it's electric!!

Ok so i'm thinking i'll finish the little rock & raving series here...lol! This is one dress i LOVE. Again the dress form is pulling it a bit out of proportion at the bust making it look a bit tubular, but trust me it looks ok on. This was one of my favourite AC/DC tshirt prints and was super easy to make into a halterneck tshirt dress. For this i used the pattern pieces from a vogue halter top and just cut the pieces from the tshirt upper back which i effectively cut off anyway. This means that the strap is double sided and very secure. The PVC frills make my heart happy!! Where o where shall i wear this to?!

rockin revamp

This one is more of a make-over than making of a jacket. I bought this terrible pin-stripe blazer for £5 as i recall and set to work making it a little more personalised, and a little more ME!
I tore up a black rock t-shirt and sewed black borders around the lapels. A black PVC patch was sewn on to the shoulder and i added some silver studs for some sparkle!

I am very fond of this little vintage brooch which i got at a rock fair, like a million years ago!! Can you read it? It is Adam and the Ants and says "whip in my valise [oh!]" haha it's fabulous!And then of course the main event being the back panel from a (gigantic) Guns N Roses tshirt, then another band of PVC and some more sparkly studs for good measure!

On the other shoulder I sewed a little black cord and put a line of safety pins along the seam....yeah i said a line of safety pins... hey i'm a crafter, you think i can wear safety pins without finding uses for them??? Well you're wrong...i can't help it!! lol

remember raving?

I came across this dress a while ago and remembered how i loved to sew clothes at uni. I used to make crazy flared trousers with fur trim or, on occasion, lampshade trim!!! And i loved to make crazy little raving dresses... i found a couple of those too...hilarious pink faux fur skirts and sparkly corset tops.

This one i used to wear with snow-white fluffy yeti-boots (i had included a picture then remembered how i hate pictures of myself on the internet so deleted it!) The dress looks terrible on my dress form "Sam" because she is a lot wider up top and pulls it a bit out of proportion!This one is more like the actual shape. How i loved it. Haha! Good times!!

bouncing baking balls!

I had a disaster last week...my baking stuff is kept in the highest cupboard in the kitchen, and it's a particularly deep cupboard, so i tend to have to balance tip-toeing on a stool, stretching madly to blindly rummage around at the back for whatever it is that i'm looking for. Inevitably i ALWAYS knock something out and it falls on the tiled floor below. Now when this is a packet of bun cases or sealed bag of raisins...that's no big crisis. However, when it is a box of silver balls for cake decorating...that's a different story. THEY WENT BOUNCING EVERYWHERE!!! I cleaned them up and i'm still finding them everywhere, a week later...groan.

"ENOUGH! SuperD help me, before it's red food colouring or 100s & 1000s that burst on the tiles!!!"

And he did!...look at the hearts and swirls!!! It's like it was designed for me...o wait, it was!
He loves that detailed hand-sawing!! lol
de-DAH!!
Isn't it cute?! Food colouring up top and all my baking notions and decorations in the bottles below (these were left over from my wedding invitations which were "message in a bottle" style!)
You will notice that many of the bottles are empty...that's because the boxes of stuff that was to fill them were dropped from the cupboard and burst on the floor!!

BUT NO LONGER!!

ooh!! at the office 3

This is the 3rd in the series (see ooh!! at the office 1 & ooh!! at the office 2) Again i am keen to get rid of the long sleeves for something a bit lighter.

Just as with number 2, I removed the sleeves, split them down the seam and cut out 2 sections 3"x15". These were hemmed along one long edge with a double seam (ie, fold in 0.25" and then again, then sew seam so the rough edge is rolled inside). I then cut 2 more sections 2"x15, and hemmed the outer edge in the same way. Then i laid the short piece on top of the long piece, rough edges together. Then sew two lines of stitches along this rough edge, very close together - leave the loose threads at beginning and end. Then pull the loose ends of the threads and gather the edge up to measure about 10", then secure these with knots, as before.

I sewed this in place and serged around the inner rough edges. So this version has a little double frill.
Again i had to take in the edges as this one was super blousey too.

