Finished.... but only just getting started... :P

Hi,

 

Today was officially my last day of college for the year, though I actually didn't have to come in really because I got all my work handed in yesterday :0)

 



So now I can bring you the final photos from my Line and form project (the collaboration with a designer) that I have been mentioning in my last few posts.

 

I kindly got permission from my designer to put up a picture of her design for court costume of the Duchess of Malfi (for a contemporary staging of the Duchess of Malfi):

 

(Copyright of my designer Sarah!)

 

I concentrated on making the jacket in the design, and now you can see what I was going from here is my final realised garment: 

 

 

 

It is fully lined, but is made in calico- really I would make it in wool worsted, but that was a bit expensive for this project when I needed 4m of it! And calico was still a suitable weight.

 

I am really proud of it and I learnt so many things from it- like how to construct a notched collar, and fully line the jacket with fairly little hand sewing (the industry method). It fitted my model really well too (she wanted to take it home :-P) so I was pleased!

 

This week, as well as finishing my jacket, I picked up some really great bargains at the big costume store sale at college. They had a clear out and all the money raised is going towards re-stocking the store. I got all of these clothing items for only £5!!!!!:

 

So that is 50p each!!! My aim is to use the fabric or adapt each of them over my summer break to make some cool stuff :) Though I may end up just wearing some of the pieces as I might not have the heart to cut into them- especially the big purple mens coat; it has a label in it saying 'Nathans and Burmans' (a famous costume house), and 'Return to OZ' so it may have been in the film- I will have to watch and see! Hehe, that will give me a bit of excitement :P

 

I better get off to bed now though as I am working at the Bridal Boutique tomorrow and as tomorrow is the first official day of my summer holidays my summer plan (lots of reading about sewing and fashion and costume, sewing and designing, going on courses and doing work experience- in between going on holiday with my family :P) can begin! So though I am finished for the year, I am only really just starting as I have so much to learn and practise in summer :)

 

See you all soon, and I will keep you all regularly updated :-)

 

I hope you are well,

 

Bye xXxXxXxXxXxXxX

Brothers birthday + creative stitches show

Hello,

I mentioned a few posts ago that my Brothers birthday was coming up- it was this Tuesday (He loved his Domo pinata so I was pleased. It took a while to brake into so I didn't do too badly at making it! :) As usual my dad pulled an amazing cake(s!) out of the hat, this time I got to help though as I was at home and my dad said he couldn't achieve it all in the time without me :0) It was sooo fun and here are the results....

... A whole pizza dinner with drinks, sides and desserts- all made from cake!!!!

here is the mushroom (chopped dried banana  pieces) and olive (black royal icing) pizza:

The spaghetti (royal icing) and meatball (cake, chocolate and biscuit balls- I made these :P) cake:

Margherita pizza. We made the cheese look cooked by pinching the icing circles and putting little blobs of brown caramel biscuit spread on it to look liked the browned bubbles of cheese:

Onion rings (dried apple rings dipped in chocolate and biscuit crumbs), garlic bread (brioche with white chocolate on it sprinkled with grated dessicated coconut dyed green for herbs :P) and dough balls (brioche again!):

Garlic pizza bread cake:

the coke glasses were done by melting chocolate to coat the inside of the glass then filling with crumbled cake before topping with chocolate spread and inserting a stripy straw:

 

Chocolate cake chocolate gateau 1:

Chocolate cake chocolate gateau 2 (I made this one :-):

Safe to say we are still eating it all now, despite giving lots away to people! It is sooo tasty though and so cool to help make- we spent a long time thinking if what sweet items we could use to create the most realistic savoury look :P

Hahaha, In between cake eating I did manage to get to the Creative stitches and Hobbycrafts show at the Excel centre London on Thursday. It was really good and I got onto 4 workshops! (Tomorrow is the last day so get yourself down there if you can :0)

This was one of the workshops I did, ruffled ribbon petunias, so pretty :):

I got to practise my french knots for the centre which was good as now I can do them perfectly, I also learnt the little tufty  (turkey work) in the second flower which was cool as I had never done that before. Lorna Bateman was the lady who ran the workshop and she has an esty/folksy shop where she sells the kits if you like what you see above :P

This was the second workshop- making a creative textiles book cover from this material called spunbound made by Vilene. It was so cool- you put on this 3D paint through a stencil then heated it all with a heat gun and the £D paint bubbled a grew while the unpainted spunbound shrivelled and disappeared leaving holes. Then you paint it to make it look all colourful:

Then finally, I also did two embroidery workshops run by the Royal School of needlework, they were only £5 each which I think was pretty good value even though the other workshops were free (which is even more amazing value :P).

