAYZ. So!

I've seen a few 'best of' lists around the webz at the moment, so thought I'd put together my top ten creations of 2009, all made by Veronica Darling of course! I'm just going through my archives now to find you my personal faves of 2009!

Ten - The Man Shirt

Husbie wearing the Man Shirt in brown leaves sheet fabric. I made 2 more of these after this one, and still would like to make some more for him and the boys in the office. As I've got Veronica Darling for girls, Baby Darling, or Veronica Baby for babies, we think Veronica Bastard for the boys, it's gotta be a tough name for them (according to the boys at work) and Veronica Bastard takes it out!

Nine - Tablecloth Wiggle Dress

I made this wiggle dress for a fashion parade about refashioning for the Wardrobe Refashionista Nikki Shell and I'm so proud of the matching up of the floral bits at the front. One thing I've fully learnt this year was that front pieces are often cut on the fold of the fabric, and if one lines up these pieces correctly, then the pattern of the fabric is pretty much going to work out the same. This dress had no darts (vertical) at the front, only some side gathers on the skirt piece and side (horizontal) bust darts, so it luckily turned out great. I really love when you 'get' patterns and 'get' fabric. LOVE IT

Eight - For the Wagga Races

This dress is 'Danielle' from Burda Style, it's a free dowloadable pattern, and I made it for my soon-to-be Sister in Law (she gets sentence case because she's newly engaged to my brother) to wear to the races in Wagga. It was a little big around the middle, and I think she wore a belt anyways. I'm REALLY proud of the neckline, because I posted it to burdastyle and ralarkins left this feel good comment:

"Very nice, indeed! I am impressed that you seem to know how to properly press a garment during construction. No pun intended :) The inside corner at the neck lies smooth and flat with no puckers or odd bumps. Nice job on the clip/grading with the scissors and iron. Wish every garment I see would have that detail. Sigh."

I love feedback so detailed! I did really try hard to make the neckline beautiful, and now I felt like I got an A + for my homework!

Seven - for my BFF

I wanted something ultra feminine in style for this light but kinda manly wood type material, so the princess-ness of this dress was just a perfect balance. There's a lovely close up of the fabric on this post back in May, and my darling BFF bought this one from my etsy store so I'll get to see it around again!

Six - for a Garden Party

And my favourite dress for me!

I wore this to my friends' darling wedding in March, and just loved it! It's the same style as the tablecloth one above but more tailored for me, and it's stretchy cotton that my motherinlaw found for me at the op shop (of course!). It's really tight, but sucks you in at the same time!

Well, I'll post the Top Five tomorrow, so you won't have too many photos to look through, and I'm off for more unpacking and tidying up the place. I have SO many zippers from the op shops of Queensland so I might have to get a few happy snaps of them too!

See you!

Santa's Bits and Pieces

Bad fairy godmother.

Here's my crocheted Santa for my godson, in bits and pieces.

I really tried to get him finish in time for the post, but alas, he's still in pieces. Poor Santa. I don't think this means anything, as I'm sure my fairy godson's been a very good boy this year (he's only 1!) but perhaps I'm a bad fairy godmother! I just can't stitch him up fast enough. I have to look at him and ponder where the next bit will go, and his face took about an our to do (and that was only to put the eyes on!).

Anyways, I hope your projects are pulling together a little easier than mine and that your holidays are relaxing and full of champagne (like mine!).

The best thing about where we are for holidays, the OP SHOPS. Husbie and I visited 7 yesterday. Yep. SEVEN. I have handfuls of zippers, patterns, fabric galore... all for the stash. And we got heaps of other funny things, I'm sure I'll get photos over the next few days.

We're heading to my Aunty's tonight for tea, and a swim in the pool and... all the dogs are going to get a spa treatment as my Aunty has a hydrospa for her dogs. Luxury on hols for our poochers. LOL!

xoxo

Ho Ho Ho from Doggie Darling

Oh dear.

Have I got cabin fever? (I am in a holiday house with my parents, my brother and his fiancee and THREE dogs - please don't tell anyone!)

YES

Have I gone cuckoo for Christmas.

HARDLY BUT A LITTLE BIT

I followed these gorgeously simple instructions, and shortened it just a bit and only did one row of white fluffy stuff (because I couldn't see the actual crochet stitches things with all that fluff). BUT my darling mother, who reads my blog here a little bit too religiously than I realised, helped me with the pom pom. CUTE but dead tired. All the dogs are! They are all under 2 years old, so they initially played all day on the first day... but now... they just sleep.

As I live in a different area to my parents, I don't see them face to face that often, so I save up heaps of stories that I can tell them (I love an audience AND love to pull elaborate facial expressions). But as I like to show off clothes as well (with amazing tales of adventure, as I'm sure you'll recall from this Accidently Granny Pink story) I put the pink dress on today and started to tell Mum and she was like, 'Oh I know. But didn't it turn out great'. SUGAR!

