Mishka's Capelet

It's been full steam ahead the last couple of weeks for Christmas presents (last minute; I know).

For a while I had the idea of making a wee cape for my niece Mishka based on this tutorial.

In the weekend I went to the fabric store and got some gorgeous houndstooth wool/cotton/viscose blend, also some embroidered satin. Since the wool blend was not 100% wool it was pretty cheap, as was the satin (100% polyester).

I always buy too much fabric (except for the mint seersucker dress I will post about soon), and this time I bought at least a metre too much. I'll find something to make out of the houndstooth because it is soooo pretty!

The first step is to cut and sew the lining.

And the same with the outer fabric.

And then stitch it all together and turn.

Most of the lining is stay-stitched to keep in on the inside, which introduced me to another problem - you can see at the bottom it has too much fabric. I'll have to remember to either increase the seam allowance in the lining or cut the lining smaller next time!

Also, the opening edge is not stay-stitched, because I forgot, and also didn't leave a large enough (or close enough) opening to do so. Stay-stitching all around requires a lot of planning!

I also bought some darling little buttons, and had a go at hand stitching a buttonhole for the first time. It is a little messy but it was really fun. My Vogue Sewing book was a huge help. It had a detailed explanation of placement and sewing of the buttonhole and button.

The leftmost button is decorative, and the little piece beneath it is sewn all around to the houndstooth.

I'm immensely proud of this project. Hopefully I'll be able to get some pictures of her actually wearing it (and I hope it fits, haahaa).

A Minor Invonvenience

So, I never got around to finishing that King Arthur outfit.

Want to know why?

A VW Golf decided not to look before turning into a side street. :(

So my baby is gone. :( Currently we're sorting out insurance - the other party is 100% at fault.

Time to find a new ride I guess. A VFR400 and a Hornet 600 recently came up on TradeMe, both are worth a look.

It's been a good three years with the FXR.

King Arthur - Painting and Assembling the Gauntlets

Part One • Part Two • Part Three • Part Four

And so the painting began!

I had so much trouble with this, and let me tell you why...

First of all, it was a slightly windy day, and the things I was spraypainting are made of foam. This, combined with the forceful propellant of the spraypaint made the pieces jump all over the place.

My solution was to construct a sort of cardboard fortress inside the garage, open the door and windows, and spraypaint inside, away from the wind. So much better.

The pieces worryingly curled up after being painted, but let go after the paint dried.

I guess I should have used the black foam, seeing as I needed to paint the back anyway.

While waiting for the paint to dry, I constructed the elbow armour. After putting it all together, I remembered that the sun on top is gold, and the rest is silver. This means I should have painted the sun and armour separately before gluing them together. Oops!

This is everything after I had weathered it. Weathering turned out to be so much more fun than the actual spraypainting! It made everything look so much more realistic.

I know I said I was going to have to plan out how to construct the final gauntlet, but I got too excited so I glued it all together anyway.

I basically used hot glue for everything. I'm hoping it stays together on the night...

Tomorrow I'll be painting the elbow armour and hopefully making a start on the crown-helmet. I'll also find a way to attach the gauntlets to my hands - most likely by sewing some straps using velcro and scrap material so I can put them on and take them off easily.

Part One • Part Two • Part Three • Part Four

King Arthur - Gauntlets

Part One • Part Two • Part Three • Part Four

So I've heard a lot about making armour from foam, and thought I might try it out in order to make King Arthur's gauntlets.

I took a screenshot from the movie to try and get a better picture of how his gauntlets are constructed. I mocked up some patterns on paper, then cut them out to use as a template.

I was worried I wouldn't be able to find any craft foam, and had no luck at The Warehouse or Warehouse Stationery. Fortunately, Spotlight pulled through and I bought a whole stack of foam sheets! I also got a bias-binder-maker and some extra hot glue sticks.

I picked out the white sheets and traced the template onto them, then cut all the pieces out.

After holding each piece (very, very) briefly over a gas element (note: not in the fire, above the fire) I bent each piece into shape. It was so fun!

In the reference pic above you'll see there are a bunch of rivets or something along the outside of the main gauntlet piece. I couldn't figure out how to make a nice hot glue sphere without putting it right on the edge, so it's not exactly the same as the real thing. It looks pretty messy but hopefully after paint has been added it'll look much tidier.

This is roughly how it will be put together. I was initially going to just glue it together, but it needs to be fairly flexible. I'm thinking I'll cut out a sort of mitt from fabric that lays on top of the 'chainmail'. It'll wrap around where necessary to secure it in place. Either that or I'll just glue it to the chainmail glove!

