Organizing Life: Black Week (3)

It's Thursday and I'm still coughing! Just cannot seem to shake this one. Any-whoooo…We just had some lovely rain, after a lovely sunny day and I must say I'm starting to feel a bit more human. Though, once again this week has just evaporated. Last night I managed to finish my boxy black dress, I'm so proud of myself. No pattern, just a straight rectangle sewn together. I added a contrasting patterned yoke and did this one with a boatneck. When I fit it on the first time it way way to long so I added horizontal pleats and now it's perfect. Just add a belt and we're good to go!

I cannot wait to try it on! I'll definitely do an Outfit Love post on this one. It turned out to have a mixture of 1920's and 1950's fashion, don't you think? Have you guys been sewing anything lately? I'm not a salted seamstress and I'm no fashion designer so the simple stuff can at times be a challenge to me. But hey, I'm learning! This little project has taken a nice big chunk out of my black fabric heap, which has shrunk quite a bit since I started.

While I'm at it, I decided to sort through my accessories and gathered up all my black accessories. It really helps to take photo's of what you have to your disposal. It happens more often than not that I'll get stuck wearing the same one necklace everyday for a month and then complain about not having any accessories. Knowing what you've got and being able to see an overview of what you've got to work with will help to plan outfits ahead. This comes in handy when you're planning a trip or even for that last minute fancy dress event. You also come to realise just how much you really have and what you NEVER wear. In taking my organising one colour family at a time, the monstrous task is broken up into more chewable pieces. I have found that there are a lot of things I don't feel comfortable in anymore. Now I know which things will have to go and it seems quite a lot easier to let them go.

If you have any organising tips for me, please leave you tips or links in the comments below. I'm always looking for more clever ideas on how to get sorted.

Have an awesome day!

xxx

Outfit Love: Black Week (2)

Hey, it's Tuesday! The past few weeks are a bit of a blur, I came down with the flu about two weeks ago and thought I'd recovered from it last weekend. To my surprise, it just hit me harder last Sunday. I was quite enthusiastic about Organising Life and started with my Black Week series last week Monday. Epic fail! I was so sick and my meds made me so sleepy, I don't even remember half of what happened last week. The lovely warm weather and my grandparents visiting over the weekend had me feeling a bit better, though I'm still coughing quite a lot. Being sick has left me very isolated and I fell out of touch with the world. With audio books being my only company as I slipped in and out of consciousness. I listened to How to succeed by Orison Swett Marden and Letters of a Post-Impressionist, Vincent van Gogh, but I'll talk some more about those later.

Today's outfit (to tell you the truth, I cannot even remember when this was taken) I'm sharing with you as part of my Black week series.

This was the first time wearing my new biker jacket (Woolworths) I really love this jacket, come to think of it, this jacket has actually replaced the soft black jacket I bought last year. I shall be getting rid of that one now. My booties! Ah, I found them at Fashion Express after searching everywhere for a comfortable, pacifical boot. They are so awesome, I ended up wearing them almost everyday! They just slip right on and the go with almost any outfit. I'm very chuffed with the above mentioned investments, they were well worth the purchase.

This little black number was more of a tunic and I've always wanted to lengthen it just enough for it to be worn as a dress. Lucky for me, I found just the right amount and type of fabric for just that purpose. So during my more "awake" times last week, I added to the hem, seemed it and voila! At last! I wore it out to dinner with Dave on Friday night and will definitely where it again. Maybe next time I'll remember to take an outfit photo. The offcuts of this particular piece of fabric were cut and melted, ready to become part of a rose hair clip (coming soon).

I hope you all had an amazing Tuesday and to all my sick buddies out there(cause I hear there are a few others), keep warm and I trust we'll all get better real soon!

xxx

Outfit Love: My Very Own

Oh my! I don't wish to complain the whole time… It's just sooo difficult when there is sooooo much to complain about. For one, I couldn't publish my Outfit Love post yesterday nor today due to some rather  irritating technical problems regarding my Mac and the internet constantly quitting for no reason. Ever since we upgrade to Mountain Lion, I experienced some misbehaviour. I really hope we don't have one of those very rare Apple viruses. As soon as I can find the time to do a system clean-up, we'll upgrade to Mavericks, hopefully that will sort our problems out.

