Project Maternity has BEGUN!

Basically in the last couple of days I've decided enough is enough! I've been avoiding sewing clothes for the past 3 months because of my pregnancy. I've been treating maternity wear as this sort-of mystical magical thing and it's not! Just like sewing any garments it's about research, planning and thinking through the problems logically.

SO.... I'm making my own spring/summer wardrobe... I don't know yet how many garments this wardrobe will consist but I'm going for it... and I shall call it:

STAGE ONE! RESEARCH!!
I'm not looking at the bump-alteration business at the moment, I'm looking for patterns/styles that will (or can with slight modification) accommodate some belly... so that's things made out of jersey/stretch materials, wrap arounds, empire lines.

so first... from Burda Styles January issue.

 and from burdastyle's March issue:

 This Kaftan dress is particularly Maternalicious, check it out:

now... haahah I'm not EVER going to wear ANYTHING white... but look at that waist! ... tie back... expands until forever... this is the key to maternity sewing I think :-)

 In this issue they've even got things to make for babies, how perfect!

The next stage is... err editing! I seem to have found LOADS of patterns that will either work more-or-less how they are or with some alternation, I need to decide what garments are going to make it to the final line-up... how many garments I need... and then look at the fabrics out there and decide a colour scheme....

Am I brave or mad?

"Well Loved" Bear

 

I can let you in on this Christmas secret because it's for my mother in law, and the likelihood of her getting on the Internet and checking my blog is VERY remote! She doesn't do the interwebs!

To really get the full picture you need a bit of background story.

My mother in law is crazy about bears... they cover her house... REALLY... to the extent where we can't just 'pop' round, they need a couple of hours notice to tidy the bears off the couch :-)

I mean it's worse than this:

worse than this:

and worse than this:

infact put the three of those together, that's her front room, FACT!

How does she acquire these bears? well, like me she has a deep appreciation for charity shops, which means that the majority of bears she brings home look something like this:

 

So, I decided that the only nice thing to do was to give her a piece of embroidered art this Christmas to commemorate her love affair with all things stuffed and tattered. 

It's applique and embroidery, using blanket stitch, a smidge of satin stitch and chain stitch (I <3 Chain stitch) at some points using 3 stands and at others 2 strands of embroidery floss. The buttons came off one of Alex's old shirts that I cannibalised in payment for making some cloaks for his star wars action figures, the frame was 50p from a charity shop! All of the fabric I used I actually got for free form my beautiful sister in law XD

not very geeky, but definitely sweet :-)

x G

What I did on my lunch break today....

50's style shelf bust with poofy lolita style skirt... oh.. and hello kitty detail!

I think I could get used to this clothes designing malarky.... I REALLY REALLY need a dressform!

this seems good at argos an adjusable dressform for £100...  tempted!... .

x G

Supergirl Costume

2 blog posts in one day?! I'm trying to be good... keeping a record of what I'm doing, as I'm doing it... anyhow... one day who knows?! somebody might actually read this shizzle.

Right... My sister-in-law is having a party beginning of september... a fancy dress party... 'heroes and villans' the Geeky Seamstress in me cried a little cry of happiness!

So this is what I'm going for:

This is what I've got so far:

and this is the fabric I've got:

I'm a little dissapointed... I dont think I'm going to use the shiny gold fabric (it's called 'lame'... that confused me.... shiny lame fabric?) because it's not on Helen Slater's costume and has only started to be applied to newer interpretations of the outfit ... I thought about making it into binding strip and hemming the skirt, cuffs and cape with it, but it's not stretchy and if I hem the cuffs with it I won't be able to put my hands through... and if I don't it wont look 'together' all the gold'll be on the bottom and nowhere else...

anyhow... thats what I'm thinking so far :-)

G x