I also bought some spraypaint while I was out. First I'll use it on the armour, but I should also see what kind of effect it has on the yarn.

Part One • Part Two • Part Three • Part Four

King Arthur - Tunic nearly complete

Part One • Part Two • Part Three • Part Four

Yesterday I got started on the tunic! This material is fairly thick and coarse - fitting for a medieval tunic. I cut out two near-identical pieces (the neckline was lower on the front piece). I also split the pattern in half and cut out two pieces from the gold fabric to use as a lining.

After cutting everything out I secured the top edge of the gold lining - this would be sitting around the waistline.

I didn't get many photos of the actual construction of the tunic because it got dark and I couldn't be bothered getting the tripod out. Construction was pretty straightforward - I sewed the linings to the tunic and turned it, then sewed the rest of the tunic together, securing the seams with a zig-zag stitch.

Now, on the original costume the bottom edge had some plain gold binding or ribbon along it. I found some other ribbon at Geoff's Emporium that was a little more decorative. It was really fun sewing this on!

After this I have to figure out how I'm going to make the sun graphic on the front. I will probably end up simply painting it on with acrylic. I will also need to finish the chainmail top, and sort out how I'm going to make the small bits of armour like the gauntlets.

Part One • Part Two • Part Three • Part Four

Costume Time: King Arthur from Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Part One • Part Two • Part Three • Part Four

With a Halloween party coming up in a week I decided I should get around to making a costume. Since I only recently began sewing, I haven't had the opportunity to create a really awesome Halloween costume yet.

I decided to go as King Arthur from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

If you haven't watched the movie (please do so immediately), here is what he looks like:

Yes, he has a beard - I toyed with the idea of crocheting one, but if I can find a fake one, even better.

One problem I found was that there is a lot of chainmail, and I only have a week so I can't exactly make the stuff myself. A while ago I bought a bulk lot of grey wool, so I decided to crochet the coif and top. Using my biggest hook and very loose stitches, I came up with something that's "good enough".

One slight problem - these need to be gold! Since I'm going to need to get gold spray paint for the armour, I figured I might be able to get away with painting over it. Obviously I'll need to experiment - the single sleeve took me about five hours!

The thing I'm looking forward to making the most is the tunic. I've gathered my materials and I will soon be drafting up a pattern. It should be fairly straightforward - it is a shapeless tunic with a slit down the front and back. What you can't see from the reference photo above is the gold underlining in the skirt part of the tunic. I'm yet to completely figure out how to do it...

Time to start drafting!

Part One • Part Two • Part Three • Part Four

A Painting Update

I while back I posted about an oil painting I was working on. Well, I'm still working on it!

The whole thing is filled in now. It's missing some fence posts and a fair bit of texture. After I took this photo I tried out some glazing (we'll see how that goes...).

The dry weather seems to make the paint dry more quickly. Three days after painting the road and grass it's dry again!

[META] New site design coming up

When I started this blog a short time ago I intended for it to act as an outlet for my website design ideas - hopefully so I could improve.

However, it's become more of a craft blog. I upload more sewing projects and crochet than website design or drawing.

With this in mind, I'm creating anew site design that will give this blog a much cuter look - think bows and buttons (both of which I love). It'll give viewers a better representation of what the blog is actually about. Hooray!

1950s Dress - Completed Top Half

Part One · Part Two

Okay, the top half is now complete!

This pattern actually required sew-in interfacing, but I only had fusible interfacing. No matter!

The difficult part of this top is probably the neckline. There's interfacing and facing in there. The facing needs to be clipped so it can be turned, and the interfacing needs to not get in the way. Fortunately everything lined up (a good reason to cut exactly on the line, and have the markings in the right places) and I sewed everything together. I tacked the facing down to keep it from popping out the top (a real problem!).

Here's a close-up of the sleeve hem. More binding! I love binding.

At this point I tried the top on (fun) and it is an okay fit. Not perfect, but pretty good.

Next up is to attach the skirt half to the top, then create some sort of hem. This will be a good opportunity to try making a blind hem using the sewing machine. Oh, and I need to buy more binding! The sleeves pretty much finished it off, and I want to bind the side seams.

1950s Dress: Seam Binding

Part One · Part Three

I've made fast progress on the 1950s Butterick dress. The first dress I made was based on a newer pattern. This one was slightly different - all the pieces were pre-cut, the marks were all holes punched into the paper, and there was no ink. I much prefer this than cutting out the pattern and marking everything down. The holes allowed me to easily mark darts and notches.