Back to a happier, prettier topic now… You have probably all seen my HMM post on Monday, well this outfit is all about that post. About three years ago, I started to really LOVE rose prints. I searched for rose prints everywhere (locally) but couldn't find anything! Then to make matters worse, the internet and my favourite magazines were covered in roses, rose prints…roses everywhere! Everywhere but here! Eventually, I found a really nice pair of rose print jeggings at our local PnP Clothing outlet but that was it… Two years ago I found a hand sewn vintage blouse at Hospice with the most beautiful rose print, then that was it! So on my trip to Pretoria last year I hit the jackpot when I walked into Metro  (one of my favourite fabric stores). They had so many rose printed fabrics, I didn't know how to choose. The worst part was that I could only take a few pieces, as I was flying back, don't you just hate that? So I decided to take half meters of fabric so I'd have more of a variety of prints…okay, I did sneak in some large pieces as well, I just couldn't resist! The first rose print item I made was The Rose Swift dress which featured in my Outfit Love post A Rose Garden. Without further a due, here is my ultimate favourite, my very own, very first, rose printed pencil skirt! 

-Oh happiness! This skirt was such an achievement for me! My next challenge will be to actually work from a pattern, I'v never done that before. So wish me luck! The amazing thing about this skirt is how the outfits just put themselves together. It goes with so many the clothes that I have, it's the perfect game-changer! To tell you the truth, I've been so lost in "myself", not knowing who I am anymore. And as I said in another post, I find myself liking too many styles it feels I got lost somewhere in a vast forrest. Though this might seem a bit shallow, this skirt has become a symbol, a first step to finding myself again. I'm so excited! If this skirt turned out so great, I can't imagine what the future will be like-

-the cute lacey design necklace was a gift from my mom.

-my favourite polka dotty top I bought at Mr. Price years ago

-vintage leather belt is from our Animal Welfare shop

…and the rest (as they say) is history!

Hope you guys had an amazing day…

xxx

Happy Monday Makings #14

Oh, hey! I'm so excited about today's HMM! As you might have noticed, I've been making friends with my mom's sewing machine. Though I still struggle to sew straight most of the times and that sewing machine is damn moody, I think I might be getting the hang of this. Now, this project was inspired by the beautiful piece of rose-print fabric I found in Pretoria when we were the last September. When I saw it there in the shop I just knew it was going to be a pencil skirt. It took time and a lot of courage (for me) to start this project but last Monday, I did! I worked on it during every off minute of last week and the weekend…and now it's done!

-YaY! WhooooHoooo!!!!! I cannot believe I did it! I made this and it's awesome! I've been wanting to wear rose-printed everything for more than a year now but our local clothing store never have what I want… I'm sooooo happy!-

-Okay…so it's no quite perfect, it was my first! The waist-band part isn't tapered to the curve of my middle 'cause I kinda didn't think of that. Well, okay, to tell you the truth…I didn't use a pattern. I kinda just, winged it! And it worked! Ha! (to all the sewing experts out there, go easy on me) I really enjoyed this-

-Oh, I had sewn the hem at my mom's place and when I got home I ironed the whole thing, fit it on and thought it should be shorter. So I marked where I wanted the hem to be, took it off, turned it inside-out and pinned it all around. I then ironed the hem in place, took out the pins as I went and the sewed it with what looks like a whipstitch on the inside all the while making sure that the stitches on the right side were tiny as hell. Ah! Then there's my very first "clothing" zipper… I know I did it soooo wrong, but I couldn't find my mom's zipper foot and even if I did, I wouldn't know how to use it. So I winged that too.

What do you guys think? Have you made something recently using a new skill?

I'd love to see

xxx

 

Outfit Love: Autumn Colours

What amazing Autumn weather we are having! It's raining and the wind is trying to blow our house down… I just love it! It's still quite warm at times, so if you're living in the Western Cape be sure to have a cardi or scarf handy. Layering is more than a trend here, it's a necessity. My friend Natasha says that since they moved here from Gauteng, she's been keeping a spare outfit in the car just incase. The weather is so unpredictable here! Today, I got a good workout from putting my jacket on and then taking it off…putting it back on and then taking it off again. 

