A post that is bursting at the seams! (no pun intended :P)

Hi everyone,

I hope you have all had a brilliant week :) There is quite a lot in the post so I recommend grabbing tasty treat before you start!

First up I would like to apologise for posting about finishing my Kameez (my friend told me this is its actual name :) twice- I got so wrapped up in all the work I have got going on at the moment that I forgot I actually had already posted about it.

 

Now I actually have some NEW photos/news for you :P

 

First up here are the pictures of my finished early 16th century foundation wear (wheel farthingale, bum roll and petticoat) and corset, being worn by my lovely (and very patient may I say!) model:

 

 

This is effectively early 16th century underwear so wandering around like above in those times would have been pretty obscene, lol! But my model looks beautiful and I loved working with her on the project so thank you to her! XXX

I enjoyed my time of being a model too, I got to put on my pretty corset, bum roll and petticoat and prance about outside among the trees on campus in the sun- so fun!

 

Next point on this whistle stop tour of all my weeks news is my finished Mens period shirt:

 

 

 

This was the project we have been doing this week and are meant to do next week. I finished my shirt this week (like some of the other girls) so next week we will be making a period womens chemise. Hehe hopefully I will finish that too  :P

 

Now onto my last bit of news- The wedding fair catwalk show I got to help out at as a dresser!!!! I had such an amazing day- chilling backstage with the models (hehehe, I love saying that as it makes me sound really cool! lol :P), then helping them to change into each wedding dress really quickly before they had to head back onto the catwalk again :)

 

Here are the beautiful ladies in their finale dresses:

 

 

These were all the hardest ones to get them in as most of them were lace up and not zip ups!

 

Here was backstage all the space we had for the dresses, the 5 girls, me, and the bridal boutique owner and her daughter. It got pretty hectic :P:

 

 

We had to lay the dresses next to go on the girls on the floor like big meringues so they could just step out of their other ones and step straight into the new ones and we could them pull them up and zip them up quickly, before finding a veil or fascinator to match: 

 

 

Here are all the models in their 2nd wedding dress each (they had 3 wedding dressed and one bridesmaid dress each- times this by 5 and there were 20 dresses overall!):

 

And here they are coming off the catwalk:

 

 

We did two shows, one at 12.30 and one at 2.30. I think we did really well as there was only 3 of us dressing 5 models and we managed to keep a constant flow of dresses- the catwalk was never empty. Without a rehearsal this was really good. The models were so good and all really nice which helped as they got their walking routine and order of going down the catwalk sorted pretty much by themselves which meant we could focus on getting all the ensembles and order of dresses ready in time. I have been invited to help out at the fashion catwalk the lady who owns the bridal boutique is going to host when she opens her new shop- yay! I am sooo excited :D I can't wait to do it all again with all new dresses!!!!

 

Wooo, after that long post I think you deserve a rest. Thanks for sticking with it and reading all my news, I better let you go now and I better get in bed as I have quite a bit of work to type up this weekend for college, and also tomorrow me and my mum are going on a cupcake an macaroon walking tour of London and I would hate to be too tired for that :0)

 

Speak again soon,

 

Bye my lovely friends XxXxXxXxX

 

Happy Easter

Hillooo!

 

I hope all of you had a lovely long Easter weekend :)

 

I had a really great time with my family xxx As usual my dad did a fun Easter egg hunt for me and my brother, he really outdid himself and found tons of great stuff for it, here are all my goodies!!!:

 

 

I have finished one of the chocolate bunnies and lots of the little eggs already :p My mum got me an Easter egg too so I am well and truly spoiled with goodies! Thank you Mum and Dad!

 

This year I organised an egg hunt each for my parents too for a bit of fun :0) and to repay them for the years and years of fab Easter goodies :-)

Hehe, here is my dads pile of goodies (the Mars Easter egg is my dads from my mum :):

 

 

My pile makes my dads look tiny! but he and my mum said they  had a lot of fun doing my Easter egg hunt for them, my brother helped me hide all the stuff- he came up with tons of great hiding places!

 

For lunch we didn't have the usual Easter roast we had Pizza from Pizza GoGo instead, at my request as they have started doing a whole range of vegetarian Quorn pizzas!!! Which were delicious :P All the sides were tasty too, mmmm mozzarella sticks :) I definitely recommend it, in fact I think it has jumped to the top of  list as my favourite takeaway pizza (it was less greasy and salty- and very veggie friendly now!)

