Ten Flames - Decoration

This is quite a big order:-) Five pairs of flame poi.
I had the template from the last time. I ironed some vlieselin on and drew the shapes on with a chalk. Unfortunately, I found out I had little fabric and had to go buying some more:-C

I cut the flames out and drew the poi. You can see how nice were the poi lain on the canvas - actually no leftovers, the rest on the right was just enough for the pockets.

I cut out the poi and got down to glueing the flames on. I set the red on the place with pins and put a small drop of glue under each top. I also put a drop under the middle of the flames.

The last two went to the upper corners of the edges.

Having them prepared this way, I had to sew them on with a satin stitch (very short and wide zigzag). Nothing difficult, but quite time consuming (ten times, OMG:-D)..

Thread Depository

I have been hating for quite a lot of time the way threads are stored at us. A box smaller than the amount of spools, you never know which threads you have and the unravelling of tangled end of the threads is a perticular delight...

One day I said stop. And after half a year I got down to this project:-D
I bought some mesh and black fabric and began. I cut out two big rectangles from the canvas and six stripes of mesh.
I placed them upside down to the vertical lines I had drawn, sewed on and turned upwards (except the lowest one - I sewed it on already upwards).

I traced the vertical lines and sewed them through. The last two rows have big distances in vertical and horizontal direction - they will carry big spools:)

Before sewing the verticals I ironed vliselin on to toughen it. A poor seamstress must know how to collect puzzle:-P
The depository is just for my so I could afford using leftovers.

When I had the pockets finished, I put the other rectangle, right side to right side, to the first one. I pinned them together and I didn't forget to pin twill loops between them before sewing.

I left a hole in the bottom right hand corner to turn it over. I ironed it, sewed a line a mm from the edge...
...and filled with spools:-D

A Little Camera Box Decoration

This week I'm taking part in a photographic course and I had some beads at home. What could come from it? :-)

I decorated the front seams. I backstitched each bead, it was rough particularly at the corners (too thick a layer of material).

Nothing special, more to amuse me than to form something beautiful:-P

Wedding Car and Little Dress

Sister's wedding's here:-)
The car I made the decoration for looks like this...

...and here you can see the little dress for my niece and the model I made it according to - I wanted the mum and baby to look similar:-)

Happy bride and cute little angel..
Btw. were you also wondering how many hands my mum has? :-P

Wedding Car Decoration

Mum ordered a decoration for sister's wedding car from me. She chose a picture on the Net and I had to get down to it:-)
I bought some organza, took my lapping foot and started. It took me quite a lot of time to find out how to work with this foot.
You must double fold the fabric in hand for the first four centimeters, put the footer down and sew it.

Then you unfold it and insert the edge in the foot's intestines. When I sew I slightly hold the fabric with my thumb and forefinger so that I could lead the edge in the footer without stopping sewing.

I'm not very skilful with this, so sometimes the lap unfolds (it's folded only once and the frayed edge is out). Folding the edge before the footer (once) and inserting it folded to the footer may help :-)

Here you can see - the damaged part on the left and the repaired one on the right. Fortunately, this shouldn't be very noticeable. I used this project for me to learn how to use my foot, let sister forgive me :-D and I know it won't be perfect.

The horizontal edges are bordered with satin lace, folded in the middle. I glued the ends before sewing them on. I can't find any other way for the lace not to fray out and unfold when I sew.

This will be the bow.

The center for the bow is from three layers of organza, for it not to be transparent.

At the wedding, we'll see, whether it will fit completed or not. Are you as curious as I am? :-D

A Little Wedding Dress

Sister is getting married soon. She wanted me to make a simple dress for her little daughter. She gave me an underdress and I made a pattern according to it, just a little bit bigger. And without sleeves.
I drew it on two layers of brocade and cut out. I made it shorter for the later decoration of the bottom.

I double folded the armholes and sewed. I also cut a stripe of gold fabric and sewed it on the silver brocade at the place of the future lacing. It should have been right side to right side :-D

I cut out two identical pieces with the inner shape of the neckline (each from two halves sewn together).