- I love this look! Everything just seemed to go together, almost as if they were purchased together-

• you might recognise my winter flower brooch from this post
• the corduroy blazer was a gift from my aunt Zelda - love it!
• Autumn Foilage dress from my HMM post here
• leather "biker" belt, thrifted
• turquoise tights from Woolworths
• mustard flats with cutesy bows from Cotton On

-here's a pic without the blazer, so you can see how cute the dress is! I can already see soooo many outfit possibilities forming around this dress, I can't wait to play with more colours and textures-

  

-these colours have inspired me to make more of these flower brooches, I still have a few bits left of this fabric…some new wintery accessories might be born from this outfit yet-

Hope you had an amazing Tuesday!

xxx

Happy Monday Makings #12

Monday-Monday… We had the loveliest rainy day today, I just adore this weather. It leaves me feeling quite nostalgic. Todays Happy Monday Makings (HMM), was inspired by a pin from my board, for me to sew and some vintage-looking thrifted fabric. The pin took me to Pretty Prudent where I found this really easy tutorial, The Most Flattering Shirt Dress DIY.

-This was my first try, working with bias binding but the tutorial was so great I did it…no probs! I couldn't do the shirring in the middle as I have yet to find the elastic thread needed for the job, but it works well with a belt for now. I love that the print on this fabric is that of a vintage themed Autumn-

-the fabric I used is more of a quilting cotton which makes it a bit rigid, so when I fit the dress on I had Buzz Lightyear shoulders. This was not good! I had to do something about those flying shoulders, so I put little pleats in-

I must say I'm quite chuffed with this dress, I loved this tutorial so much I might just make another dress from it.

Are you favouring any tutorials lately? Please share, we love getting the diy scoop!

xxx

Happy Monday Makings #11

As promised, the Happy Monday Makings post to go with last week's Outfit Love post. I made this dress from thrifted fabric, found at a local charity shop. It's a lovely knit fabric and is thick enough that I didn't need to wear a slip underneath. The pattern I used was inspired by many a pinterest pattern diy. I simply took a dress I love, lay it flat on my fabric, traced the outlines and cut out the pieces. I then sewed and seamed and voila! I did make some minor improvements… 

-This turned out so great, I've worn it so many times already! It's comfortable, practical and perfect for the heat we've experienced the past three months-

-the dress I used to as pattern, had a gather on the shoulders. I decided to knot them instead. As the original is a wrap dress, it had long strips to wrap the dress with. I thought I'd rather put buttons and loops, this way I could accessorise the dress with a belt or two to create different looks-

I must say I'm really happy with this one, it truly was a Happy Monday Making!

What have you gals been up to? Make anything interesting lately? Feel free to share your crafting excursions with us, leave a link in the comments. I'd love to see what my fellow crafters are up to.

xxx

Outfit Love: Summer Wrap… and a Happy Birthday, Blog!

I cannot believe I almost missed it, again! There is just so much going on… some of you might have noticed that I haven't quite been myself this year. For some reason I just cannot get myself to wright posts and when I do they seem to come out rather depressing. I would rather refrain from blogging to keep this my "happy place", than force myself to blog when I'm under a dark cloud.

Today's outfit precedes the Happy Monday Makings post which was supposed to be yesterday, instead it will be posted the following Monday. I hope that's alright with you gals…

-This skirt was made from thrifted T-shirt fabric. I'm wearing my new favourite vintage-leather belt again. My handmade goldfish earrings and a beaded necklace I made years ago-

Except for my shoes and belt, my outfit is all handmade!

  

-Originally I tried out the Side Braid, but as I still have a lot of layers it didn't look too good. I decided to just make the braid into a bun and it work perfectly! What do you think?-

Hope you had an Amazing Tuesday!

xxx

Happy Monday Makings #10

Hey! It's Monday! So here is my latest Happy Makings! I found my inspiration for this project from Cotton & Curls. This blog has been tempting me to further my sewing skills for a while now. Cotton & Curls is full of lovely diy's for making and revamping clothing, among other things. This is such a fresh blog, I just love visiting and just taking everything in. I know, I'm terrible at leaving comments…and staying in touch… I will try my best to comment more on the blogs that I visit regularly.

If you follow this (Tops) link, you'll get the idea. Scrolling through all those diy's just makes me want to make something! And so, I did… it took me long enough! 

