80s flashback

I went into General Pants today looking for clothing to buy and I swear that the fashion god had thrown up the 1980s in there. It was terrible...

zzzzzzzzz

Man I am tired. :( Late night, disrupted sleep and for me an early morning.

I have just finished my morning cup of tea and now have to get busy packing my bags for 5 days away from home. It is time for the annual Port Macquarie Eisteddfod and I have to go an watch as I have groups dancing. Not looking forward to it. It is being help in "The Glasshouse" and there are that many rules and regs which is going to make the whole thing just ridiculous!

So I hae to go to work today and tomorrow then tomorrow night I drive up and will actually be staying at the in-laws house as mum has no room for me. :(

Leaving early today as well as the car needs to get serviced!

Arrrrrrrrgh!

Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I will be able to sew something for my self which I can post up! I have 1/4 of a costume to go!!!

Disappointing, but that's life.

Well the Flair website finally put up the list of 'finalists' whose work gets shown on the runway.

My name wasn't on it. Disappointing.

Oh well, can't give up on the first try really, can you? I will be thinking of what to do for next year, but I don't think I will go in the same section again. It is a bit too limiting with what you can actually do.

Unfortuantely that means that I won't be able to get any shots of it from when it goes down the runway. I will have to stick it back on my manequin or get one of my students to model it cause it sure as hell won't fit on me!!!

Now onto the next thing.

Well, I got my garment (and cocktail hat) finished to my satisfaction and dropped off in time. I hand delivered on Friday. Fittings were yesterday and I am hoping that it fit on one of the models ok. Judging was today and so now I am just waiting for the finalists to be posted on the Flair website.

They seem to be a little bit slow with their updating sometimes, but the Premiere Evening is less than a week - next Saturday - so they can't really take that long to post. I am guessing that finalists are the ones that get onto the runway and that is all that I am hoping to acheive. It is so hard to tell though, I have no idea what the other garments in my category were like. I am not expecting to be a finalist but it would be very nice if I was. :)

I have a very bad picture of my finished dress but I took it on my boyfriends 'point and shoot' and not my dslr and it was a low light situation so it is very grainy.



As you can see, it is very short. Originally the ruffles were not going to be on the bottom but I added them for length and in the end I think the garment is the better for it.

Here are some shots of my 'fabulous' cocktail hat. :)




































I had absolutely NO idea of how to go about millinery so I just made it up as I went along. :) I really had a lot of fun making this little hat. In the end I think it is quite cute.

If it gets on the runway I am hoping to get some pics of it all on a model!

Stay tuned.

Nearly on the home stretch!!

I haven't updated in a while as I have been a bit busy getting my garment ready for entry into The Flair Awards!

The 'garment' consists of 2 pieces. A dress and a little cape/cloak to go over the top. I am also going to being adding a millinery piece - but I am going to do that last. :) So far I have nearly completed my cape. It just need to have fasteners attached and the final little finishing groom for threads.

I have just put my invisible zipper in my dress am now up to finishing that seam. Then I have to attach my boned lining to the main garment and finish with hooks and eyes and once agin a final groom! I will post pics when it is all done.

Even if it doesn't make it to the catwalk (not all garments are good enough) I have still learnt a lot about construction and even cohesiveness of a design. :) It has been a great experience.

Freshly squeezed orange juice and $14 worth of bargains!

Sometimes I love going into op shops.

This morning I had to go down town to organise a repair for our dishwasher - fun times - and thought that while I was down there I may as well go into the local op shop and see what was to be found. Now, I understand that a small rural op shop is not going to have a well stocked inventory of those lucky to find one-off clothing pieces that you sometimes come across in a bigger town or in a city, but I went in specifically to have a look at their haberdashery stuff.

On a previous jaunt in the op shop I came away with 3 vintage patterns for the absurd price of 10c each. For more info go here So I was hopeful that I might come away with something.

This is what I picked up.



This batch of bargains includes:

A few metres of elastic trim with gathered ribbon attached

A couple of bits of ribbon, one purple and one a beautiful gold brocade type - they came together but I was really only interested in the brocade type.

A bit of royal blue felt that I think is a pretty good quality - planning to use for a millinery project.

A couple of metres of stretch black lace fabric - I was very excited by this as I think I was $4 dollars and is great quality.

Half of an old skirt in a cream poly fabric with lovely gold stripes through it - a bit of damage where something was removed - possibly a pocket - and where the seams were seperated. I think it is fairly old. I bought it as I am working on a project where you are only allowed to used recycled materials and I thought I could possibly use it.

A lovely piece of embroidered mesh fabric. I think about 4.5m but it is fairly narrow. Navy blue mesh with a white diamond pattern.

A fairly large piece of a floral fabric. Main fabric is white and it have purple flowers printed on. Very polyester but also very
pretty. It might have even been a bit of curtain material in a previous existence...

A very, very nice piece of floral georgette/chiffon type fabric. A couple of metres. This fabric drapes beautifully and I think would make something very special

And lastly a couple of metres of a green knit with a gold stripe running through it. Very 70s. Love it.

So after I toddled home in the beautiful sunshine of a very warm mid-winter day feeling very stoked with my bargain purchasing and wondering how much the same haul would have cost if the fabric and bits'n'pieces were brand new. Then I squeezed myself some orange juice and took a picture of all the fabric and sat typing this while enjoying previously mentioned orange juice.

Squeezed orange juice always reminds me of my Mama. Whenever we would go and visit she would squeeze orange juice for breakfast every single day. :) Good memories in fresh squeezed orange juice.

JJ Blouse

Well, I finished it!!



I actually really surprised myself. Instead of flinging it into a corner in disgust I pushed on and finished the whole thing. And with a good finish to everything as well.

It is still too big - as I thought it was going to be. Adjustments to the side seam and some ties so I can bring the back in are in order...