Kawaii High Tea

If you've been following my blog lately you would be forgiven for thinking that not much has been happening here in Wellington. It has, but at the same time I feel like the winter has really been dragging and I am well and truly ready for it to be over.

This weekend was fun though as an event I had planning with some friends for a long time finally happened - we had a Kawaii High Tea.

What is kawaii you ask? Well the internet explains that it means - "lovable", "cute", or "adorable"

I decided my kawaii outfit would be kind of witch themed, I started with this pattern that Ria bought me a while ago, we had been planning to make the same jacket for a while and the Kawaii High Tea was the perfect time to do it!

I also have a lot of creepy cute fabric in my stash, because I love creepy things. I also apparently love purple as well because I had a bunch of purple fabric.

So here's the thing about this jacket, when I read my measurements on the envelope it said I would be a size 22. I'm pretty weary of the HUGE amount of ease big pattern companies seem to put into their garments and that just didn't seem right. So Ria and I measured the pieces and it seemed that a 16 would fit better.

But as you can see from the photos, its still really too big especially in the shoulders. However this is also because I started cutting this out when we first came back from our trip to the USA. While we were over there I ate all the food and put on some weight. Since I've come back I've dropped back to my normal size. I'm not one for making or buying clothes that will "fit me when I lose weight" but maybe I should have know better and in this case made a size smaller.

Although the jacket is obviously too big in the shoulder which makes it look pretty wonky I did have fun making this jacket and I feel a bit more confident with my sewing after making it - plus I managed to use a bunch of fabric that had been sitting around for a long time.

Both of the fabrics I used were from Spotlight and had been bought when I was shopping and thinking - oh this is cute, I will find a think to make with it sometime. Also known as fabrics bought solely for the fabric stash!

Here's some of the trim I used for the jacket - I bought the purple trim from Pete's Emporium and although I bought 3 metres it wasn't enough. So I went to Made on Marion and bought 4 metres of broderie anglaise but that wasn't enough either! So I ended up using the purple trim around the bottom part of the jacket and the broderie anglaise along the top part.

I think that my favourite thing about the jacket though is the big bow at the back - I love it!

As for what I wore underneath the jacket, I wasn't entirely happy with it. I actually really like this simple little shift dress and I know I will get a lot of use from it in the "real world" however, I don't think it was the right thing to wear under the jacket.

I really should have used what was on the pattern envelope as a guide and made either the skirt that came with the pattern or another equally full skirt. I think the straight skirt under the full jacket looked weird.

However, I was running out of time to finish though and I decided to go with what I knew and made another dress from Maudella 5619, rather than a full skirted dress pattern I was less familiar with.

Even if it didn't work as well with my costume, I love this dress because I love the creepy trees and bats. I got this fabric on sale from spotlight as well, it hadn't been sitting around as long as the purple fabrics though.

You may be wondering about the actual high tea itself? Well I can say it was AWESOME! It was at a new to me high tea place called Louis Sergeant. I wish I had taken more photos of the interior of the restaurant as it was beautiful, but I kind of forgot. I did however take photos of our table and the high tea.

It was  also important to get photos of my friends looking pretty awesome in their Kawaii outfits!

My friend Jo bought a selfie stick along - I'm a cheese ball and I love selfie sticks, so we took a few photos (we could have spent all day playing with that selfie stick).

We were even generous enough to let some of the others at the table play with the selfie stick for a bit.

When the tea stopped being poured - we decided it was time to leave, but there was still time for a few more photos over at the Old Bank Arcade.

It was a really fun morning out and I now know two things for sure, one I need more dress up fun times with friends and two I really need to replace my horrible camera!

Super heroes dress!

The weekend after I returned from my trip to the USA it was time for Armageddon - it was my original plan to make some kind of Lumpy Space Princess cosplay when I got back from my trip to wear to Armageddon but I just ran out of time and energy to do that.

But I didn't want to go to Armageddon in non-themed clothes - so I looked in my stash and found this fabric I bought a while back with lady super heroes!

 I felt like I was lacking in motivation and brain power, so I made one of my favourite tried and true patterns that the lovely Vix sent me, the pattern is Maudella 5619 and I've made it a bunch of times including here, here and here (to name a only a few).

I didn't have enough of this fabric to make a whole dress, so I mixed it up with some plain black cotton (which I really need more of, I always go for the bright colours and patterns first). I was really happy with the way it turned out for a quick make with a slightly jet-lagged brain.

Here's a couple of photos with some very crumpled fabric - I've made plenty of clothes in the past from quilting cotton and they have wrinkled pretty easily, but this fabric is especially bad for creases for some reason. I added the black side panels as I didn't have enough fabric to go around and I also added a black strip down the back.

 

Did I enjoy Armageddon this year you may ask? The short answer is that is wasn't as fun as other years I've been and part of the reason may be that I wasn't in costume. However, when we went on Saturday it was INSANELY busy!! We could hardly move and it was hard to see any of the stalls and get photos with people in costume which was a bit of  bummer.