-pardon the un-ironed box-top… I was a bit over eager to take the photo's for the post-

-seams! again! you can probably see from the photo above that I really suck at it! I am hopeful that with  practice, I might improve. The photo below shows the burn-out pattern of the fabric, isn't it beautiful? I found it in Pretoria, along with the rose print fabric. I loved this one so much that I bought it in three different colours. So keep a weather eye out for the next Happy Monday Makings-

Hope you had a good one!

xxx

 

Happy Monday Makings #9

Hiya! It's Monday, again! How was your weekend? Mine was very interesting and fun! But first, here is my Monday Makings. I've been sewing on and off since I can remember. Sewing just never appealed to me, not like painting, designing, beading, mosaic, crochet… So, whenever I had a sewing project I would ask my mom, aunt or gran to help me and never developed the skill myself.

I decided that I've got to just do it this year! I started with a few plain and simple things, like this dress. I bought half a meter of beautiful rose-printed knit fabric. I folded it in half(length wise, print facing in) pinned the sides and cut the fabric at the fold. This leaves you with two equal rectangles. I sewed the sides, leaving space for armholes, I then pinned and sewed the shoulders. Seamed the armholes, shaped the neck and seamed that as well. I then turned it right side out and took in the shoulders with two pleats each, by hand. I'm still deciding whether or not to just seam the hem or to get matching trimmings like a pretty lace or something to round it off.

-I cannot wait to wear it! It will be perfect for our recent scorching weather. I also have accessories that would make the cutest outfit of this dress-

Hope you had an awesome Monday!

xxx

30 Skirts in 30 Days: #13 My First Sewing Project

Today has been a sort of a lazy Saturday. We've just been chilling at home, Dave was watching the rugby and I've been crocheting on my latest project. As this was a stay-in day, I decided to dig out an old skirt that I made back when I was still in High School. I took an old jean and cut off the legs. I then took some strips of vintage fabric my Gran had given me at the time and sewed it along the new hem. The jean I had used didn't have back pockets so I cut back pockets out of another old pair of trousers and sewed them onto the back of the jean. And this was the result...

 -looking at it now, I cringe seeing all the loose threads hanging all over the place. No seams, very shoddy work... I've never been very good with a sewing machine-

-This is one skirt I will probably keep forever. My very first sewing project (done all by myself), my very own idea back then and not to mention the piece of fabric I used is very sentimental (having belonged to my Gran)-

What was your first ever sewing project?

-enjoy the rest of your weekend-

xxx

Project a Day: #17 From Doily to Cushion

Hi friends! Monday has come and past! This weekend feels light a vague memory. I do have some makings to share with you, though. A while back, I found these two fairly large doilies at a charity shop. I recently decided to turn them into scatter cushions for our couch.

 -my sewing is improving somewhat, but it's still not quite there yet. At least I can make button holes... these doilies have been crocheted a bit skew making the edging a bit ridged, but it'll do. I found the peacock cushion cover (in the top image) at our local Hospice shop, I only had to add an inner- 

   -This one will be done soon, it's slightly skewer than the first one so it might get tricky when sewing this one to the cover. I'll be sure to post a photo when it's done-

-Have a good week-

xxx

Project a Day: #3 Winter Flower Brooch

Winter is here my friends! It's been raining quite a bit and today was freezing! As I was thinking of the cold, I realized that I've never made fabric flowers with winter wovens and chunky thick fabric before. This one was a bit of an experiment to see how these fabric would work technically. It is a bit difficult to sew by hand, as the fabric becomes thicker when scrunched together and even thicker the more layers you add. Not that practical as a product for selling because of the tedious sewing work. It was also very time consuming.

 -I used scraps of fabric (thrifted), bits and bobs to add accents and I ended up using different buttons than shown in the top image. The buttons I used are also thrifted and oh so vintage-

xxx

30 Days of Dresses: Dress #4

...Okay, here's a quick one! This dress can be styled up or down. I made this dress last year, December, when my Aunt Zelda and her family visited for the holidays. My cousin, Zandienne, had received a sewing machine for Christmas so I took her to our local fabric shop to buy some fabric. It was there that my eyes fell upon this awesome Navaho printed T-shirting(knitted fabric). I bought a meter and as I couldn't get myself to cut this beautiful print, I decided to use the whole piece to make a maxi "beach" dress. 

