Christmas stars!

Hi everyone, 

On Saturday my family and over some food friends for a dinner party :) Each time they come over- especially at Christmas I like to make some little table favours :)

This year I decided to implement some of my new found knowledge from the different skill weeks at college- I used printing!

I cut out my own little design of a star stencil and then printed 8 of them onto calico using some gold Dylan fabric paint though the stencil with a brush- a different method to college as I didn't quite have all the proper equipment :p

I then ironed them once dry to affix the paint fully, before backing with Christmassy fabric, placing ribbon between the two layers then sewing around.

Lastly I pinking sheared around them to stop fraying and give a simple decorative looking edge. And voila,  my little decorations were then complete; 

I think they looked nice on the table and they got some compliments so I was very happy :) they were also fairly quick to make due to some simple stencil printing being there main feature. I will definitely be experimenting further with this technique :-)

The Christmassy crafting really got me into the festive spirit too! It is soo close to Christmas now- I can't wait!  I hope you are all doing well and are happy,

see you soon,

Bye xoxoxo

Dancewear!

Hi everyone,

I hope you are all well and starting to get into the Christmas spirit as that is not far around the corner!

 

Today Is just a quick post again- but I do assure you they will start getting longer no I have finished college for Christmas and I don't have the end of year hecticness. I mean I need to return to wigs to tell you all about how to work some crazy updos! :P

 

But back to the topic of today- Dancewear! Yes, this was the last week as part of my series of 4 weeks at college covering different disciplines within the area of costume.

 

We got to choose to make either a leotard or a catsuit in a design of our choice. We had to be realistic with our choices though as we only had 4 days to complete them- including pattern drafting and fittings.

 

I chose to make a leotard, and kind of wanted to go with something that looked suitable for a gymnast (We could take inspiration from dance or sports). We made them for ourselves which means I got to parade around in mine on Friday (I looked a bit silly but it was fun!)

 

Here it is, I kept it quite understated but there is a flash of sequined fabric at the collar and cuffs to give it a bit of pzazz! :0P

 

 

It was quite high cut- a little bit 80s aerobics but it fit well in the end so that made me happy. I had never worked with stretch fabrics before last week so it was good to start learn the techniques :)

 

That is about it for this post (I said it would be short and I wasn't fibbing)

 

But I will be back super soon, hopefully with some Christmassy related posting material :)

 

Bye XxXx

 

 

 

 

Waistcoat all done!

Hi,

I hope you are all having a good week :)

My waistcoat that I was making in college is now all complete! As I mentioned a post or so ago, for our first project we had to make a men's waistcoat in any style we wanted, it also had to be decorated in some way.

Here was my design, which was inspired by comic book villains and gangsters:

The front sections interlock.

And then here is the back, my decoration was inspired by the glamorous girlfriends gangsters and villains often seem to have in the movies :p:

And now, after a few weeks work, here is my finished waistcoat, front and back:

   

Then here are some close ups/different angles:

 My machine and hand appliquéd hand motifs (the little xxx are hand embroidered):

Satin stitch hand embroidered kiss :):

It was hard to get the lapels so sharp (and the pocket flap points too!):

It was a fun and challenging project. I learnt so much as this was my first ever piece of menswear.  I am really proud of the result though :-) please do leave me any comments below- I would love to know what you think.

See you all again soon, when I will be announcing a special giveaway........!

Bye xxx

P.s. All images in this post are copyright to me (Jordan Norrington)

Feeling all bridal...

Hi,

I hope you are all happy and well! Today I bring news on my bridalwear course I am taking art the London College of fashion.

I am absolutely loving the course, it is absolutely brilliant- I have learnt so much from the lovely tutor- Christina Sesay, who has her own bespoke bridal business (like what I hope to have one day :)

I have not quite finished my bodice yet (I will be done by friday) but here is what I have so far on the stand. It is boned, fully lined and lo has an internal corset to pull the bride in that extra bit more if she wishes. The design is all mine and it was lovely to see something I had imagined coming to life in front of me through all the new skills and techniques I had learned:

As well as bodices, we have also been working on some skirts, just as toiles. I will have a fishtail style one to show you all soon, but for now here is the draped front skirt with integral train:

This one is so interesting. I am enjoying working on skirts as these are something I have experimented less with compared to bodices and tops.

I better go now though as I have to go there now for day 3 of week 2! :-)

Speak to you all again soon,

Bye xoxoxo

Last bits of holiday news...

