Nautical Arum Dress

This is a dress I originally made for one of our Lovely Club meet ups that took place at Wellington Museum of City and Sea - the theme was nautical so obviously I made it from nautical themed fabric. I bought the fabric from The Fabric Store and although it has the standard nautical motif of an anchor I think its a little different to the standard nautical fabric you can buy (you can see a better photo of the fabric in the last picture of this post).

The pattern I chose to use was the Arum dress from French pattern company Deer & Doe,  I'm not going to lie guys this dress caused me ALL kinds of drama. The main problem was the GAPE! SO MUCH GAPE! I had to take the dress in a bunch to make it fit right and to be honest next time I make this dress I think I'm just going to go down a size.

I guess that's the problem with the shift type dresses, they are meant to be worn looser, but how loose is a matter of personal choice and perhaps I prefer my dresses to me a little more close fitting than most. However, the gape around the neckline was an almost disaster which resulted in nearly tears and much support required from Rich and my sewing friends (Ria, Emma, Jo, Joy and Shell) but I managed to come through the other side.

I have to admit when I first finished up this dress I was still not a fan, but I wore it to our Lovely Club meet up and I've worn it a few times since and its really grown on me.

It also may have helped that I wore this dress to work and a bunch of people told me how great this dress was. Including a lady in one of the lifts who I don't know as she works in a totally different building (I work for a large government department and National Office is spread over three buildings) who told me how great it was and when I told her I made it myself she asked if I could make her something. I obviously don't make stuff for random people because I  feel like I  have zero time to sew for myself and friends/family as it is. Still its nice to be asked right?

This skirt is a little crinkled in these photos as they were taken after Rich and I had been having a picnic at Atrim House and I'd been sitting down for a while. As nice as our courtyard is it was good to take some outfit photos somewhere a bit fancier!

Atrim House is currently the offices of Heritage New Zealand, but it was originally the home of Robert Hannah and his wife Hannah (I guess she must have been Hannah Hannah which seems pretty unfortunate). If you live in New Zealand you've probably bought something from the company that Mr Hannah founded at least once, I think I got all of my school shoes from Hannahs and many other pairs shoes as well including my first pair of knee high boots.

This building has also been used as a hotel and a public servant hostel - I think its pretty great that even though its used as offices the public is welcome to spend time in the grounds and apparently you can visit the front rooms on weekdays. I'm normally working at the time its open to the public, but I hope at some point I will be free to look at the inside. Until then I will just enjoy the exterior and the pretty gardens.

It was a lot of fun taking these photos at a more "exotic" location, I think I will try and do it more in the future (as long as my photographer aka Rich) is willing.

As for the Lovely Club meet up? It was a smaller crowd than usual - but we had a blast at the museum and here's some suitably ridiculous photos, because that's how we roll (ok they aren't ALL ridiculous).

In this last one Joy and I are having a "Titanic" moment - just in case you were confused.

Finally, to finish off a selfie from Antrim House. I have been up to a couple of fun Christmas type things with my friends, so hopefully I can share these with you all before Christmas day but time is ticking by rather quickly!

Unicorns and Rainbow Dress

Something very weird is happening in my creative world lately, I don't know quite how its happened, but lately I have no desire to make anything for myself outside of costumes. It's weird. Very weird. All of the projects I have on the boil are presents for friends, or friends children or some cool guy who has a birthday soon. I'm not really interested in making anything for myself.

Seriously, I don't know what's happening guys? I have a tonne of patterns and fabric for me, but none of it is calling my name. Why?

I guess the important thing is I am STILL sewing and I STILL want to sew, just not for me. Maybe that's totally ok.

Anyway on the topic of sewing, last Saturday my friend Emma asked me to join her and a few other girls to join her for a sewing day. She even made gluten free banana bread - hurrah!

So what did I end up working on? Well nothing for me - obviously. However, this year I've decided to embrace "using the good fabric" along with a couple of my friends. This Lisa Frank style unicorn fabric was definitely the "good"  fabric and I cute up a sewed with it regardless! MAGICAL!

This is a little dress I've made for my forever work BFF - we don't actually work at the same place anymore, but she's still my work BFF. She is having a baby girl in December, so I decided to make her a dress for the baby to be as  I knew she would love this fabric.

Who WOULDN'T love this fabric, I only had a metre of it so it had been lingering in my stash for a while as I didn't know quite what to do with it. I originally bought the fabric from fabric destash central, which is a NZ fabric destash group on facebook.