 -this dress probably took me 10min to sew and it looks awesome! It's also crazy comfy-

xxx

My very first Vintage dress revamp

From time to time my grandmother would send a bag full of stuff with my mom with these instructions "give this bag to Chane', tell her that she can take what she can use and the rest must go to HOSPICE". Mostly such a bag would contain clothes that someone gave her that she can't use or doesn't like. Sometimes it's a whole lot of nonsense that she bought from her local animal welfare shop that she doesn't want anymore. But now and then she would send me something that she thought I would enjoy.

In this case, however, the bag was meant for the charity shop alone. Off course I'm first going to look through the bag before I hand it over... So in between a bunch of old men's work jeans, I found this over sized printed cotton dress. At first I thought I'd use the fabric to make something else but like all things handed down to me, it started growing on me. It's been almost two years since I found this dress and with inspiration from my new peachy cardi, Natasha's post on her first fashion remake.  Here is my first attempt.

-Okay, first step would be to try on the dress. Now you can see...lots of fabric-

-Next step, I turned the dress inside out (and upside down)

-Now I can start pinning where I would like it smaller and see, I raised the hem too(as indicated with blue above)

-Then take it off, run it though the sewing machine, trim where needed, turn right side out, iron and there you have it

PS. This was so much easier than I thought it would be... to see the end result, you have to wait for my 30 Days of Dresses: Dress #2 post, a little later...

xxx

Happy Monday Makings #7

How time flies! Monday already!? So here's what I made today... using scraps of various types of fabric collected over a period of time. I have started to sort all my thrifted and "hand-me-down" fabric into colour stories. This colour story is rich and luxurious, it carries a bit of a Medieval era mystery. Don't you think? I love how it turned out... I found a new fabric flower pattern here.

-love, rouge, velvet-

Happy Monday Makings #6

Happy Monday, Friends! It is such a lovely day here in Hermanus, it seems that winter came early this year. There's an chill in the breeze, the sun is dimmed yet hot and the shadows are so very long. This coming weekend I'm taking part in a local market, hosted in the Sandbaai Hall here in Hermanus. Their theme is Recycle, Reuse, Re- claim and so on... As most of my products are already made of fabrics sourced from local charity shops, I was asked to exhibit at this market. So now I'm working on some new ranges, experimenting with new floral patterns, for winter.

 -this pretty was inspired by the little navy piece above, I found it in a bag filled with scraps and offcuts, it had already been sewn. As I went through the rest of the bag I found this lovely Teal hem offcut and thought it the perfect opportunity to try out this folded rose pattern with leaves-

-and there you have it-

xxx

  

Lucky Friday Finds #6

There is nothing better than finding a "lucky packet" at one of my favourite thrift stores! I went into Matchbox the other day and found this baggy filled with awesome vintage fabric stuffies!

-half finished projects and lovely bit of vintage fabric. Such prettiness, these will make for the cutest gifts, maybe pincushions or brooches with the small bits. The tea cosy inners could make nice handbag linings-

xxx   

Summer OddOne's at Deja Vu!

Some lovely Summer goodies to look out for at Deja Vu's new shop in Hermanus (right above the Mug'n'Bean). They've got a beautiful spot there, over looking the centre of town and the sea... So whenever you're in the area, pop in at Deja Vu and support all the really awesome gifts and crafts that are handmade by the local Artists and Crafters.

-Above-

My vintage, fabric, yo-yo brooches are so much fun and brighten up any outfit! Then I've also made some statement crochet bangles...love wearing these myself:) The vintage denim bows are hairclips but you can put them anywhere you like;)

-Above-

These Turquoise&Orange textile necklaces are my favourite out of all the textile necklaces I've made! The colour combination has such a positive effect on a person. When you put one of these babies on, you feel like you can do anything! I really loved making these, I even made an extra one for myself...

xxx

to make a sock cat:)

There was this pair of toe-socks in my sock drawer which I really loved but all the toes had holes in them. the rest of the pair of socks were in perfect condition. So I thought to myself, how could I possibly throw these out? I then remembered the cute sock animals I had recently seen on Etsy and this was how my version turned out:)

1. Shave off any fluff with a disposable razor. Plan, cut and sew.
2. Hand stitch and embroider on the face, ears and tummy. Sew on buttons for eyes. Stuff with any available stuffing, place a sand bag in the bottom and stitch the sock up.
3. Tie a string with a bell around your kitty's neck and find him a nice spot in the house.

This kitty is called Mao and he was my mom's Christmas present... She loves cats!

xxx