Here is my first finished piece from the Jacobean Crewelwork workshop:

Again, I learnt some new stitches and got to practice my french knots so that was all good. I will show you my silk shading sampler I started in the other workshop when I have finished it :)

Haha, after all that learning I got round to doing some shopping, well quite a bit of shopping actually.

I got these two Paddington Bear cross stitch kits, only £2.00 each! 

I am going to make something for my dad with them as he loves football, Paddington bear and he teaches maths so I thought they were perfect :P

Then I got all this:

All of the items cost me £1 or less each- what bargains :D

I better go now, got to get to bed to get my beauty sleep before my cake filled breakfast :P

See you all soon- when I may have another giveaway up my sleeve for you all.... so keep your eyes peeled :0)

Bye XxXxXxX

Briliant bargains!

 Helloooo,

I hope you are all having a good week, with college tonight I am going to see the live streaming of the National Theatres War Horse. I have never been to a live streaming but it is meant to be an interesting experience so I am excited  :D

 

As I mentioned, last week my family were on holiday in the IOW. They were very kind because thy had bought me home quite a few little gifts for me that they had collected from around the island, Including this bag of felt scraps my mum picked up:

 

I was really impressed because it is a whole bag, stuffed full of really nice, quality, felt and she got the whole thing for £1.50! I think that is such a bargain as nice felt can be really expensive.

 

As soon as I saw the bag I had an idea of what to do with it. Al the little strips reminded me of paper strips and I thought; what can you do with paper strips?- Quilling of course! So I attempted to try a quilling style look by rolling and sewing the felt in different ways, it was fiddly but fun so I am glad I thought of it! Here is a flower brooch I made yesterday:

 

I have ideas for tons of little brooches to make, like trees and butterfly's all in my new felt quilling style, I better get started... :P

 

Another bargain I just had to share with you guys (this time non craft related) is the birthday cake bargains me and a friend from college managed to pick up on our way home in the local mini Waitrose. We got 3 big birthday cakes for less than £3.50!!! Two vanilla and jellybean birthday tray bakes for 99p each and this chocolate hedgehog cake for £1.49. Look!:

 

 

Just in case you didn't believe me, here is the sticker :P:

 

 

Hahaha, I am taking some home for my family to share with them at the weekend, my friend kept some for her flat and then the rest of the tray bakes we are bringing into college to share today, Mmmmm :)

 

I am off now as it is almost time for me to head off to college- cake and corsets  are calling me. Hehehe!

 

See you all soon,

 

Bye XxXxXxXxX

 

Quirky Update! 8>

Hi guys,

I thought I would do a picture update on Quirky as he is gradually looking less and less deconstructed and more and more like a turkey! Here is him so far:

I love the face, it took me a long time to stitch but it was worth it :) Just all the feathers left to sew on and his little party blower and feet left to knit, not much at all :0)

Im soo happy and excited to have him almost finished! My family are getting excited too :D hehehe!

Another thing that made me happy today is I managed to pick up this cool Monster High Frankie Stein crafty-home economics themed doll :) She comes with a little stitched toy and needle and thread accessory and everything!

Since I got my first Blythe I just keep wanting more and more different special dolls to make outfits for :) And I love her with all her cool crafty stuff. I got her for a really good price in Smyths, only £15.49 because we got a discount!

I'm off now as It's my bedtime, hahaha :-)

See you all very soon,

bye xxx

IOW update!

Hi everybody, I hope you are all having a nice week!

It's only day two of my holiday and I have already managed to pick up some great stuff including a mega crafty bargain! In this little craft shop they had a big box of craft paper and you could get 20 sheets for £1. Me and my dad started looking in the box and picking up loads of sheets then my dad asked the lady how much for the box and she said £10, only £10!!!!! For all of these sheets..... :D

And the decorative cutting scissors were three pairs for just a £1! (my dad got one pair and I got the other two :)

 There are hundreds of sheets of beautiful papers, perfect for making labels for all of my handmade prezzies for people.

