This was not a planned project. This was the impulse product of a frenzied Saturday afternoon at the craft table – I was restless, I wanted to make something already (I was halfway through cutting a pattern that’s too big for my craft table and requires the dinner table, and had thus been moved from front room to bedroom and back about three times) and … third Saturday is Wendy House Saturday. Continue reading
After two years of demon-haunted mayhem, the current campaign for my once-a-month LARP club is coming to an end. Come September, we’re kicking off an all-new sword-and-sorcery adventure, which means new characters, which means NEW KIT! My ambition for my new character was to make all of her costume (clothes, not counting equipment) myself, top to bottom …
Since I took up LARPing, the bottom half of my basic LARP outfit has been an increasingly disgusting and widely-patched pair of M&S black jeans, largely concealed by a tunic or surcoat at the top and greaves at the bottom. For the new character, whose jerkin is only hip-length and who doesn’t wear greaves (light-armoured fighters represent!) I needed something that I would be happy to have visible as part of the costume. And I’ve secretly wanted a pair of leather trousers for ages, so … Continue reading
This post is light on photos because black on black is a pain to photograph and also I forgot.
Something that initially became clear when I surveyed my me-made workshop (see this post), and which has become even more obvious during Me-Made May, is that I am seriously lacking in a) me-made casualwear, b) me-made trousers and c) the intersection of the two.
Naturally, this couldn’t continue, so when I happened on an interesting-looking trouser pattern I snapped it up. Continue reading
My fabric stash, while I do my best to contain it, is still taking up all the available storage space (one small bookshelf, one small cupboard, one cardboard box, many bags) and threatening to expand. I am trying to keep it down, but I’m not against its expansion per se.
My pattern stash, on the other hand, fits in a large shoebox. I want to get rid of some of the patterns I have, with the realisation that I probably won’t use them. I’m not planning to stop buying patterns completely, but I don’t want the stash to outgrow the shoebox. A shoebox-sized pattern library seems like about enough. Continue reading
I am one of those people who practically lives in jeans when not at work, and so when my go-to pair of black jeans showed signs of finally giving up the ghost a couple of months ago, it was clear that something had to be done.
The something in question, as it has been more and more often the longer I keep at this mad hobby, turned out to be “BUY FABRIC AND LET’S DO THIS THING.”
April 30th! I’m not quite sure where the month’s gone. (I’m sure it was February just recently …) Anyway, tomorrow we head into May, and with it one of the landmark events of the sewing blogosphere year: Me-Made May. Continue reading
So! I do love my superhero movies, and the current Avengers-centric movies have IMO been pretty good as the genre goes (except Iron Man 2.) The second Captain America movie was released earlier in April, and it’s not a spoiler to say that the Winter Soldier is in it because it’s in the subtitle. Continue reading
I wrote a little while ago about the Topshop jacket that currently holds the title for Least Tasteful Item in my wardrobe but, sadly, doesn’t actually fit. (If you happen to be a UK14 and love really loud prints, drop me an email!) I mentioned in that post that it was going now, rather than previously, because I was planning to replace it. Naturally the replacement had to be as loud, or louder…
Two things in the sewing blogosphere have recently had me thinking about gaps in my wardrobe, and specifically gaps in my home-made wardrobe. One is the Colette Wardrobe Architect project, ongoing and in its last stages; the other is Me-Made May ’14, which will (naturally) start in May.
MMM is an annual event that encourages people who make their own clothes to make a specific point of wearing them – or figuring out why they don’t want to. Especially if you’re relatively new to sewing your own clothes it’s easy to end up with things that, in hindsight, don’t fit well enough, are made in the wrong fabric, aren’t quite your thing, are your thing but don’t go with anything else you own … any number of reasons. But it’s easy to miss that this is happening – after all, how much attention does one typically pay to the clothes you aren’t wearing? Continue reading
The Geeky Seamstress nominated me for a Liebster Award!
It seems to be one of those things of which the origins have been lost in the mists of Internet, but the general principle is that it’s a way of prompting bloggers you like to talk about themselves a bit, introducing one’s readers to other blogs they might not know about and generally spreading the love.
You answer five questions about yourself, nominate five blogs with <500 followers to be the next generation, and post five questions for them to answer. And on it goes.
The Questions
It’s a Dungeons & Dragons joke. The Craft skill in D&D is the one you check against if you want your character to try and make something – from simple household items up to complicated magical McGuffins. One of its sub-skills is Craft (Alchemy), which is for making potions, explosives, that kind of thing. I picked it for the figurative usage of ‘alchemy’ – one of the things I love best about sewing is being able to turn a flat piece of fabric and a pile of notions into a 3D, wearable garment. It still feels a bit like magic sometimes.
At the moment? Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag multiplayer mode. Pirate-era murder tag, in remarkably addictive ten-minute bursts. Also the AC series has increasingly detailed attention to backgrounds and ambiance as they’ve gone on, and the character costumes in Black Flag are gorgeous.
Being in the shower or otherwise being out of reach of a piece of paper. (Without. Fail.) A good joke or witty line will get filed away for use on a future RP character. I’m a LARPer too, and a sucker for creative use of space in games – it doesn’t have to be just two teams fighting one another on flat ground – so interesting places will sometimes provoke the “You could script an amazing fight scene in here …” reaction.
Songs with a story to them, cool science facts, instrumental music that sounds like it should have something epic and cinematic happening alongside. Lego. No, really.
I don’t own a TV these days and have never watched all that much of it, so, um. BBC quiz shows. Tennant-era Doctor Who. I adored Thunderbirds as a kid but went off it when my youngest brother went through that phase small children have of watching one episode of a thing 47 times in a row. Also men’s figure skating and the Eurovision Song Contest.
The boring/cynical answer is that I’m not going to last long without my contact lenses and a supply of saline. If we’re talking a metaphorical deserted island/remote Scottish holiday cottage sort of thing, then a stack of notebooks and something to write with will keep me occupied for a long time.
The Nominees
Now to nominate the next link in the chain. These are all relatively recent discoveries on my part:
The Fabric Alchemist, who’s done some amazing Assassin’s Creed costumes among many other things;
English Girl at Home, whose recent makes include a fox-shaped draught excluder and Star Trek mini skirt;
Lady Sewalot, who recently did an amazing Yvaine (Stardust) costume for her birthday;
Twirl Designs, whose motto is “Twirl-worthy clothing!” – words to live by;
and Squishy Lab, who has a chicken called T-Rex.
And the questions for them:
Happy reading and happy blogging, all!
