The Capsule Wardrobe Mission: Flattering styles for the unique you

"... acceptance of your own body.
Whatever it's shape, it is healthy and it is yours."  
Caryn Franklin

Remember my post about my mission to create a compact capsule wardrobe? One night I sat in front of the TV watching Newsroom (I love Sloan in the show), and sorted out which clothes in my wardrobe to keep, and which ones to donate/throw, based on the body shape chart.

I'm a petite pear shape, which means most of my jeans has to be shortened at the legs. Speaking of jeans, it's almost always a nightmare for me to shop for jeans-- if the hip fits, the waist would be too big. If the waist fits, the hip would be too tight. Anyone else has this problem? The only time I bought jeans that I absolutely love was from Uniqlo, PLUS I discovered that they label their sizes 1 or 2 sizes smaller, which made me squeal in delight at first thinking I was on my way to becoming America's Next Top Model, and then sniggering "Ohhh you sneaky bastards."

I recently found Caryn Franklin's website and downloaded one of her free e-books (yes free! woop!) on dressing for YOUR unique shape. The book covers different styles of necklines, collars, skirt shapes, even jewelry and bags that are out there, and what works for your unique shape.

Each illustration is either marked with a tick (good for your shape), an "x" (not flattering for you), or a star (on the fence, depending on the actual garment variation).

Caryn writes in the introduction:

"Your best traveling companion through this e-book will be your acceptance of your own body. Whatever it's shape, it is healthy and it is yours. It is doing it's best to support you through the day with a myriad of clever functions that you take for granted. Sadly many of us aren't in touch with this and forget that, before it is a clothes-horse, it is a sophisticated biological miracle! Clothes then are the icing on the cake. Use them to celebrate all that you can be to yourself and others!"

I highly recommend for you to visit Caryn's site and download her free e-books. They're very well written and she's got all the shapes and variations covered (not many sites cover the petite pear combo), and perhaps we can learn together what flatters our bodies :)

Now, hopefully I can put together a capsule wardrobe like this from her site too...

Spring/Summer 2012 Capsule Wardrobe

Which combo do you like best from this capsule wardrobe? I'm loving the peplum cardi and the turquoise pants :D

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DIY Tutorial: Rope Necklace

It's been raining and raining over here, and that's a good excuse to stay indoors to spend some quiet time with some DIY projects (with a cup of tea! I know, I'm such a granny). I made this rope necklace last weekend, and I love wearing it! It's colorful, chunky, and dresses up a plain tee.

 Can you tell that my favorite color at the moment is green? Heheheh.

The chains were from one of my old necklaces.

They look like a hybrid between chain links and braids. And they're made out of laundry rope!

Here's how I did it:

You will need:

Laundry rope (pick a fun color!)

Quick dry super glue

2 x end caps

4 x jump rings

1 x lobster clasp

Chain

Pliers to attach jump rings

Masking tape

Scissors (*optional)

*Note: I say optional because it's used for cutting the laundry rope, 

which I supposed could be gnawed off with teeth too :P

Lay out the rope so the short end is on your top left. 

Now, the following steps might seem tricky but I assure you once you get the hang of it, you'll be fine ;-) Just follow the pictures step-by-step as you go along.

There are 2 main knots that you'll use in alternate sequence, which I've creatively named Knot A and Knot B. We'll start with Knot A:

WOOT! Now we'll continue with Knot B:

Knot B done!

Keep repeating Knot A and Knot B until you reach your desired length.

Tape masking tape around both ends of your knots, and trim according to the height of your end cap.

Try putting on the end cap to see if it fits. If the rope isn't snug inside the end cap, simply add on 1 or 2 more layers of masking tape to fatten it up, like I did mine :D

Apply thy super glue!

Dab some super glue into the end cap as well, and pop the cap on.

Repeat with the other end.

Attach the chain and lobster clasp using the jump rings, and you're done!

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did, and do leave me a comment if you have any questions.

Btw, I have this vintage dress hanging on Sha Nay Nay (my dress form), and I'm having a hard time deciding what to do with the dress. I need to refashion it for sure, but not sure if it should be a maintained as a dress or divided in separates (a blouse and a skirt). 