It's funny that sometimes I forget I tell you these stories! Completely daggy sewing stories of my life, but thank YOU for reading them and being a part of my year! Hee Hee!

Hope you're surviving the festive season, family holidays and everything! I'm about to open a bottle of wine and have a quiet glass before everyone arrives back home! YAY

xoxo

I HEART HEART

Not the band darling... this little heart! Check it out:

Yippee! It's very cute, but I knew I was going to run out of red halfway down (I only ever use stash wool, so thought there was *just* enough) so did a few lines of white wool before ending up on the red. I do like the Sydney Swans footy team (if I had to choose a team in the AFL) so perhaps I could go to the game one time and wave this around and cry I HEART YOU SWANNIES.

Or I could just pin it to my sleeve.

(See what I did there? I wrote you a special twee LOL moment)

This might be my last post for a while (not sure about internerd connection where we're headed for HOLZ) so thank you darling for reading my words and checking out my pics and being a darling sounding board with your feedback. For those of you who don't comment, thank you for lurking and being (I bet) so gorgeous as you sit at home or at work or down at the internerd cafe (do I sound 1990s there or what?).

I drank too much Rose and Champs yesterday to finish off sewing any frocks for my holiday (it'll be too humid in QLD to wear anything but bathers though), so I'll take my little crochet friends in their pieces to sew together on my roadtrip. Better off now, to pack my bags for the trip today... Hang on.... something is in the way of packing my suitcase:

Aw, Doggie Darling just wanted to say HELLO too! I think she growled Happy Holidays to you too when I took this picture. Pretty sure she said that!

Talk soon, Veronica Darling

Location Two...

Ok, here's location TWO, the loungeroom longways.

Dress: Cheap Store in Sydney shortened by Veronica Darling

Shoes: Melissa (but mine are red)

This location shoot is a bit better and easier for me to focus as the camera is on the kitchen table, and I think further enough back so you can see what the hell is going on. BUT I really liked having a neutral background. Is this one too busy? The dress is totally amazing, it was only $12 I think, and just amazing shape, it's very light cotton, so easy in this hot weather. I LOVE the cap sleeves and have used them in some of my other constructions recently... It's also heaps cooler in the hotter weather, as you don't have material pressed against your underarm. GUSH (can't believe I'm writing about clothes in this way. Aren't you getting a glorious insight into my gushed up/over thinking brain. LOL for you, my friend.)

Thanks a LOT to Joanie, cause she showed me this excellent blogger, The Freelancer's Fashion, who has THE amazing hair! She has HEAPS of tutorials too, so since I'm growing mine out again, expect some more gorgeous styles thanks to The Freelancer!

So today I've been doing a few home things, but am off to do some more things for The Bigger Picture (aka plans for the future) and perhaps drop by the Op Shop(s) on the way home.

I REALLY wanna finish some of my New England Style dresses/frocks (I got some excellent peach and yellow material that would totes suit, and if you're interested I did start this tumblr full of my current inspiration and thoughts - in pictures - so that's where I'm going with the colours) xoxo

See you!

Two posts a day: It MUST be holidays

OMG, am I going blog crazy cause it's holidayztime?

Maybe.

...

!!!

For a while, I've wanted to find a spot that I can take pictures of, a la Franca at Oranges and Apples, or Lillipilli at Frocks and Frou Frou and of course Meg who's the best at Mommy Style (and will be trawling through her archives when I am pregs, see what I said there, WHEN I'm pregs - I know I was pondering the other day, but that was a ponder)... I'm fair too vain and self centred for children at the minute... right back to me then.. So!

Find a spot, by this I mean, find a spot in my house that is further enough away on the big camera (which takes the better photos than the smaller camera) but is light enough for minimal amount of photoshopping, but somewhere that I can easily check if the angle is wrong, and blah blah blah, I just kept on going with my thoughts, and so today I tested out the lounge room:

Dress: Veronica Darling

Apron: Veronica Darling

So it's kinda close (I did crop it, maybe I shouldn't crop it?) but I love the wash from iphoto, it's like all the family photos of my mum and dad when they were first married... I love it!

Anyways, I want to remember what I wore and how I wore things and not just wait for WWW 'Whatcha Wearing Wednesday' and it's best if I take my own photo cause my Husbie doesn't get home in time for the good light. AND, I want to remind myself that I look good and healthy, to motivate myself to KEEP good and healthy. We all know that I LOVE champagne (Moet & Chandon on Saturday night just gone - GUSH) but I'm trying to be fit and exercise so that I don't just plump out with all those bubbles I keep drinking!

Hee hee! So it's a pretty drab first outfit, as it's holidays and homekeeping. I'm keeping a good home at the moment.... or do I mean homemaker? ERRRR.

Any self portrait tips please, send them my way so I'm not so much a fool next time! Love, Veronica Darling

The Bigger Picture

Here's my bits and pieces from this morning! I've lazed a bit on my holiday, but today realised there was stuff to do for The Bigger Picture. My Husbie and I have things on the go, for The Bigger Picture, and today it was bank stuff. Forms to sign, witnesses to call on, and now off to the post office (with some fun things too for friends!) and a play in the park with Doggie Darling.

