Dirndl: Finished Product

In a marathon effort of sewing, gathering and pressing, we managed to get the Dirndl finished for the German Church Bazaar today. I had Andreas unpicking mistakes and turning out sashes. If I ever make these for my online shop, I will not go with a construction that has so much hand stitching.

There was face painters there and a bouncing castle for the kids that Victoria just loved. This is by far my favourite photo of the day. Victoria was adament that she wanted "donuts" in her hair .. but not the ones you can eat.

She also caught up with one of her friends, Hannah, and they had a ball running around for a while and dancing to the piano accordian band that was playing.

What did I end up making?

• Essentially a black linen pinafore (pre-washed and embroidered) with red homespun lining. Invisable zip up the back. I played around a lot with the colours of the embroidery and on my husbands advice went for the colour combination that had white in it. Looks good on it's own, but it is all the white garments that makes it look "germanic".
  
• Cotton Poplin blouse with puffy sleeves and lace edging. No elastic to disintegrate, I gathered up the sleeves with some twill tape. Snaps down the back for ease of construction (thanks hubby for doing this).
  
• Petticoat (which will be unstitched and re-done) with about3 metres of lace on the bottom. I think the petticoat can be fuller.
  
• Apron, with ties that were the width of the yardage. I was happy with this decision as it allowed me to wrap it around her so that it stayed in position despite the frantic running around that happened.
  

At about 1pm the skies opened up and the Bazaar reluctantly ground to a halt. Tori had great fun splashing in all the puddles with the over sized umbrella that she refused to let go of.

We got a few books and old game sets for my Year 7's to play with along with bunch of handmade Christmas decorations for our tree that arrives next week.

Memories of Costume Balls

I was very excited to learn that people who organised the "Labyrinth Ball", The Guild of the Golden Owl,  will be holding another mid-winter masquerade ball in Melbourne again.

It was the first costuming event that I had gone to since I had Tori and I could fit into nothing in my costume wardrobe. So I made my outfit, from black velveteen and the skirt was re-fashioned from another costume. Andreas pulled out his old Regency suit from the Regency Ball we had attended a few years back.

 

It was the second major project I had done on my embroidery machine, the first being my daughters baptism dress. I traced the pattern piece onto the fabric, did the embroidery and then cut it out the pattern piece and sewed it to the other pieces. The pattern was a commercial historical corset pattern.

We spent weeks making the masks from scratch and they sat in front of the "fire" in our back room drying on wire racks. Andreas wanted to go for a steampunk type look, so we made the base mask from paper mache, created the nose and then when it was finished stuck bits of square plastic on it to make it look like plates of metal. The rivits you see are blobs of dimensional paint. A hinge and eye piece completed the look. The paint work was silver spray paint and dry brushed with black.

It was an enjoyable night with lots of other friends making the effort to dress up.

Kerri dragged out her regency ball gown as well and Marina looked lovely in electric blue!

Not sure if we will attend the next one, it is on a boat and I don't go too well with boats. But I am itching for another opportunity to do some costuming, some sewing just for me rather than for etsy or a market.

Crafty Christmas Things

I managed to finish a few crafty Christmas things and was sewing right up until the last moment ...

Crafty Christmas #1: Cushion for my Mother-in-Law

I came across this gorgeous fabric by Kristen Doran, a sydney based designer. I saw the panel on Duckcloth and decided to get one. It was originally going to be part of an apron that I was planning, but when I saw it in real life .. it became a pillow. I ended up using an invisable zip and size 16 cushion insert from Spotlight.

I backed the pillow with red micro-cord to make it more tacktile and Christmas-y. Check out her panels, she really does some lovely refined work with a european feel.

Crafty Christmas #2: Tool Roll for my Dad

Knowing that my father has a van full of spanners it was quite hard to decide how many to put in this roll. So he ended up with ten spaces. I only have a metre of this fabric and I wanted to use it for something worthwhile.

The tool roll is closed with two D-rings and a strap of heading tape doubled over and sewn.

In order to keep the spanners in, a flap goes over them before rolling them up ...

I used one of those nifty clover 25mm bias makers to make the bias to use around the outside of the roll. Dad will be letting me know what improvements I need to do it it before I make a few for my market stall.

Crafty Task #3: Drink Coasters for my Mum

This started off as a table runner, and then I wasn't happy with the colours or the placement so I ripped it up and decided to do some samples in the form of drink coasteres. The middle pansy was part of panel fabric that I got at a Quilting fair last year and the blocking fabric is purple butterflies from Spotlight.

Crafty Task #4: Flame Diary for Father-in-law

My father-in-law scored a Flame Diary. He has a business "rocks on fire" and this diary fits in well with what he does.

Inside a standard A5 diary with elastic and bookmark.

My crafty Christmas didn't turn out the way it started off. Apron's became pillows and table runners became drink coasters. But that is what I like about creating Christmas gifts, you never know what you will end up with. The positive thing is that no-one got hurt making my Christmas gifts this year (Tori pulled the hot iron onto her foot ...).

Borders therapy

The husband was given a Borders book voucher as a gift for being a guest speaker, so we headed to Borders in Carlton for a bit of retail therapy.

I bought Handmade in Melbourne and Jane Austen's Sewing Box.

It is freaky reading through Handmade in Melbourne and knowing that you have met a few of the artists highlighted. Looking at how crafty Melbourne people are is truely inspirational. I'd love to think that my work might be in this book someday, but sometimes I think that my stuff is a bit too practical and not enough "arty". I might have to start designing my own fabric methinks ...

Jane Austen's Sewing Box has lots of stories and incidental patterns and inspirations from the regency period and Jane Austen's books. I have already earmarked a few projects, just need to nut through how they might work with skull fabric ;-)

It was a hard decision to make, I had to choose two books, but next time, I hope to pick up Kelly Doust's "the crafty minx". Some great projects in there, I love the subtext - "creative recycling and handmade treasures".

Another book that I flipped through was the "Made in France: Linen and Thread" by Monique Lyonnet. A gorgeous book.

I love clicking through blogs and have a quite extensive blogroll, but I also love taking time out to read through a well compiled craft book with beautiful pictures and lucious text.

Borders have quite a good range or craft books, some along and check them out at the Borders Craft Fair on 7th December @ 7pm!