If I go in 2016 I think I will take Friday off and go then as hopefully it will be less busy as there were just too many people. 

The characters Shell and I got to meet were pretty cool though - the Ogie Boogy Man and Totoro!

I thought I'd finish this post off with an ACTUAL costume - last weekend we went to Auckland for Rich's sisters 40th, it was a dress up party so we went as Mexican day of the dead skulls.Obviously.

Hope you guys all had a super weekend xox

Pretty in Paisley

As you know - I love 1960s and 1970s vintage. The colours and the designs are so fun and bright and bold. I'm not one for modern minimalism.

Recently I found that a local vintage store Unearthed sells a lot of beautiful vintage fabrics and patterns and I've bought a few metres of fabric from them. The fabric they sell is a little more pricey than what I am usually prepared to pay for vintage fabric. However, the store is beautifully curated and I love looking at all the vintage goodies. Plus I like to shop locally, because if you buy everything from the internet because its  cheaper, pretty soon there won't be anywhere to buy anything!

Recently I bought some lovely purple and blue paisley fabric from Unearthed and decided I wanted to make a dress from it. I didn't want to risk any mistakes, so I stuck with a tried and true pattern for the dress.

 It's a pretty simple frock - but the fabric kind of speaks for itself, you kind of don't want to use any complicated pattern when there is THIS MUCH happening with the fabric.

I had my hair cut yesterday - it looks so "under control" in these pictures. But I'll wash it, then it will be all big and crazy again.

I hope you are all having a great weekend! It's been mighty cold in Wellington - just a reminder that winter had a long way to go yet.

The Vix Dress

Hello Folks! Thanks for your lovely supportive comments on my last blog post - sorry to be such a bummer.

The bad news is I am still not 100% - but the good news is I received an e-mail from the passport office and my application is being processed.

Now onto much happier things - my latest sewing project! I've named it the Vix dress after the amazing Vix of Vintage Vixen.

It's named Vix as I can see her totally rocking this fabric - also it embraces her ability to recycle all kinds of fabric (Queen of curtain couture) and I also used a pattern she gave me to create the dress.

So let's start at the beginning of the project shall we? A couple of weeks back I picked up this EPIC maxi skirt from a second hand shop. It DID fit me, but it wasn't very flattering. Also it was handmade by a very tall lady as it was very long on me (as in dragging on the ground and I'm not that short - I'm 168 cm).

However, I decided to buy it anyway as I loved the fabric and I thought I could "make it work" somehow.

However, when I got home I really decided I couldn't make it work in its current form and seen as it needed to be shortened anyway I figured I would see if I could re-fashion the skirt.

Some people are so good at re-fashioning clothes, they can see the potential in any old crap and next thing its a couple of snips here and a few seams here and its awesome. It's a skill I wish I could say I have - but I just don't (believe me, I've tried a number of times).

Instead I used the skirt as a piece of fabric and decided to see what pattern I could use to turn it into something else.

In the end I decided to use the Maudella Pattern that Vix gave me to make the dress - I've made this pattern a whole bunch of times before including here and here, but this was the first time I've made it in a woven fabric rather then a stretch fabric.

I was crossing my fingers it would all come together and hurrah it did - I was able to recycle the whole skirt, including the zipper.

Here is the finished dress - looking slightly wonky on the coat hanger - but I am very happy with the final product. I just love the fabric so much.

I wore this dress to work today - but I had to wear a cardi as well as its kind of chilly at the moment (note to self, next time take the coat hanger down before snapping photos).

I hope you guys all have a great week - here's to good health and a current passport by the end of the week!

The Monthly Stitch - Frocktober - Purple Velvet Dress

You may remember this post where I told you all my plan for frocktober was to make one Halloween themed dress for each week in October. I feel like I may have over-committed myself, but I am going to continue to try and make four Halloween inspired/themed dresses even if some of them come into existence after Halloween.

Here's my second Halloween themed dress - its purple (again) and its a very deep shade of purple. This is more of a gothic witch inspired frock.

So I should let you all know that the last couple days have been EXTREMELY windy, even by Wellington standards and that's been putting my haircut to the test. Which is a problem, my haircuts are usually based on being manageable in our wild weather conditions!

This is another dress made from Maudella 5619 - basically when I find a pattern I love I used it around a billion times! I'm not as crazy about this version of the dress as early versions, I may try it with a belt and see if I like it more.

I am currently working on my fourth Halloween dress and I have started stitching it up - want a sneak peak? Well here you go!

It's being made from a pattern I've never used before *shock horror* the Derby Dress pattern by Christine Haynes. I'm making the fabric on the right and I'm using black cotton and some of that sweet little ghost/coffin fabric. 

Just one thing before I go - I thought I'd share my wee ghost necklace - I think he adds an extra creepy cute touch to the outfit.

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend - now its time to go and sew up my next dress!