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.

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.

holidays over

The holidays finished today, so back to rushing around in a dis-organised fashion every morning. We managed to keep ourselves entertained the last week. The girls and I spent a beautiful morning walking up a steep hill, with the smell of warm eucalyptus and pine and the sun keeping us warm. We sat at the top and drew pictures. The kids pictures are always so much more inspiring than mine, however hard I try.

We also were lucky enough to come across duct-tape-dummies. The first time this fantastic idea presented itself was in Sewing-Clothes-Kids-Love- by Langdon and Pollehn. We then looked up on the internet to find thousands of posts on the subject. Are we the only people who know nothing about this?

Anyway 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. I feel rather project runway already.