I know what the boys want, I'm not going to play

After hearing a lot of Lana Del Rey on the radio, I finally caved and acquired her album a while ago 'Born to Die'. Yes yes I am considerably quite slow on the uptake. And was sceptical about it for a while, but no harm has been done. In fact, it has reignited my love for Vladamir Nabokov's Lolita. Miss Del Rey has described herself as ''Lolita got lost in the hood' and makes literal, and some not so literal references to the book.
 

"Light of your life, fire of your loins'

 

 

On my commutes to work I listened to it a lot for about a week. There was a lot I liked about the album, but there was something that i didn't like that much which took me forever to figure out. There is also quite a lot I do like about her also. She is quite nice on the eyes, has amazing hair...rocks the vintage look way to well....grrr...

Anyway, the intrigue wore off after not too long. As I had a feeling it was going to. 

Wiki Source 

The reason why Lana Del Rey and her Lolita obsession ....can you really self proclaim yourself as Lolita? Doesn't that contradict the concept of it just a little bit? If you can call yourself one, don't you lose that innocent/naive charm of a Lolita?

Anywho, just a thought.

I'd rather talk about Lolita instead. One of the few books I've actually EVER read. Something about those kinds of stories draw me in.... I don't read often, or ever really....and will always watch a movie over a book. I just put it down as I have a short attention span, and am always multitasking while watching movies as well (mainly sewing!!)
 

I borrowed (actually still have) the book which is my close friends dads copy. It's incredibly old, and falling apart, and I had to start carrying it around in a plastic sleeve because just opening the pages was doing it damage. Oops.



 

After watching the movie about a year and a half ago I went on a google image spree. What Dolores wears in the movie. Oh how dandy all her clothing is. Listening to Lana Del Rey reminded me I MUST make some of these for myself for spring/summer. Below are the essentials.





 The blue two piece play suit and the black and white two piece with lace are on the top of the list. I bought two lots of fabric for the playsuit already, don't know which one I like the best yet! 

The white two piece play suit would be great for lounging around in during the summer. Fantastic beach wear too if you made a high waisted bottom as well. I can't imagine actual cotton shorts being great to wear in the water....think of the chaffing.

 

 

essential dolores accessories

 

 

 

 

 

I apologise, all my posts seem to get way longer than I think they will be. Guess I just like the sound of my typing too much.

I leave you with one of my favourite stillstaken from the film. It sums up a lot of the movie in one frame for me 

 My car is limping, Dolores Haze,
And the last long lap is the hardest,
And I shall be dumped where the weed decays,
And the rest is rust and stardust.

Sewing a Stitch - a break down in German!

While reading something miss Lena had posted about a new sewing machine over at The Sewing Space, I noticed a great video she had linked.

It is totally and completely awesome, and there is a huge chance that probably every Internet savvy sewer has seen this....but for all of you like me, who aren't good with staying up to date with these things....Here is the most amusing and informative guide to how a stitch is formed. And all in German with huge models of bobbins and needles for funsies!!

Millinery is an expensive hobbie

This weekend, Hatters Millinery Supplies came down to Canberra from Sydney to do a showing! My Millinery class all meet there and had a fun spent hour walking around in circles around the suiteTrying to choose what we wanted. It was an expensive outting, topped off with a parking fine..... There was no parking in the area so a girl and I parked on some gravel near a church.....when we came back some ugly yellow tickets had appeared and the parking inspector was still hovering around our cars.
"It's illegal to park on the nature strip" he said, tosser!

So many beautiful flowers! I bought two different ones, one light pink and one cream

Capelines

 Most of us bought far too much than we should of! I bought a swatch card with all the colours and types of millinery fabric/blocking supplies they stock on the website, as well as some hat stiffener.

With all the money we saved on shipping, we made up in parking fines. Sad days.

Vinatge veiling and velvet leaves. So pretty. I bought a lot things to try and match the dress I am making for the wedding I am attending in November.

Head band, small head piece, braid which I will use to finish the inside of some hates, pleated crinoline, and some bold black feathers

The fabric I have bought to make my dress for the wedding

A sneak peak of my almost finished hat for Melbourne cup!! Woo!!