Hehe the double frill is so whimsical...i love it! I might just abort this series and do all the rest of the shirts in this style...it's my favourite so far!!
And this is it all dressed up and ready to work!! FUN!!
So i've only: yellow, pink, pale blue, bright blue, lilac, black and dark brown to go....any suggestions as to variations?? I'm thinking pleated cap sleeve, puff sleeve, and pleated frill...any others??

happy housewife cookies!

So a friend from my church is getting married and i was invited to a breakfast party which marked the beginning of her hen-day - a day full of bride-to-be style fun. Not knowing her style in homeware and knowing that she doesn't yet have a house and therefore has nowhere to store big bulky pressies...i decided to go with something she could use up and not have to store!!

Taking the idea from Bakerella i decided to go for fancy cookie mix!!This turned out to be a successful pressie as she seemed really excited to try them! This photo was taken after the trip in the car with "the italian" driving..hence some of the ingredients are beginning to blend of their own accord!!
I really recommend this one for a little pressie, and it was actually really fun to make up!

ooh!! at the office 2

So this is mark 2 of the ooh!! at the office series. Check out number 1 here. I still don't trust myself that i'm not going to make a mistake, so i'm picking the ugliest colours first so i get the nice ones right!!

This one is also about getting rid of the long sleeves for something a bit lighter. I removed the sleeves, split them down the seam and cut out 2 sections 3"x15". These were hemmed along one long edge with a double seam (ie, fold in 0.25" and then again, then sew seam so the rough edge is rolled inside). Then two lines of stitches are sewed along the other long edge, very close together - leave the loose threads at beginning and end. Then pull the loose ends of the threads and gather the edge up to measure about 10", then secure these with knots, as shown below (i also went over the edge with a serger to stop it unravelling (stitches in pink):
Then it is just a matter of sewing them onto the shirt and finishing the edges of the arm hole with a neat rolled seam. That's it!Again, I had to take this one in a little at the edges as it was super-blousey and not really my style!!
It probably would've benefited with a moment of ironing...buuut thats not something i usually make time for!
This is it all dressed up...ignore that fact that she's not wearing any skirt...i probably will when i'm wearing it for real!!
This is SuperD's choice of tie...i'm not wholly convinced.
This one matches more, but he reckons that it is too severe...i think he doesn't appreciate the strong feelings that i have for my collection of vintage ties!
Love how it pokes out the bottom of the waistcoat..hehe!
So which do you think??? "Neither, they both suck" is also an option!!

hooked on crafting!

This is a craft that SuperD did to "jazz up" the coathangers in his italian house...you might ask why on earth those crazy curly art deco hooks might possibly need "jazzing up"...but you're gonna have to ask him that... The wooden back board was cut free hand and then stipple painted to add extra texture. Even if (perish the thought) you decide to go for regular hooks, making little back boards will give an extra little something...or so he says!

swim at the speed of light?

Ok, while these photos may look like they were taking deep in the groovy 70s, they were actually taken last week...you're gonna have to trust me on that...people do still decorate with funky paint effects in some remote places in Europe...case in point - central Milan.

SuperD took the photos in a dark room and i ended up warmifying the colours a little bit too much trying to get clear pics.....ANYWAY, this is a feature lamp that SuperD made. He used thick sturdy wire to make an outline "sculpture" which was mounted on a light fixing and then had it covered with fabric to act as a shade. The curled flex acts to give the idea of motion and swirling seas. I hasten to add that he had a professional upholsterer cover the lamp for him, but i think that the principle still stands that it would be a cool craft to try at home sometime.
Not quite so pretty from this view...but it gives you an idea of the construction.

metall-manu

So we had a young family member to stay...one that LOVES the mighty Metallica!! He has good taste, what can i say?! I wanted to make him something personalised that wasn't too..."kitchy" (While I have a lot of love for kitchy...15yr old italian boys do not!)
..
...so i made a door plate out of frayed black denim, strengthened with a bit of interfacing, and added a few metal spike studs, with his name in the style of the Metallica signature font...trust me mamma, that's what it is!!
It went down a storm...in fact you could say "it rocked".