You can totally tell what I'm making for my fairy godson right? It's so funny because I kinda thought these toys would be made all in one go, not stitched separately! Making things is always a surprise!

I also realised today, as I made a quickly Christmas Card for a friend, that I'm not really organised for Christmas. And perhaps I should make up some cards for people. Last year I made some really good ones, but not sure at all what to make this year. I pulled out our big stationary drawer and found all the old books that Doggie Darling chewed up when she was littler (she's a teenager now, just sleeps all the time) so it'd be good to use up some of those novels is a scrapbooky Christmasy kinda way.

I don't know! Better rush to the express post now!

The sweat shop a la Veronica Darling is officially OPEN!

Hee Hee, I have a few odd jobs for people, and as we're heading up north on a Christmas Holiday this Saturday, thought I'd spend today to get them done... I got a headstart yesterday:

A friend of my Husbie's found this paisley purple material (and quite a lot off it!) at the op shop recently, and since her new loungeroom theme is purple I made up two cushion covers to match the store bought purple one.

Someone loves helping. (Not so helpful this morning though, she ripped up a cushion I was going to use for our fold out sofa. Oh puppy fun! Although all the cushin innards will become stuffing for my crochet friends now. So perhaps she was slyly helpful)

And here's where I'm at with my sewing for fun! I've decided that I'm going to make a dress and a skirt in the same material, in a bunch of fabrics and then go to market. I KNOW I keep saying I'll go to market one day, but I've starting feeling that without a challenge of a dress a day or 100 Outfits, I think I need some other motivation. And my wardrobe really can't handle more clothes! It's fully burst open and is all over our bedroom floor at the moment!

What kind of inspiration or motivation do you need to get you creating? I'm thinking of fun washed out summer things (instead of your typical primary bold colours for summer), and have got my tumblr up and running with loads of colours/things/fash to show where I'm heading! I'm going to listen to a LOT of Vampire Weekend to get in the mood! I believe it's kinda a New England vibe, but I'm going to find my Australian-ness in this somehow!

Little Crochet Friends #2 Octopus with Seven Legs

Hey guys,

I've been enjoying my holidays with a little bit of hanging out on the computer, hanging out with my Husbie and generally being festive with a lot of beer and wine. Our Melbs friend (who reads my blog) was here on Friday and we got really festive at the local teppanyaki joint. LOLz a hoy hoy indeed!

He really liked my new little friend:

Another crochet animal, amigurumi style of course, from this Lion Brand website of wool and patterns (you may have to sign up to see the free patterns, it's free though) but after I stitched the little cutie all up,  found another leg down the back of the couch. Oops! My Melbs friend does think that it adds character to the little octopus, make him more of a septopus perhaps?

Anyways! I've got a mad mad sore leg today, as we went down to a great dog beach today, and big dog was playing with Doggie Darling. They both bolted into me, but it totally killed. Husbie thought I'd snapped my wee little twiggy leg in two, but it was like a major corkage and it's already bruising. Eep!

So I'm a little down in the hurty dumps, but I've done a bit more sewing and crochet as I've sat around resting the leg. We're not planning on anything big for Christmas, for our family will be doing Kris Kringle for the first time this year, but I'd really like to send my little baby friends a present. I should get a few in the mail tomorrow.

Hope you've had a lovely weekend!

Faux Svelteness

Oh darlings, some women share their secrets with me and recently I've heard the word 'spanx' so many times, that I do thoroughly believe that the next time a lady utters it I shall spanx the word right off her lips.

But we do like to be svelte. And I'm making a lot of great svelte dresses that perhaps need a bit of structure at times. I've often looked at my daggy undies and thought they should be tighter but not THAT tight and I detest the g-string and don't want to go nudie underneath. I don't mind a bit of visible panty action on a bottom, but perhaps I need a little tummy tucking at the same time.

So, I've found some things (that may not all be available here in Australia but online nonetheless) that help you in the svelte department...

Here's the original Spanx, the one I like anyways,

Then this is the Flexees slip thing, without straps (I think they're removable) and I really like the shape of this bust line:

And this one is not really a dress or a skirt, kinda a high waisty thing, I think it's a TC Wonderful thing:

And that's kinda my fave at the moment, since I don't really wear strap less, but need more hugging on all my loving bits.

But if you'd like to browse a proper review (rather than just my blah blah blahs) The Chic Fashionista has put together a what's what kinda thing with loads of pictures.

Our internerd has been down again, so I feel a bit out of the loop with things! I've had to put the sewing on hold as a guest from Melbs arrives for a night, but I'm practically on holidays now, so Yippee! It's such a gorgeous day here in Sydney, so hoping the weather remains lush to spend the weekend with Husbie and Doggie Darling! Cute!