Hmmm.... what do you think?

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Tutorial: Sew-on bra cups

Having experience failure in the area of wearing stick-on bras (they keep falling out like stray chicken fillets-- would be rather confusing at a buffet), I much rather prefer to sew on bra cups into dresses that I can't wear a bra in. I made my first bra cup insertion in the Mad Men Wiggle Dress using this technique below, which I learnt from another tailored garment.

I've seen another tutorial where both the bra cups are manually joined with a sewn-on elastic band (so they are in one piece like a bra), but I couldn't do it with the bra cups I had because the edges were thin and I was afraid they might tear. So it depends on your bra cups I guess :D

This technique works best when the bodice has a lining piece (either a full lining, or at least a lining that covers your boobs so you can sew the bra cups onto the lining).

So here's how I did it:

Hmm, I hope I didn't miss anything out. If there are any questions just pop me a comment! Happy going braless! (sorta)

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Mad Men-ners Wiggle Dress

I'll be damned if I am in the advertising industry and never went to a Mad Men theme party. Thankfully, our friend Theo (who is a writer in an agency) and his now-missus Lisa planned a Mad Men wedding dinner, so phew, I won't be damned.

Ah, Mad Men. The fashionable show set in the 60s about an ad agency on Madison Avenue. Gorgeous vintage dresses and curvaceous ladies (or should I say, curvaceous Joan) paired with dapper men in even more dapper suits, PLUS it's about the ad industry. With both my husband and I working in the industry (my husband's a writer, and I consult for an audio production house for tv commercials), naturally we were excited about Mad Men when Season 1 came out. Then er, we kinda got bored. I think it's like doctors watching Grey's Anatomy... hehehehh

ANYHOOT.

I decided I wanted to make a dress for the Mad Men wedding dinner, and I decided to make one of the dresses that the Asian girl wore in one of the episodes of Season 4. You know which Asian girl I'm talking about right? I forget her name... she's the new intern on the show. But seriously-- she's the only Asian in the show, you can't miss her. Wait, what? You don't recall there being an Asian girl on the show? Good gracious, I can't even... gosh. OK, fine, I will google her picture and paste it here, maybe it'll jog your memory. 

Here you go, thank me later:

That's the Asian intern, beside Joan!

You remember her, right?

She's the intern who ALWAYS makes mistakes, remember? The klutzy Asian intern?

No? Maybe you'll remember this promotional poster instead:

Remember her now????

. . . . 

. . .

. .

. . . ok, ok, fine, yeah, that's me.

LOL.

(Love the looks on John Sterling and Don Draper's faces thinking about this crazy Asian intern.)

I drafted this dress, inspired by Butterick 6582 for the bodice.

The fabric is a faux houndstooth/plaid-with-a-houndstooth-mirage that I bought from Singapore when Ayu took me to the fabric market. I had initially bought it to make shorts, but after having drafted the dress I thought hey hey hey!! This would look fab too!

I love it that I had shoes that miraculously goes together with the whole look. Belt from Bangkok, and a vintage brooch that belonged to my husband's late mother.

For the back of the dress I drafted a deep-V (no place for a bra; thank goodness for sew-in bra cups [edit: here's how I did it] ) and a kick pleat for the wiggle skirt. The skirt length hits just below the knee like the sophisticated dresses in the 1960s (I think it also enhances the wiggle shape).

The dress is fully lined-- my first fully lined dress!-- and I love wearing it. It gives the dress a better hold (especially when the main fabric is not as structured), and I don't have to worry about having to wear a slip/whether my slip is showing. I think I really like deep-V backs, and would like to draft more dresses like that. 

Here's a photo of us at the dinner being irresponsible adults:

Tsk tsk tsk...

What about you, have you made a Mad Men inspired dress before? I love the fashion sensibilities of that era, don't you? :D

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The Capsule Wardrobe Mission: Determining your body shape (or, How to get that hourglass figure without ANY exercise!)