 

In other news this Easter Weekend I also finished my Kameez!:

 

 

 

 

I still may iron on a couple of flower motifs I picked  up at the creative stitches and hobbycrafts show down the centre back at the back neckline but I want to do some testing first to check it wont ruin  the fabric etc... But the sewing is all done :-) I am really pleased with how it came out- now I just have  to find the perfect occasion to wear it!

 

And my final  bit of news for this post- I have now begun my Elizabethan foundation garments in college (to go with my Elizabethan corset).

 

Here I my Wheel farthingale toile (tester), I also have a bum roll underneath this to support it:

 

 

And here was some test fabric draped over it so we could see the effect a skirt of the period would have on my foundation- so I could make any alterations to my foundations to get the right look:

 

 

I am reealllyy enjoying this module (as I do all of the really, but I do love me some Elizabethan costume!)

 

Hehe, I am off to get to bed now ready to wrestle with my 6m petticoat I am also making again tomorrow!

 

See you all soon, and don't forget to enter the spring giveaway which closes this Friday if you haven't already,

 

Thanks for reading :o)

 

Bye XxXxXxxXxX

Corsets and chocolate :)

 Hi,

Last Friday I managed to finish my corset!!! I was so happy as I though I would just fall short because I had a lot of hand sewing over the eyelets to do but I managed to really get into the flow of it and got it all done :D Here is my finished corset, the mannequin is not quite the right size so you will have to some imagining to think what it would look like on my actual model who it is made to measure for:

 

 

It is fully boned a the front and laces up at the centre back and the straps are off the shoulder.

 

I am so happy my 17th century corset is done :-) It was a lot of work but I am very proud of it and enjoyed making it. Next is onto the wheel farthingale (period skirt supporter) to go with it!

 

I am off on my Easter break now though and my Brothers Birthday is coming up really soon. I wanted to make him something for his birthday but something different to the kind of things I normally make. I also wanted it to be really fun so I came up with the idea for a Domo Pinata!:

 

 

I made it from a cereal box, 4 toilet roll tubes, some red and white card and painted it all.

 

I have filled it with lots of tasty sweets:

 

 

Hehehe :)

I hope my brother likes it and I hope it holds up to a little bit of whacking before it breaks open :P

 

In my final bit of news for this post I finished the first of  the different bridal headbands I have begun designing and making recently. I am really pleased with the finished result:

 

 

I made the little ribbon roses and I put together the middle piece using the lace applique technique onto a fine net/gauze type material. There are little diamante in the centre of the flowers which sparkle in the light (you can just about see them in the photo :). I thought the peacock feather looked pretty and added a bit of interest. It is quite bohemian and vintage in style. I am still working on the others so it will be interesting to see what style/vibe they give off when they are finished.

 

I hope you are all very well and that you are having a good week so far :o) I am very excited for tomorrow as my brother is off school so we are going to the local park to play tennis then he is treating me to a Costa Coffee (my favourite!!!) lunch- sandwich, cake and everything! So generous! I treated him to a cadbury's creme egg mcflurry today- very tasty, I do recommend :P

 

Speak to you all again very soon,

 

Bye XxXxXxX

Wackiness and weddings

Hi everyone :)

Sadly I can't bring you any pictures of the wedding fashion show as it had to be cancelled due to the organiser having a family emergency so my thoughts go out to her. The wedding fair did go ahead though so the lady I applied for work experience with said I could still come for an hour or so to look around etc. The building it was held in was really lovely and historic/period and when I got home I was in a bridal mood! I decided to finally start making some of the bridal headbands I designed ages ago. Here is a work in progress picture:

 

It will be interesting to see them fully done, they are coming along as planned so far :P

 

Hehe, talking about bridal wear and bringing me on to the 'wackiness' section of this post.... me and my brother went to Ripley's believe it or not in London this weekend and they had this exhibition of wedding dresses made from toilet paper!:

 

Hehe they are soo good! My dad said they are alright as long as it doesn't rain, which is very true! :P

 

In ripleys they also had these tiny shoes called lily shoes- they do really weird stuff to your feet but I just thought they looked like cute little pixie shoes:

 

They even seemed to have a pattern for them:

 

I may try it one day but a modified version as I don't want to squeeze up my feet to be all tiny!

 

In other news it is my friends birthday coming up this weekend and we are all going to Wahaca the Mexican restaurant to celebrate. I wanted to make her a little something to go along with the rest of her gifts.

