Sunday, June 19, 2011

Scrapbooking and Skirting Around the Details...

I spend quite a lot of time on the internet, surfing through other people's blogs, on Burdastyle, online shopping stores and ebay, fashion house websites which show their collection, and also on magazine websites. I probably bookmark about 10 items of clothing a day. The trouble is, although bookmarks seem like a perfect and sensible way to keep inspiration on hand, they simply aren't for me. I forget that they are there, I forget what they show, or I might be downstairs in my sewing room, and can't be bothered to walk up the stairs, turn the computer on, find the bookmark and follow it up. So, this week, I found a solution! I've gone back to scrapbooking!
I purchased a $1 scrapbook from the newsagents, some glue and some scissors from Safeway, (sorry, Woolworths) and spent an hour cutting and pasting. It was really fun to go back to something that was such a pleasure as a child- I was even doing my cutting and pasting on an old school desk I found on hard rubbish, complete with holes for the ink wells. It also reminded me of the hundreds of hours I spent on creating folios for the last three years of high school, and how glad and sorry I am that that aspect of education is over for me. Well, temporarily over for me, as I am thinking about going to TAFE next year to do Fashion Technology. Anyway, here are some pictures;


I loved this skirt from the moment I saw it because it is so dramatic- you can't not turn your head, whether you like it or dislike it. The photography is stunning as well, I'm not sure how well you can tell in this picture, especially as it was cut out, but the model is posing on a flight of stairs, which create a leading line in the picture that mimics the line of the dress and accentuates it's length and size. It is such a glamorous photograph, the angle of the photographer as well- looking up at this larger than life model, like we look up to celebrity and fashion. I can only describe the photographer's prowess as intuitive- that is the word which constantly comes to mind.

I adore back details on dresses! The dress on the right should be familiar for regular readers. The others are all off the Urban Outfitters website. I am determined to sew each of these into a dress, but I will have to learn to actually sew a basic dress first.

A fantastic way to wear leggings. So elegant and understated. Now that I have learned to sew leggings, I am determined to find some fabric from which I can make soft ones like these to roll up. Pity she has such skinny ankles though. Possibly needs to eat some avacado on toast.


I love my new scrapbook already. It is so handy to have something sitting next to you all the time, that you can refer to while sewing for ideas. I am also going to print out tutorials from people's blogs, so I can have them on hand as well. Another useful tool I have found recently is an ereader. My mother bought me an Adobe Kobo ereader recently as a very early birthday present. There are some at Borders that are selling at the greatly reduced price of $111, go out and get one now! For print at home patterns they are very useful- rather than printing all the instructions and using up more precious paper and ink, you can download the PDF files onto your ereader and take that into your sewing spot instead. Hopefully soon bloggers and websites will begin to make more things into PDF format- such as the "make it" option on Burdastyle, which would be fantastic as a downloadable PDF file. Knitting patterns also can be downloaded onto your ereader, I know my mum often uses it for that purpose.
Onto my next project- a skirt! I had originally decided I would use the fabric below to make a mini skirt, until I realised I could make both a mini skirt and a maxi skirt from it. It was in part inspired by the leopard print maxi skirt pictured in the scrapbooking photos. I realised recently that when I was a bit younger, I wore a lot of clothing that was really bright, vivacious, and just fun to wear. But the last few years, probably in part because of high school peer pressure, I lost sight of that and stopped having heaps of fun with what I was wearing. So, this skirt was part of a mission to rekindle that fire! Oh, and also, the photos below are a mini-tutorial. If you have any questions, comment me and I'll be happy to answer them. In the making of this skirt I made a mistake in that I sewed the elastic casing before the seam, without putting the elastic in, so I had to unpick it to put the elastic in and then resew it up. Sooo, if you decide to make this skirt, either sew the side seam, and then the elastic casing, (that's the way I've suggested below), or sew the casing, put the elastic through, and then the side seam.
You'll need a very stretchy fabric for this- I think mine was a stretch jersey but I am really not good with fabric types. Step 1: Cut a rectangle of fabric. The width should be 1" wider than the measurement of your hips or waist, (wherever you want the top of the skirt to fit). If you make it any wider than 1", you run the danger of the elastic bunching it too much, so that the top won't lie flat. The length of the rectangle is whatever length you want the skirt to be, plus the width of the elastic you'll be using, and an extra 1" or so for the bottom hem and to allow for the stitching of the elastic casing. I used the width of the fabric as it came off the bolt as my length. (I'm really not sure what that was though!). This photograph shows the type of stitch you'll be using. On my machine this is called a stretch overedge stitch. I'm not entirely sure what it does, but the machine manual said that it finished edges, as well as being suitable for seams on stretch fabrics which will need to be flexible. Make sure also that you have changed your machine needle to a ballpoint needle- I think that the theory goes that if you sew with a normal needle you'll break the threads of the fabric, whereas if you use a ballpoint needle, you will push them out of the way of the sewing thread. Your machine manual is the best bet for information on how to change needles and also what stitch to use.

Step 2: Sew the side seam, by folding the right side of the fabric together and stitching in a straight line as close to the edge of the fabric as possible. This will create a tube.

Step 3: On one of the width ends, use your elastic to measure how wide the elastic casing needs to be. This is basically another tube you are creating along the top of the skirt, which becomes an elastic waist band. Once you have the width, all you need to do is fold the right side of the fabric over onto the wrong side, and pin and then sew along this edge. Make sure you have just enough room to wiggle the elastic around. Oh, before this step you should have measured the elastic- do this simply by wrapping a piece around your waist or hips, (wherever you want the skirt to fit), pulling it tight and then cutting this length off. When you sew up the casing, make sure to leave a gap unsewn, so that you can slide the elastic into the casing. Use a safety pin attached to one end of the elastic to pull it through the length of the casing and back out the gap. Sew these ends together, and then finish sewing up the gap. You'll want to make sure that the elastic is sewn together very well, as it will stretch to pull on and off.

Step 4: To sew the bottom hem, you simply fold over the right side onto the wrong, and stitch this down. make sure you align the folded edge with one of the little ruler markers next to the machine's foot, so that you sew in a straight line which will be parallel to the edge on the outside of the garment. It just looks a lot neater. This is what your skirt should look like at the end if it is a maxi skirt.

You could also make a mini skirt or pencil skirt using the same method. I am going to make a black one to wear with everything, and under floaty dresses.
Well, I hope you understood all that, and happy sewing!!
helenxx

2 comments:

  1. I think scrapbooking inspirational photos is a great idea - and something I should do more often. Particularly now that I've decided to focus on teaching three days a week, rather than having the teaching week leak over into weekends and writing time.

    I also like the idea of having fun with your clothes! Good advice. Don't succumb to peer pressure but actually think about what you'd enjoy wearing. It's easier to do this when you sew and knit, I think, because you're not confined to what fashion dictates you wear for your size or age.

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  2. That's very true Catty, with the online communities now that surround knitting and sewing there is a lot you can find. Places like Ravelry and Burdastyle have heaps for younger women and men. I would like to see more sewing and knitting magazines for a younger audience though, because having a tactile pattern and a glossy magazine I think can sometimes be more appealing and inviting. There is something to be said for the way a glossy page looks, feels, and sounds when you flick through it.

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