P.S!!! 17 Days left of voting for the Tessuti Awards

Proving that all Japanese things are amazing

Woahhhhhweeee!

I stumbled upon these babies earlier this year. A girl in my bra making and swimwear course had a pair she was given when she stopped working at one of the independant fabric store. The moment I held these babies, oh gosh, I knew I had to have them! I took a photo of them and got the model number so I could hunt them down.

They were soft, sharp, smooth, light, elegant and beautiful. Too bad they were $129.00 from this particular fabric store, and I had never seen them anywhere else. Sadly I knew it would be along time before I could bare to part with so much over scissors, so good ol me jumped on eBay, and found.....nothing really....everything was about the same price or more....eeeep!!
I went onto their website which is based in America, only to find that these scissors were....only $59.95??? And then when I emailed them about international shipping, it was only an additional $4!!! Their website boasts the following:

Lowest Internet Pricing Guarantee
We will beat any Kai scissor pricing and still offer free shipping within the USA.

Kai Scissors

How happy am I with this outcome? I just bought the same pair that my friend had, and I think I will buy another pair but larger next time. Perhaps the 11 inch methinks!

There is a huge array of reviews for these scissors online, all saying that they are ammmazing, so if you need a new pair and are tired of the traditional ones you buy from your fabric store, for me that's generally the singer heritage ones in the green tin.

Cutting is pretty much my most dreaded (besides hems) in the whole creating a garment process. I got RSI a few years back in my wrists and the heavy scissors I have at the moment, and have always used definitely have contributed to the wrists hurting and therefore my lack of enjoyment for the whole process.

Oh and another fun fact, something I learnt while I was doing my clothing production course. I HAD HELD SCISSORS UPSIDE DOWN MY WHOLE LIFE!!!
How had know one ever told me this, or noticed? How did this even happen to begin with?
Turns out cutting fabric is a whole lot easier using them the right way up....the whole you can lie your scissors flat while you cut thing is pretty handy!!

I'm pretty happy that I'll have these to use to cut all the chiffon for the wedding dress I'm working on!

What are your favourite sewing shears? Have you found ones that you love just as much as I love these? If so let me know!

p.s. excuse me if this came across as a kai Scissor commercial :p

My Entry - Tuessuti Awards - Spots & Stripes

 

An amazing local photographer, Ben Davies, was nice enough to climb up a big hill with me yesterday hung over so we could get some sweet shots for my entry into the 2012 Tessuti Awards Spots & Stripes.

To read about my progress please have a peep at my last blog post ^__^

If you share this, you will have my forever never fading undying love ~_^ 

Promise! Haha.

Vote ^__^!!

Vote ^__^!!

Vote ^__^!!

Vote ^__^!!

Vote ^__^!!

Vote ^__^!!

Vote ^__^!!

Vote ^__^!!

The Process: Tessuti Awards Spots & Stripes

Drawing on panel line and notch placement

Tokomo Nakamichi's Pattern Magic 2 - 'Fundamentals'

My Tessuti Fabric-Bought them on sale, were still $100!

 Hello ya'll! So the last week, pretty much all I have been doing with my spare time is working on my entry for the Tessuti Awards - Spots & Stripes.

When it was first announced I took advantage of the fabric sale they were having online at the time, and choose all my fabric and put down the $100 bucks. Blergh. What an expensive amount of fabric! I NEVER ever spend that much.

And then guess what happened? I pretty much forgot about it all and then realised with 13 days to go! There was no way I could justify not entering, seeing as I had spent so so much on fabric!!

From the beginning I intended on using the principles from the pictured above Pattern Magic 2 book. I thought the contrast would work well and I also really loved the flared/peplum look it created. Making the pattern was fun, and it turns out when I connect my skirt and blouse block and make a fitted dress block, it fits quite well! Yippee! I haven't ever made myself a pencil dress or anything tight fitting around the underside, but I'm thinking now I will make a wearable toile and see how it goes!

After slicing up the toile

I cut up all the pieces, made sure I adhered to the notches. I didn' put it back onto paper and add seam allowance, instead I re pinned the pieces on to the fabric and added seam allowance as I sewed.

Adding flare through the skirt from the waist for the centre front and back.