Ok, ok, yes that blog post title was rather spammy, heheh. But it's not a lie! I've been following Gok Wan's tv shows recently, and I'm very inspired by him. Gok is a designer who goes round UK helping ordinary women take control of their wardrobe and style in his show Gok's Fashion Fix (I think the show dates back to 2010). One of his key lessons is that clothes are made for the typical mannequin hourglass figure, but not all of us have hourglass figures-- apparently only 8.4% of women do! (phew, now I don't feel that lumpy.)

Here's a clip of Gok at work in creating an instant hourglass shape on another of his show, How To Look Good Naked:



Another of Gok's (almost typed God there haha) fashion lessons is to create a capsule wardrobe of 24 items-- tops, trousers, skirts, dresses, shoes and bags that can mix and match with each other to create more than just one look. This doesn't mean that your wardrobe should only consist of 24 pieces, but it's a starting point in building a compact yet flexible, sustainable wardrobe.

His mantra is "Buy less, wear more". Get more mileage out of the pieces in your wardrobe that make YOU look great.

I'm now on a mission to create my very own capsule wardrobe. God (not Gok) knows that I've got way too many clothes from my thrifting and sewing adventures. I think it's time for me to take a step back and really evaluate which clothes are going to be part of this capsule wardrobe. It's time to weed out the  clothes that don't make me look like Salma Hayek (ok who am I kidding LOL /slaps self).

But first, I needed to know what body shape I am, right? Coincidentally, Ayu invited me over to her place for some body graphing exercise. Using the guide on Patti Palmer's Fit For Real People, we helped each other draw our body graphs.

That's me rockin' a breast pump tag around my neck (we didn't have a necklace to help determine the neckline haha), a raffia string around my waist, thinking of a pear. I got swag.

And yes, I'm a triangle a.k.a pear shape! Big booty, thunder thighs, tiny boobage, that's me.

Do you know what body shape you are? Here's a simple guide I drew, along with that coveted hourglass figure cheatsheet for each body shape:

Next step in my mission: Determining which clothes work for me, and to chuck away those that don't.

What about you, would you want to create your own capsule wardrobe too?

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Project: DIY Craft Shelf from Recycled Shoe Rack

Hello! I'm sorry for being away so long, but I'm back now, and I hope my 9 readers are still here LOL. I've been using this craft shelf on my table for a month or so, but only managed to find time to post up pictures of this project now. 

It's a very simple recycling project of turning an old rickety shoe rack into THREE practical (and pretty) things I needed in my home: a craft shelf for my working table, a single shoe rack, and a rack for our bathroom storage.

These stray buttons sure come in handy-- two of them just saved my recent sewing project!

Here's what my work table looked like before these shelves came to life:

I thought about installing wall shelves to maximize my table space, but when I saw this old shoe rack that was about to be thrown out, I figured hey, I've always wanted to spray paint some stuff, why not now eh? 

I believe this shoe rack came from Ikea. The screws were loose so it was rickety. I had recently thrown out/donated a lot of my shoes (part of my ongoing mission to build and maintain a capsule wardrobe-- buy less, wear more), so we didn't really need this extra rack. After measuring it and making sure it'd fit on my table, I cleaned and disinfected it with Dettol and let it sunbathe for a bit. 

Then came the fun part: spray painting!

Dove spray paints smell the best of the lot. Uh, not that I was sniffing it...

My favorite spray paint for now as it seems to apply the best and comes in a wide range of colors AND is easily available.

I also painted some of the legs with acrylic paint as a comparison to using spray paint. While spray paint is easier and quicker, using acrylic would be more practical if you preferred to work indoors on a rainy day for example.

After reassembling it into 3 separate racks with the help of some very strong glue, I now have the following:

A gold-white-blue rack for the dry area under our bathroom sink;

A matte black-pink-Persian green single-level shoe rack for our daily outdoor slippers;

and a two-level Persian green-gold craft shelf for my working table.

When my laptop isn't in use, I slide it under the shelf to make more space on the table for crafting or sewing. I have so much table space now and all my essentials are within reach. Yay!

Next mission: Re-upholstering that chair I sit on...

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