In WH Smith I picked up a big sketchpad because I have wanted to make my own design portfolio for ages and now with all this lovely paper I have no excuse!

Along with Quirky I am making good progress on my other long running project, my dice scarf! I am aiming to finish it by the end of my holidays, so far I am on track :)

I reallly, really want to finish it so I can finally wear it, I want to wear it to 6th form :0)

The IOW is really good for finding unique handmade stuff :) Me and my family went to an apple orchard yesterday and got to pick some of our own apples (apples are my favourite fruit so I was very excited!!!:D). Then In the gift shop I found this beautiful handmade enchanted style apple clock for my room, (my dad treated me to it :)

Isn't it just lovely! <3 it looks so pretty and yummy and juicy :0P

Its almost my bedtime now but I will leave you with this picture of Catherine sitting watching the birds at the pretty grounds of Calbourne mill, where me and my family stayed in a cottage the time before last:

We had a great day out there, I really love the chocolate cake and jam and buttercream sponge they have there, mmmm.. :P I shared my slice of choclate cake with Catherine she said she liked it too!

See you all vey soon,

Bye! XxXx

Holiday and crafting update

Hey guys,

It's not long till I'm back home for a while (then I'm off to Cyprus :) so I thought I would do a bit of a IOW holiday/crafting update and show you my very special new design I have been working on.....! :D

Firstly on my holiday update, I have been back to the haberdashery shop.... some of my families savings are still intact, I promise! (hahhahha :) My (lovely <3) mum treated me to another two cross stitch kits. I chose a pretty seahorse one and funny cat-buried-under-snow one:

I finished the Oriental Lady kit I got :) I haven't decided exactly what to do with her yet but she is very pretty!:

My mum also bought me this bag of different material scraps for me to make some great stuff with :D It was a bargain for only a £1! and that £1 went to charity :) All the material is sooooo coool, I can't wait to start some different projects with it:

In other non-crafty holiday news :) my (brilliant :) Dad bought me this fun Wonka anniversary chocolate bar from a local sweet shop:

It is so great, you even get a replica golden ticket inside! I was like *EEEEEPPPP* when I opened it! hahhaa :D

He and my mum have also bought me mountains of pic and mix and various cookies/cakes....mmmmmmmm :P

Now for some designing news...

I have been working on a new design recently which I hope is gunna look REAALLLLYYY GOOODD when I have finished, it's my new DICE SCARF!!!!!

I'm aiming to finish it before I go to Cyprus so I better keep working hard! :0)

I really hope it's going to look good, I really, really hope! I came up with the design a while ago but had to get the yarn I needed which I didn't have a chance to till now.

I'm off to go eat another cookie and then get back to work! :)

I hope you are all ok and having a nice week,

See ya!

Byeeee xxx

Ice cream, sea, sand and shopping!

Hi everyone :)

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

I'm in the Isle Of Wight on my holidays now! :)

I'm having lots of fun.We only came on Sunday and I've eaten 2 ice creams already, a bannoffe one and a hot choc dip, speciality of the Sandown! (a flake 99 dipped in melted chocolate :P). I've also been down to the beach and in the sea, which was FREEEEZING!!! *o* but I had a full body wetsuit on so I could just about cope :0)

Our apartment is quite nice and we have a little balcony which overlooks the beach, here is the lovely view:

The other good thing about our apartment is that it is only a short walk (although uphill!) away from two brilliant crafty shops, a cute haberdashery shop called Rainbows and a bead shop called Purple Moon Beads. I have been visiting them most mornings and picking up some different bits and pieces.

I managed to get some really good bargains such as this piece of beautiful oriental style material for only 75p!

...... Which will go perfectly with the Oriental Lady cross stitch kit I bought as well :)

(I had to get the bat kit too as it was just too cute to resist :3)

It's been nice having time to relax as it has meant I can catch up and do some more on my many knitting projects. Over the last few evenings I have been making more innocent hats:

I'll probably carry on with my DAL project tonight and maybe make one more hat as well,

I hope everyone is having a great holiday, wherever you are! :)

Speak to you all again soon!

Bye bye xxx