 

Hi,

 

 

I am back from all of my holidays now, so I thought I would bring you my last few bits of news and pictures :)

 

 

First up- In the IOW there is a HUGGGGEEEEE Tesco Extra (I mean really huge! It looks like an airport hanger from the outside!). When me and my family were wandering around it I spotted some really cool biscuit spreads down the jam and spreads aisle; Bourbon biscuit, cookie, custard cream and cookies and cream :D I got sooo excited when I saw them- My parents treated me and my brother to the whole set to try (and also a pot of caramel biscuit spread which was on sale in Sainsbury's too :P). I can whole heartedly recommended all of them, they are so delicious (not very healthy though, so be warned if you do buy some- you will eat it all!). Me and my brother have been dipping everything in them :P:

 

 

Hehehe, did you spot the little bunny in the middle of all the jars? He is my latest little friend :) He is called Mr bunny and he is a hand needle felted little character made by a lady on the IOW. He was displayed in chocolate apothecary (along with some of his needle felted friends also available for sale). I have decided he is going to come with me lots of places as he can fit in my pocket and is quite an adventurous chap (as long as he gets his regular chocolate boost! :P).

 

Some other cool things I got in the Isle of Wight were these cool fashion plates- they are actually from the era so they are real fashion relics!!!:

 

They are so interesting to me- especially after completing costume history this year. They are the kind of things I see on slide shows so to own some is amazing! :) There were a pile in an antiques shop and they were only about £4 each- a really good price. I am going to frame them and hang them in my room to make it even more like a couture house :-)

 

And I also got these 3 little guys:

 

To add to my hamster collection! They were also handmade on the IOW (at the Arreton barns craft cabin)

 

My friend Eleanor recently visited the IOW as part of her holidays and she sent me lots of postcards from all the places she had visited which were lovely to receive and learn what she had been up to in the place I love :)

 

Hehehe, now I have finished being an Isle of Wight  promoter I will move on!

 

This is the last thing I have to share with all you lovely people. Not anything about holidays- I promise- because you are all probably sick of my holiday updates by now :oP As most of you will probably already know, my dad teaches maths at a primary school. He tries to make the lessons really fun and engaging and one of his aids is a little monkey toy which when it is tossed to you you answer a question :) Up until now the monkey just had a little badge on the front which said 'I LOVE MATHS' but my dad asked me if I could make him a new little shirt. I was happy to accept this fun challenge (definitely the first time I have made anything for a monkey :P)  and this is what I created for the little dude:

 

I also gave him a little pencil so he can write down all his clever maths calculations!

 

I really hope the kids like his t-shirt :-) My dad gave me a big hug- from both him and Nev (the monkeys name)

 

I better go now as Big brother is on (my guilty pleasure!) and then I have to get to bed ready to start my Wedding Dress sewing course tomorrow! Wooooooooooo! I am soo excited :D I will of course post pictures of my make :)

 

Keep an eye out as the giveaway I mentioned is coming soon also as I have collected all the bits for it now :)

 

I hope you are all well, speak to you again soon,

 

Byeeeee XxXxXxX

 

P.s. all the new makes I posted a teaser of in my last post are up in my shop now so please do check them out :)

 

Byeeee Xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

I am very happy!

Hi everyone,

I am very happy for many reasons :) Firstly because of the wonderful surprise I got yesterday! I was 'sneak attacked' on etsy (which is actually a good thing) my shop was chosen and promoted on the sneak attack blog by the wonderful sneak attack etsy team (as my shop is fairly undiscovered by most)- and guess what- because of this promotion I made my first sale!!! I also found out about the whole scheme and joined the team do I can find out about other cool small shops and help get them noticed like they helped me :) here is the blog: http://handmademovement.blogspot.co.uk they were promoting lots of good shops so check it out for some good etsy gift ideas!

Secondly I got my papers yesterday to confirm that I definitely passed my first year of uni. Both my friends got into uni too! So good news all round and a huge congrats to my friends :-)

Thirdly I have made more progress on the red dress 1/2 scale I have had as a long term project at home.  Here is how the gathering of the skirt is going, it was kind up a made up process of pinching and twisting the larger petticoat to gather it up to be the same size as the lining :) It is just like I wanted though and I think it is quite effective:

Fourthly (if fourthly is even a thing you can say? :p)  I am enjoying spending lots of time with my lovely family! We walked over the 02 the other day. That was a cool experience.  Here are some of the shots of the view. Walking up was actually quite hard it was quite steep (the walkway):

And I am off with my family to Lyme Regis tomorrow so that should be fun to explore together! :) 

I hope you are all happy as well :-)