 

Progress shots. At points I was pretty unhappy with it.

Hand stitching the lace hem on the corded skirt

I finished the dress the other evening, and took photos with a local photographer up on a ridge at the new Canberra Arboretum, I'd say it's the most beautiful place in canberra. I should get the full lot soon and will share with you my entry and beauitful piccies :)


.......stay tunned!

Welcome home from South America!

Wood pieced image of Machu Picchu

 Welcome back mother and father, from your one month adventure to South America!!! While it's super great your back, I know I'm going to miss being able to use the whole living room as my sewing space!

I picked them up this evening from the airport and the first thing they decided to do was unpack their bag of souveniers, which of course included lots of little trinkets and gifts for all the family. Yayyyy!!! We also looked through some amazing photos, oh gosh I want to go to Machu Picchu, what an incredible place.
While looking through these pictures, I insisted on putting on the Strokes 'Machu Picchu', which was then followed by dad putting on some crazy awesome South American music, which was very fun to dance around to for a short while, as it had a lot of ska elements.

sweet 'baby' alpaca jumper with a pixie hood ^__^ apparently 'baby' alpaca is code for 'maybe' alpaca, according to my parents tour guide.....I actually now wish winter wasn't over so I could wear it more often!!

ah how amazing is this? my granfather was a cabinet maker and would have appreciated this handy work so much

Want to know one of the most awesome things about their trip???  They were on a ten day tour with another couple, and the lady who they were on tour with was a lady named Janet Chang, who helps run Harper's Bazaar magazine!! WHAT ARE THE CHANCES!!! And then, her husdband used to be a part of the ABC and was in Calgary filming the winter olympics in 1988, when my parents were there! Weird! The parents said they were a very lovely people and said she will be coming to Sydney fashion week next year and shall send them some emails about it.....^___^ ah WOOOO!

the most awesome alpaca hat in the world. so ridiculously soft and amazing. too bad dad bought it back for a friend and not me -_- wish I had this for the snow season!

Mum bought me some really awesome feather earings, a 14 carat gold ring, biscuit, shot glass and little bag. Thanks mum ~_^

 Anywho, when I get to see all their beautiful photos I will share some. They only got a little bit sick from altitude sickness which is great!!!

and a present for my little cousin, the hair on the girls is wool, fun to play with!!

For my small following, apologies for the whole week adn 2 days for no posts O_o!!! I know I know.....BUT! I promise I have been super busy (with sewing, and sadly work) and will back post a lot of things soon!

Peace out

The perfect cure for Monday blues, a tribute to Melissa shoes!

Thank you Melissa for Monday (and life) inspiration

So technically I won these yesterday on EBay, but I'm still stoked today about it!!

I wanted these awesome AH Trouple Gloss Melissa's in cream for about 2 years! RRP $170

Guess how much I scored them for yesterday?

$49.00!!!

Plus $9.00 postage

HOW AMAZING IS THAT

It's a good thing I have an eBay addiction. It's also great that Melissa doesn't release a huge amount of shoes each season, think it makes them way more special, and means that two years on, you can sometimes find a pair you really wanted brand new for really little!!

Aren't they gorgeous? They will go so well with pretty much everything and will dress up a casual outfit so nicely!

Another great style by the Brazilian fashion king Alexandre Herchcovitch.

 I have a lot (a lot a lot a lot) of Melissa shoes, so I'm thinking I will need to start posting about them each Monday. I have seen bloggers who do 'Shoesday' for Tuesday. But I haven't seen someone use this line before. I am very new to this bloggin business, so I'm a thousand percent sure that someone else does it too, but for the meantime I can feel good about blatantly stealing someones 'Shoesday' blog post theme.

However I do have to give complete credit to the picture up the top which I stole from Melissa on facebook (who of course would have found it somewhere else on the vast interwebz), but I feel, as I am using it to promote their shoes, it's justified!

Next on my list of shoes to buy....

Ultragirl Sweet

VW Skyscraper- Love the pastel green, but need a pair of amazing black shoes, don't have any good versatile ones!

Not Melissa I know, but worth an honourable mention...!

Topshop Unique Purple Leather Statement Heels