Here you can see roughly the colour of the fabric. Last time I neglected to mark out most of the small dots (which ended up being a pain as they are actually important). Since the pattern had holes it was easy to chalk everything up.

I decided to do some seam binding for this dress (it's always good to learn something new). I was pretty nervous until I got started. I thought about pinning the whole thing but I'm sure it would be too time-consuming so just ran with it.

After getting my head around how the bias binding actually fits around the seam, it was pretty easy from there. As long as the side you're most likely to see looks good, it's all good!

Here's the result! A little wrinkly (probably due to too much pulling on the binding) but it's a really tidy way to finish up the seams. Unfortunately I only got five metres of binding (thought it would be enough, hahaha) so I'll have to get some more if I want to finish all the seams this way.

Creeper Crochet Blanket - Not Big Enough!

Alas! The "finished" blanket is not large enough to satisfy any sort of snuggling needs. I thought I had finished; how wrong was I?!

To amend this, I took the Creeper body and exported it to three colours (no black) and I'm going to work a few more rows in. If I want to go all Golden Ratio, I'll have to make it 12 rows high, so four more rows.

This only annoys me because I thought I was so close to finishing it - it has almost been a year since I started the project. Plus I had to buy more yarn, and they were missing the light blue colour. The closest match I could find was an expensive knit meant for baby clothes (grrr). Fortunately it is relatively easy to match 8ply black yarn!

After finishing the last rows, I plan on edging it in black - and I'm kind of tempted to make a pretty shell edging.

Whelp, back to it then.

New Vintage Patterns and the Start of a New Dress

Part Two · Part Three

The other day Louella and I went to the Vintage Textile fair - a once-a-year event. Only we didn't decide to go until late afternoon! >o<

The fair was awesome. It consisted of dozens of stores selling antiques, vintage clothes, hats, bags, and crafts. I managed to pick up a few new patterns!

This one I got from Louella

This pack contains a skirt, waistcoat, dress, trousers,
and jacket pattern!

I intend on making the one on the right but the sheer
sleeves on the left one look amazing.

A simple, yet adorable, dress pattern

This last one I also received from Louella. I've been meaning to start making it - I absolutely adore the neckline!

There's no year on it but at a guess I'd say it's a 1950s dress (would gladly accept some confirmation).

I toddled down to the local fabric store and purchased some fabric and bits and bobs. The pattern instructs for the seams to be bound, so I think I'll find this seam binding tutorial handy.

The fabric I'm using will be a green linen. I've found I'm terrible at picking out fabric - I can never quite make the connection between the fabric and the final outfit. I wanted to use some sort of dark green synthetic velvet but I believe it was expensive and I have no idea how to sew with it.

I don't have a picture of the fabric right now because it's in the wash, so here's my washing machine instead!

Apron for Mishka

This is my third sewing project, and I finished it before my second one, the tartan dress. I used this pattern from TidBits, but decided not to make the hat. This is a birthday present for my niece, who turns two soon!

This is the only photo I have of laying the pattern out. You'll note I used some printer paper taped together. The fabric is a thin gingham cotton. There's also some thin white cotton too. The thinness didn't matter so much because the apron is layered. There are no photos of the other pieces being made; not even the ruffle!

The ruffle was made according to the pattern. The technique she uses is perfect! It creates an amazingly even ruffle. Basically you set the stitch length to the longest (mine only goes up to 4) and set your upper thread tension to the highest. As you sew, apply resistance to the upper thread. This essentially pulls the thread as you go, rather than pulling it afterwards. Genius!

Here you'll see I've assembled a number of parts. The pocket, ruffle, and neck-tie are all done. The pocket is a simple shape with two pleats, based off the pattern below:

Since it widens at the top, adding the pleats creates the straight sides. I added a band at the top. Instant adorable!

Pinning, pinning, pinning...

This is what the apron looked like after turning. So cute!

There is one problem - the measurements for the waist tie were too short. :\ So I had a short tie, and amazingly not enough fabric to make a new one.

It wasn't that hard to track down some plain white cotton so I soon finished.

An overview of the finished apron

Pocket! This doesn't show you that the white band doesn't
actually encompass that pocket-ness, so the inside
is kinda ugly. I don't think anyone will examine the inside of the
pocket too closely, though.

I added some adorable little buttons!

The ruffle! The material was folded in half lengthwise so I didn't have
to clean up the edge...haha!

Overall a lovely project. The apron is probably going to be too big for Mishka, but the ties are all adjustable, so she'll just have to grow into it. :)