I pinned them together (right to right) and sewed along the outer line.

I cut a straight line inside the lacing's lining and turned it over to the wrong side.
I cut out the neckline and pinned the neck on. I don't know why exactly the neckline was bigger than the neck's inner line:-)

I took two pieces of golden brocade and made stripes for the bottom's decoration from them. I sewed them on, folded the lower side and sewed the dress together at the sides.

I made the eyelets at the lacing. In fact, the dress should be similar to the sister's wedding dress, so I made them by hand as well. I used a tailor's buttonhole stitch.

It's much better than a simple buttonhole stitch which I had been desperate of. It make a sort of a braid in the center and the stitches are nice and regular that way.
I cut out the holes and made all the eyelets.

I had to baste the neck to the body with a slanted stitch for it to be held on the place. I was taking only the lower gold fabric.

At the lacing I interrupted stitching. You can see that at the sewn part, all is clean and no frayed edges stick out behind.

The finished dress with the chemise sister made. As for a little angel... :-)

Red Wrist Weight

Second wrist weight.
These are the default pieces. You can see how the dark red piece is ironed.

The next step - serging the pockets. I sew the two light red pieces to the dark one as if they weren't cut.

Adding the twill tape isn't easy, so I want eliminate all possible problems. Here you see that after sewing the two (three) pieces together (and ironing flat), they have different edges - they have to be snipped to the same level.

A few hours later I got a new pair :-)
Originally, I had wanted the red colours to be switched, but then I found out I didn't have enough light red.

Blue Wrist Weight With Filling

What all a dressmaker should be able to do :-)
We bought an old iron slab and my boyfriend and I cut it in alike blocks.

This is the final appearance of the wrist weights. You can see how the weights are inserted in the little pockets. They can be combined arbitrarily to form different weight for a hand.

This young body-builder let me take a picture of him and the wrist bands on:)
They are really heavy.

Blue Wrist Weight

Boys felt they were too slow with heavy armour and at the fight at all, so they wanted me to make wrist bands with weights in them.
I made a pattern from the old wrist bands, then made one more pattern with folds included. I only could make half of it - it was already bigger than A4:-) The first pattern has been cut in two pieces to form a room for inserting the weights.

I serged the cut part of the first pattern. Then I ironed the folds at the second pattern and sewed it to the first piece at the marked lines. Ironed flat.

I bought a twill tape, folded it in the middle and ironed. This way I could be quite sure that when I sew at the upper half, the lower one will be caught too. I put it over the edge and sewed on.

The corners were quite difficult. I solved it like this: I sewed to the end of the side, then I sewed a bit back, I folded the tape as an arrow, pressed flat and went on sewing.

Then next step was velcro. I sewed on the tapes at the slots - I always sewed so that the tape was a cm longer than the unit (to leave a space for the weight). By the way, I wanted the wrist weights to be safe, so I sewed throught the velcro and the canvas several times.
At one end, I sewed in a metal loop, at the other I joined the soft part of the velcro with the scratchy one, pressed the seam flat and sewed to the rest with zig-zag stitch.

I bought soft duffel, cut out the shape of the wrist band (a little smaller), and sewed along the side without a twill tape. I didn't serge this piece.
This should protect a hand from being galled.

The fourth side of the wrist band was thicker and not well accessible because of the velcro bands - I decided to sew the twill tape on in hand.
You can see a stitch I used: I went up with the needle at the right side, caught a little bit at the edge of the tape, went down; at the wrong side I caught the tape from below and finished. The stitch has a zig-zag structure.
I started in the middle of the thread and tape (I made a slip knot on the thread). I sewed to the right, when finished untied the knot and sewed to the left.

At the corner I snipped the tape off leaving a small bit. I folded the end in and sewed. At this particular example I cut too much and the end frayed out. I ripped the tape off and did it again.

One should never be too lazy to repair their mistakes :-)