 

(P.S if you are my friend whose birthday it is you should stop reading now to prevent ruining any surprises!!!!)

 

I wasn't sure exactly what but I knew I wanted it to be cute. In the end I decided to go for a panda and then just started making and Little Tall Panda was born:

 

 

He is a brooch. I called him little tall panda as he is small but his body ended up quite long :-)

One of her favourite colours is purple so I added the purple bow and buttons to make him look all snazzy and such-like. I hope she likes him :0)

 

And my last bit of this post is just an update on my corset! This week Wednesday to Thursday is the last 3 days we have to finish our corsets (though we may get a little bit of time later on if we finish our 2nd part of this project early). I am getting there with mine, it does resemble a corset properly now and all the bones are in it:

 

Just some more bias binding, putting the eyelets in and then all the tabs which will be the fiddly and potentially time consuming bits but I hope I will get it all done :-)

 

I am off to bed now to get my beauty sleep, lol :)

 

See you all soon and thanks for reading my lovely friends!

 

Byeeeeeeeeee XxXxXxXxX

Eyelets and phones

 Hi,

I hope your weeks are all going well :) I am happy with how my corset is going in college so that is good, I will show you some more pictures after I have completed the next few steps as then it should really be coming together.

 

This week I have also been working on my 1/2 scale red dress that I designed and draped, I have been hand sewing the little eyelets down the back so then I can lace the dress up with red ribbon:

 

 

It is going well- only about 18 left to go :P They are soo small as they have to be 1/2 normal eyelet size to be in correct scale. I think I may have placed them slightly too close to the edge to be in correct scale but not majorly so it will be ok, no one is actually going to wear it so there won't be much strain on them.

 

In other news last weekend I got a new phone! :D A red Samsung Galaxy s4 to be exact. It was a big step up from my old phone, that I had had since I was 10 and so old the guy in Carphone warehouse said the makers had gone out of business, lol :P I have been spending time this week trying to get used to all its amazing functions. I downloaded several free bridal dress catalogues to flick through as extra research for my new work experience and tons of other stuff, it is helping me to get more done each day which is good. I really love my new phone but am really protective over it as I don't want to damage it! Hehe Sunday I made a case really quickly from a sock I hadn't worn and added a kawaii hello kitty button to keep it safe:

 

 

Hehe, now though I have an case which is apparently what the army use to protect their gadgets from rain, sand, you name it- it is virtually indestructible!

 

Hehe, I am off to bed now, I need to get a good sleep so I can power through my corset sewing again tomorrow,

 

See you all again soon,

 

Byeeee xxx

An update :)

Hi,

I hope you are all well and have a good weekend planned :) I am excited as next week I have a reading week so get to spend lots of lovely time with my family! (though, I mustn't forget I do have a bit of work to do in-between :P)

This week I have managed to get a lot further on the kindle case I am making for my mum, I just have the ribbing left to do, and then just sewing it up:

 

I also managed to Finish the little cross stitch I wanted to sew onto the front for decoration:

 

I should be able to give it to my mum this weekend as I reckon I will get it finished tomorrow, my aim was to get it to her before my family go on holiday to the IOW the week after next (my holiday is out of sync with my family this time) so I am well within schedule :P

 

I have actually got a lot done this week, now I am more used to doing all my washing etc... and I don't faff so much I can do more stuff! I baked some flapjacks for all the girls on my costume course. They were chocolate, date, raisin and sticky toffee:

 

 

I doubled up on the recipe so everyone got a nice big one :) They really enjoyed them so I was very pleased, I thought they were tasty too! We were thoroughly spoilt today though as it is one of the girls Birthdays coming up and a couple of the other girls made her a really tasty gluten free lemon cake and brought it in. It was very moist and delicious :-P

 

Today we also started making corsets!!! This is our next project, I am very excited about it. We get to be models for each others so I am making one for someone and they are making one for me :-) Today we started the master patterns which tomorrow we are changing to fit our person:

 

They are taken from historical corsets (I chose the 17th century one) so at the moment the patterns are very tiny, people were so much smaller- my wrist just about goes through the armhole! :P

 

In about two weeks we should get our Kimono stuff back (it is being marked :) and then I can show you all pictures of my kimono- which was my first project as I mentioned.

 

Hehe, that is about it for my update, but just before I go I remembered the other day that I hadn't put up the picture of what was inside this years mini parcels Christmas giveaway, silly me! So here it is- just in case you were curious :o):

 

 

See you soon,

 

Bye xxx