Our Home made wedding

About 3 months ago my DS and his beloved announced that they were getting married in a simple wedding in the park. It was to be a picnic  and with no fuss!!!! Famous last words . Initially the dress was going to be bought but nothing could be found so I started making the dress. Catering was going to be "bring a plate" but somehow that became too hard . Then the wedding guest list kept expanding and then there was the possibility of bad weather  too hot too windy or pouring with rain. It all got to be quite a business and it was also a lot  of fun which was achieved with a lot of love and everyone contributing their talents.here are some pics of the day                                                                                                                                                          

Grandma makes the bouquet

They are ready to leave to get ready

I made the dress out silk and Chantilly lace 

The Happy Couple Arrive 

Dear Friends help in the kitchen for 2 days before hand and then come and serve up . The bride makes 40 meters of bunting

The dead is done by a lovely Scotsman.

It was a wonderful day and made even more special by everyone's input.A picnic in the park it was but not a simple one !!!

I am back with Rachels Wedding dress.

Well I am back after a long break . I have had alot going on in my life but have enjoyed reading all the blogs I follow and have been inspired by so many posts about other peoples sewing lives.
I had the great good fortune to be asked to make a friend of mines daughters wedding dress. I had never done this before and because I had plenty of time and plenty of extra fabric and so reduced performance anxiety , I REALLY enjoyed this project .
Rachel wanted something soft and Grecian inspired . She also wanted a bit of bling and a fitted bodice .

I looked through the pattern books and couldnt see anything that would be the total of what she wanted and so used Vogue 1227 by Rebecca Taylor .I used this pattern to create the bodice which is boned and made of muslin interlined with cotton flannel and then used the same pattern to create an outer satin layer overlaid with chiffon.The bodice is self supporting and the straps are really just added design features and a vehclie for the "bling"
 I then used draped chiffon to make the bust and the straps were bias tubes about 5 inches wide and joined offset so that the straps twisted .and were a little puffy allowing me to create the soft draped twist which I blended with a chiffon plait and the jeweled little lace appliques.This was then mounted onto an elastic strap which I fed through thread loops on the back of the chiffon strap so that it sat snuggly on Rachel's shouldersThis was all done with lots of fun fiddleing  and experimentation.The skirt was was just gathered chiffon over a sating skirt which had a fitted yolk to minimize bulk over the tummy and hips and a full1/2 circle skirt.The sash was draped and gathered at the sides and mounted on the dress before being tied at the back .

Blogger probs ongoing .

Well for a brief litle window of time (last week)  I could leave messages on other peoples blogs . Now I am back to not being able to sign in after writing a comment . I havent done anything different so it must be blogger ????? This all happened after their so called upgrade . Havent they heard about leaving something that anit broke alone ???

Blogger probs

I dont know if anyone else is having these problems but I cant comment on anyone else blog at the moment and my followers have dissapperared . Any hints out there people . I am getting pretty fed up with this at the moment.

vogue 8522

I decided to make something for myself as the weather here in Melbourne is VERY cold at the moment and I was feeling pretty "old hat" This jacket is very simple to make and uses only 1.5 meters of 1540 wide fabric. I had a lovely peach tweed in my stash and I bought the green tweed at The Fabric Store in Brunswick street Fitzroy . They were both expensive but as the jacket is so economical on fabric I feel fine about that!! I made View B and lengthened it by 7 cm as I am very long waisted. I did this by following the curve around the fron and adding on to thewbottom. This worked very well and was very simple . I followed the pattern directions except that because I made thes jackets in a loose weave and I wanted them to feel more like sweaters than a tailored jacket, I elected to support the shell fabric( which I thought might bag with wear) by quilting it to the lining  in the Chanel manner . This worked very well and allows the fabric to mould nicely around the body below the bust. To do this I made up the shell and the lining , attached the collar to the shell and then bagged on the lining . I left a gap in the bottom back to turn it right way out . When it was right way out I hand stitched the sleeve edges to the lining edges and closed up the turning opening . I then matched the side and centre back seams of the lining and the shell . I stiched them together" in the ditch"  using a walking foot so as to avoid slippage between the two layers .The stitching started about 2.5 cm from the neckline and stopped the same distance from the hem . I then repeated this proces five times across the back and 3 times on each front with a 6 cm gap between each row of stitching. On th outside these rows of stitching disappear into the weave of the tweed. The closure for each jacket is a lining covered snap .The T shirt undere the green jacket is my personal pattern made by copying a well fitting RTW one . It is made in a fine Merino wool jersey

Pleather Biker Jacket Kwik Sew

Oh boy , I really didnt know what I was getting into when signing up to sew this jacket . Its the Kwik Sew Biker jacketkwik Sew 3764 . Making it in wool would have been a piece of cake but in pleather with a fake fiur facing and collar not quite so easy. The jacket pattern  isnt lined and I have decided that it needs a lining.

The biggest issues with pleather are that it cant be pinned except in the seam allowance and that sewing with anything other than a walking foot is impossible .I found out later in the process that a teflon foot is also good and solved the problem of inserting zippers which a biker jacket has in profusion ! The other issue is that for all intents and purposes it cant be ironed.

All the zipper openings for the pockets and sleeve vents are faced with lining fabric and then the zips are placed inside the box shoped openings . Because ironing isnt an option I needed to control these facings with understitching which isnt alluded to in the pattern. I sewed the zip tapes onto the facing using my teflon foot and then used strips of Tear Away stabilizer under my zipper foot to top stitch the zips in place from the outside using my zipper foot. . This worked quite well but.I later decided that I wasnt happy with this and actually used strips of pleather bought by the meter to cover up this stitching and top stitched again using the teflon foot and was able to actually do this the width of the foot away from the zipper opening . This meant that my stitching was much better quality.

Peter's Dressing Gown.

My dear brother is having a special birthday and this is my 3rd attempt to make him a dressing gown!!!

The first attempt got hijacked by DH who needed a warm gown desperately , The 2nd was way too short in the arms and looked absolutely hilarious on him when I presented it to him at Christmas time !! The third attempt is made of a fine wool suiting , is lined in black polyester duchess satin and trimmed with a black and white polyester brocade . The fabrics are a mixture of stash and the brocade was found especially for the purpose as I wanted  to achieve a masculine but luxurious look. I used a polyester lining as it needs to be strong . Nobody in that house hold will be able to repair it should things wear . I figured that polyester was going to wear better than silk . It was horrible to sew though . I felt I was battling it rather than sewing it. I made the dressing gown fully lined with the bagging out method , turning the gown to the right side through a gap in the sleeve lining. The hem  and sleeve  hems are  suspended by the lining. I haven't done this before so it was an interesting exercise.