project funway

I thought I would put down the process of my project construction.  This jacket below was the kind of thing that I wanted to make.  A tassley little number

because i"m addicted

italian vogue

 The only way to get the tassles was to cut them out.

 and then cut the ends one at a time into points.

 all bunched up they looked like this, the black dye had turned the sheet a lovely dark inky colour

 close up it looked rather pretty, reminded me of my blackbird

 Then I had to lay them all out, pin and sew them on to their respective pieces.

close up back view of finished coat.

coat and dress in the car park at fashion island.  An unusual shot for me, I am not photogenic at all, and I quite like this one of me.

back of coat and bottom of dress.

competition over

today was the day of Project Funway so at  nine am we made our way to our local Fashion Island for the catwalk show and to find out who were the winners.

 My youngest made this cute little outfit, she did such a good job of design and construction and got a third place in the primary school section.

My beautiful big girl designed and made this beautiful dress, 16th century design puffy sleeves and a gorgeous rose in her hair.  Unfairly, I think, she didn't win anything. 

  and I made a inky fluffy jacket and a pink/red hearts circus frock.  The letters on the front spell LOVE.  I came second, hooray, so I was pleased, I will not be entering next year.

I took a few photos of other designs I liked, but there were so many clever people who had designed amazing outfits.

 My lovely friend made this gorgeous outfit in about two days having not read the instructions and thinking she had lots more time.

(above) This lovely girl was modeling for her mother.  It was such a cool outfit, influence Tim Burton/Rocky Horror and others. 

 this was the winner, it was beautiful and dreamy.

 she won the secondary section, very nice roses, I like.

this was in the secondary school section too, no prize, but I loved her layers and sweets and I thought she should have a prize.  The photo looks like she has horns, I think it is a sky-light.

So all in all it was a good morning.

project funway

Pins at the ready, it's time for project funway again.  Our local Fashion Island shopping mall is having a competition to make an outfit out of a king size sheet.  Myself and my two daughters are all entering this year, so it will be elbows at dawn ( or maybe a bit later) in a fight for the scissors, dye-pots and sewing machine.

 I spent too many hours in the garage making stands for the dummies.  I managed to saw and drill holes in my left hand and eventually had to rope in my husband to help.   At least one of those dummies looks a little uncomfortable on its new perch.  It was a rather intimate and surgical procedure to get those poles in the right place I can tell you.

 one of said sheets before the iron had got to it.

 Child number 2, first to make it to the machine.

 choosing dyes is always tricky but the dying process is good fun, although it doesn't do the wooden spoons much good.

 This is a pattern I designed for last years entry.  I can't find a photo of the dress I made but it was a tea dress with frills and a little blue jacket.  You may be able to find it on this link of last years entries to the competition.  seventeen down, second column, there are about three photos, the next entrant after me is my daughter.  Very cool design.

this is where I got the inspiration for the above design, its an old spanish embroidery.  Lovely!

Have been enjoying the design process, checking out the internet for inspiration.  I have firm ideas about what I will make and patterns are drawn and ready, but my surface design and colour ideas keep on changing.  I am a bit blank on that still.  Will post on this later and  post photos of the finished products and hopefully get some photos of the fashion show.  Terrifying stuff to walk down a runway infront of people.  My legs nearly gave way through nerves last year.

swirling dervish

My youngest daughter has hoiked up her red Cotton On skirt, attached a ribbon to the shoulder and now has a rather snazzy red dress.  I'm not sure if she decided that one-shoulder was the biz or just couldn't be bothered to sew on the other one, but I think it is rather cool.  Of course she will not be allowed to wear it out of the house in case she catches either a cold or sun-burn or both.  

funky fashion show

This weekend in town we had Eco-fest and as part of the entertainment there was a funky fashion show. This was really for school age people but the nice lady Christine, from Labels,  said anyone could enter so I enlisted my 8 year old to model for me and we were on to it. 

 This was the start pile. Blanket, boys school trousers and an old blue sparkly frock I'd had in my stash for at least 3 years, 

This was my pattern which I made by putting an old sheet onto duct-tape dummy and drawing on the expected shape with felt-tip pen.  (The duct-tape dummies have been a revelation in the dress making department, they make pattern making so much easier, you can pin material onto them and they stay still for-ever and don't make a fuss.)

The design idea for the coat was taken from this one above from Goldie London.  Isn't it beautiful?

I didn't quite have time to put on buttons, the trousers were held up with safety-pins, the sparkly top was unfinished at the sleeves and the hem, but my daughter actually loved the blue top and said she may wear the coat and trousers.  Result!

 and sloping around on stage in a really blurry photo. 

 My other beautiful and older child, made a brilliant paper version of her school uniform out of used printer paper and brown paper painted with the many test-pots and old paint pots we have in the garage.  Again the photos are not good, but it looked so realistic.  

 Paper clothes are not v practical though, any movement out of range was met with a ripping sound and required a paper patch to be glued on.  There were loads of brilliant outfits but I didn't ask anyone for permission to publish their photos on here so I thought it better not to.  

And last night me and husband went to a fancy dress party.  The theme was "heroes and villains".  I decided to go as Vivien Westwood and set off to the op-shop with this in mind. About 3 hours before the party I got a chance to make my outfit and this is how it turned out.  Dress made from extra-large mans check-shirt, chopped up, pleated, shorter-sleeved and pink slipped.  I'm not sure what Viv would think of it but my pre-teen thought it was fab (not her word) except for the pink slip bit.  I wore her cool red converse and  long stripey socks, I don't know what the babysitter thought!  And a grey wig, yes I know! but the orange wig at the $2 shop wasn't pretty and I am a vain girl.

Husband went as DentArthurDent from Hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy, in a rather nice wool dressing gown from the op-shop and some very fetching pyjamas.  He didn't have the right foot wear and he forgot his tea-cup, but he was well prepared for most other eventualities with a towel.

And it was a lovely party, good crowd, great costumes, yummy food.  

heart-shaped biscuits and eco outfit

I made some biscuits today as my poor children have had none in their lunch boxes yet this week.  My oldest child has to hide biscuits  from me  and my husband as we have no self-control and  tend to eat them all very quickly.  I made pretty heart-shaped ones half chocolate, half plain with a little icing sugar heart in the middle.  It all got less tidy when I had to squish up the left-over pieces to cut out again, they are more marble effect.  The table-cloth is my daughters from a Sunday market jaunt a couple of years ago.  I need to buy it off her to make cushion covers as it is so pretty, it has roses, big pink and big blue spots and little black spots!  

the motley selection of items you see before you is my raw materiels for a little outfit I want to make for a fashion show at our local eco-fest.  I am meant to have something to show the lady organiser tomorow, so I better get cracking.  I am making it for my little girl to wear hence her duct-tape dummy (see below from previous post) in the picture.

the idea is that you put on old well fitting clothes,

cover them in duct tape,

cut yourself out down the back,

stick up the cuts and then stuff your little body double with something. We used newspaper, but old clothes or proper stuffing could be used. I'm sure with a bit of practice they could look quite smart.

I have found mine very useful already, taking in some jeans that were always too loose around the waist at the back and starting on a skirt made from an old top. so much easier pinning things neatly on a dummie shaped like me. 

A junk to funk fashion show, I think this is made from chopped up Vogue magazines

,

And all these other amazing designs were created by  Polish fashion students.  Pretty clever stuff.  My design will not be as clever as this, but I will try my best and show the results when I have finished.