This is a tried and true pattern that you guys have seen a bunch of times here, here and here and I've made another version that I am yet to blog! It's such a cute and simple dress for a little girl. I also started another little project - it's nautical themed, here's a sneak peak.

Yes, those little whales are wearing tiny tailor hats. This is going to be a pretty cute dress when it's finished.

If you are a sewist, what have you been making lately? Anyone else found their selfless sewing mojo?

Nuts for Nautical Swap

Recently I took part in a "Nuts for Nautical" swap on craftster - I have a rather soft spot for all things nautical. So even though I have a lot of crafting things I need to sort out at the moment, I decided I HAD to join up.

Here's the goodies I received from my partner in Scotland:

First up is a set of cute brooches - my favourite is the sail boat, next a hair clip and bracelet with a few extra anchor charms, then and cute wee tote bag and finally a bunting. I seriously LOVE this bunting, its something I've wanted for ages and I know its easy to make but I just never "got around" to making one. I like it a whole bunch. I shall post pictures of my creations once my partner receives her package.

Swap-o-rama

Here's a couple of swaps I recently finished via craftster, I have been trying to keep swapping to a minimum in the months leading up to leaving Korea. However there was a cupcake swap and a rockabilly swap at the same time so I couldn't really resist.

First of all the rockabilly swap - here's the goodies I made for my partner.

First of a pair of cherry earrings and nautical themed bracelet. I especially love the bracelet and I think I may have to make another one for me.Next up is a cross-stitched passport cover. I am really happy with the way this one came out - it's a little altered from the original pattern but I think it's pretty cool.The grand final is a tiki/Hawiian style embriodered jacket! I didn't make the jacket as I fon't have a sewing machine and I'm not going to kid myself. I couldn't make a jacket anyway! However, I did embrioder the jacket by hand with a sexy hula girl and palm tree. My partner is in the UK and it's summer there so it's a light summer jacket and it's modelled in the photo's by yours truely.

Here's the goodies I recieved for the rockabilly swap - first of all a very cool zombie pin up doll. She's crochet and totally awesome, she's also getting on rather well with my crochet leather face doll I recieved in another swap.
I also recieved a pair of crochet cherry earrings - how cool are these? I have quite a lot of cherry earrings but none that are crochet. Very awesome. Finally a new furry home for my netbook - it's like my netbook lives in a muppet now!The second swap I took part in was a cupcake swap! My partner was a girl from Australia with a love of all things cupcake and gothic/horror movie related. Perhaps we were separated at birth?

Here's the things I made for the swap. First up I embellished a little tote bag with some zombie cupcakes and some skully bows.
I made a needle felted zombie cupcake for my partner, she has a zombie cupcake tattoo and this wee felted monster was inspired by her tattoo.

So my creation is quite different to her tattoo but it was my inspiration only - I didn't want to try and totally re-create it!Next up is some cupcake cross-stitch. Rich created the patterns for the cupcake cross-stitch and they are awesome! There is only one key ring - it's double sided and a little blue cupcake pillow.

I also made a little shrine/trinket box from an old mint box I had. The inside says "life is just a cup of cake" as that's the name of a cupcake store in Seoul.
I also made a couple of cupcake charms which I am so happy with, I think they came out really well.I also made this charm bracelet - it's got skulls on it which has nothing to do with cupcakes but I thought my partner would like it. She said she put it on as soon as she opened the package so it must be a winner.I also made these cute little cupcake earrings from some cupcake charms I bought at Dongdaemun markets - they are pretty simple but I think they work well.Finally I made this little "cake" from a Korean craft set I bought - it's just for fun but I thought it was super cute.Finally - here's what I recieved for the cupcake swap. Its a pretty great stash! First of all a ceramic cupcake jar, a cupcake plushie and some cupcake fabric. I think the fabric would make an awesome bolero - if only I had a sewing machine and the skill to make a bolero.Next item is a "skull cupcake" jewellery set - a necklace and some earrings. I love these - two of my favourite things in one.She also made me these cute cupcake fridge magnets and sent me some cupcake buttons which I don't seem to be able to get a good picture of!
Next up we have a charm bracelet - I'm really into bracelets at the moment as I can actually wear them and people can see them. I felt that when I was living in Wellington I was always wearing long sleeves so there was no point in wearing bracelets!

The clapse on this one is skull and bones and it has metal cupcakes as well as plastic ones my partner has made. The plastic ones spell out "cupcake" on one side and "Teresa" on the other. Finally, we have hairbows and more hairbows. I've worn the pink animal print and white skull one so far. I love them all though!