I will be back to chat with Al of you my lovely readers super soon,

Byeee xxx

Soutache style jewellery tutorial

Hellooo,

As I mentioned in my last post I have been putting together a special tutorial for you all :0) And the tutorial is for some Soutache style jewellery:

Soutache is a really interesting craft that I learnt about when watching Create and Craft one morning :) It is essentially a craft which uses braid and beads/gems which are all sewn in pretty, often swirled patterns to create beautiful jewellery and decorations- used to decorate military uniforms in the past. There is tons more information and soutache inspiration on This! website. When watching create and craft I really wanted to try making soutache items but... I didn't have any special soutache cord, backing material etc... However, after a bit of experimentation I found you could create soutache style pieces (see picture above) using items that most crafters will have in their stashes (+ a bit of imagination of course :)

The piece I made above is just to give you an idea of the kind of thing you can make- I encourage you to go with the flow really, I just 'free styled it really'- coming up with the design as I sewed, and just swirling the cords and adding beads however looked good.

To begin you will need:

• Some shiny/slightly silky fabric (remnants will do)
• Felt
• Flat back stones/gems or larger flat beads
• seed beads (optional)
• A pen/pencil
• A hot glue gun/craft glue (not needed if you are not incorporating flat backs)
• A roleau turner (optional- but it does make things easier)
• Needles and Matching colour threads.
• Scissors
• And as I said before a bit of imagination! :)

Now onto how to do it:

I mentioned that instead of using braid I came up with and alternative and that alternative is lengths of roleau (a cord made using long thin strip of fabric cut on the bias which is stitched and then turned through). There is quite an informative tutorial for how to make roleau cords Here! That page also shows you how to turn through your roleau using the needle and thread method. Whereas in my quick roleau tutorial below I just use a roleau turner. 

Right so ad I mentioned to make your roleau cord take your chosen fabric and cut some bias (45 to the selvedge or straight of grain this gives the fabric more movement and stretch so helps when bending the roleau and turning it through) strips (make them about half the width of a standard ruler and just as long as you can get from your remnants :)

Fold each strip right side to right side and sew down the strip about 3 - 4 mm in from the fold. Then trim down your seam allowances to a few mm:

Turn through:

You now have your mock - soutache cord and can begin creating you design...

... Cut a square of felt big enough for your design and take the flat back or bead you want in the centre of your design/to start with and glue or sew it down in position on the felt:

Now, as I said before I didn't want to create a tutorial for the exact piece I made as it is often nice for people to explore their own ideas so I am not going to go through the exact positioning for my roleau but I will go though the special way of sewing them in so you can hide all your stitches- then you can just go with it and sew them in it whatever positions you like. Also just as a note you can sew two cords on together at the same time (just follow the stitch below but go through two cords at the same time).

Firstly put a no knot in your thread and come up from the back near your gem. Take the piece of roleau you want and pass the needle and thread through it from the folded edge to the front seam:

Then go back through, slightly further along, through the front seam to the folded edge and back down into the felt, again slightly further along than where you came up out from:

This is the stitch you use to sew on your roleau. Just keep going all the way around etc.. doing this until your cord is fixed down how you want it. You are effectively hiding your stitches in the roleau seam :)

If you want to secure two ends of a roleau together just go backwards and forwards through each end a few times (again hiding your stitches in the seams) before passing your needle to the back and knotting off:

You can play around and sew the ends how you want:

TO finish off the raw cut ends just glue them slightly to prevent fraying and over sew them down (or pass them through the back of the felt using a large needle).

Keep adding more roleau cords to your design- you can even get little Catherine wheel type swirls by rolling up the roleau and passing your needle and thread back and forth a few times through the wheel and down into the felt to secure:

Add more gems/beads by glueing or sewing :) sewing seed beads in between the roleau can look good (I deliberately spaced about my roleau when sewing it so I could do this more easily):

I sewed them on on bunches of three with a running type stitch:

Here is a close up of how I finished my ends (you could do this for each end individually if you didn't want to overlap them):

Thu back doesn't have to be too neat :p when you are happy cut around it- be careful not to cut any of your stitching though! :

Trace around your piece onto another piece of felt and cut the shape out:

Glue or sew this 2nd piece onto the back of your soutache style creation, add a brooch pin or whatever you want and you are good to go:

Look, all done! :-):

He he he, I hope you like the tutorial. If anyone makes any soutache style jewellery using my tutorial I would love to see pics so please do post a link or send me a picture (iitki@hotmail.co.uk)

Also if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask and I will try to explain things better :p

See you all soon, I hope you are having a lovely weekend,

bye xxxxx