Op Shop Refashion - Green cotton shirt

Another op shop find in need of refashioning!

It's not my usual pick, but it's nice, light cotton and I like the embroidered detail. I can definitely refashion it into something.

I eco-dyed it to make it a less.. fluoro yellow colour. and it made a huge difference.

These markings were where I pushed rusty nails through the fabric to create a pattern. Unfortunately it damaged part of the fabric, but the top row of markings are undamaged. So I'll take some fabric off the bottom.

I really love the full leaf print on the back

I thought about taking the collar off, because I never like those. I wanted to shorten the sleeves as well. But the more I looked at the shirt the more I felt like it needed to stay whole. Maybe I could add something instead? I do have a whole box of trims!

 The red stands out a bit, but what else is there?

 I didn't mind this blue.

 Or the plain black, though I thought it darkened the whole shirt,

 Some roses? No?

 The winner - multi-coloured tassle braid.

I used the trim to cover the nail holes, and it was a simple straight sew to add it to the bottom.

 And shirt done!

#lovelypennypatterns

Dress Refashion: from Caftan to House Dress

A friend asked me to refashion this fantastic caftan that she had inherited into something more comfortable for our tropical climate.

A high collar =  not so good in the heat.

I unpicked the little decoration from the front and set it aside: it might make its way back on.

 Love those patterns! It came from somewhere like Singapore. It has birds, elephants, trees.

I started by taking the collar off, because I thought was going to change the neckline to a round one and it would be in the way. Rather than cut it off, I unpicked the stitches in case I could reuse the pieces.

It took a while, because the garment had been quite well made. But I didn't want to rip anything, so slow and steady it was. I watch a lot of background TV when I sew! Or musicals, they're good to sew to.

These parts could be useful in creating a new neckline.

Onto the sides, and I'll leave the neckline for last.
There's lots of spare fabric on the sides, which can be cut down.

There is already a seam that runs from under the arms to the hem, and the dress fits my friend with this seam, so I don't have to re-size or do anything too tricky.

My plan was the cut a seam allowance outside this line and then fold and hem the full length of the dress. But I'll need to cut out the top so that I can hem it at the same time. Bring in another dress of mine to use as a pattern. We're about the same size, which always make it easier.

I simply pinned around the dress... 

...and then realised that I had fabric pencils and replaced the pins with that! The pink circle is the belt hole from the caftan.

It looks like a different dress already 😁

Because the extra fabric from the caftan was on the outside of the dress, when I trimmed it down I needed to fold the fabric down and sew it flat to the dress,

A bit of manoeuvring around the machine.

Onto the collar: I left the original shape and used the support fabric that I had picked off to re-create it.

More and more promising! Excuse the creative chaos in the back...

Though, because the caftan wasn't quite centred, my shoulders did end up uneven.

It also gapes quite a bit under the arms. The blue is where the underarm line should be.

The solution? A cute little triangle shoulder fold, that serves the double purpose of making the shoulders look more even and lifting the underarm of the dress. I do this to some singlets and dresses that I buy, because I often find that the arm holes are too big.

Very happy with the top half of the dress.

And with the final dress! 
Because I lifted the shoulders it is a little it isn't as long as the original caftan, but that was floor-length and I usually find that I trip over hems when I'm around the house. Especially if you have stairs!

And there you have it: from caftan to house dress. Very happy friend, who has a few more of them for me to do too!

I'll have to think of some other patterns for the top 😊 #lovelypennypatterns

Cosplay Partner in Crime - Harley Quinn Design

Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn from the Batman comics were partners in crime at times. My friend and I are also partners, in cosplay not in crime. I already have my Poison Ivy Cosplay so it was time to plan the matching one.

This was my design sketch for the second costume, very similar materials to the first.

Stretchy underskirt, two colours of tulle over it and  matching top. These are my interpretations of the costumes, not any particular cannon/comic/movie/game. I believe that if the costume has the right elements for you to be able to identify the character, you're doing it right. 

What I had missed in the sketch was the headdress! I wore a wig for my Poison Ivy cosplay with nothing else in my hair.  Rather than make the jester cap, what else could I do? I think the mask is a must. But how about:

• Black and white wig? She had blond hair though, in the comics.
• Hat
• Fascinator
• Mini hat for a fascinator

I turned to the woman who would be wearing it for her opinion. She actually turned all the options down in favour of the jester cap! This was the inspiration she sent through:

This would be fairly easy to make. I designed a quick pattern:

Something we could both add to our costumes are gloves: green for me, one red and one black for her.

I'll get around to making this one of these days! Probably the week before we go to the next convention... ha ha!!

Recycled Beach Glass Hair Clips

I've gotten back into wire work recently, particularly working with recycled glass that my family have helped me pick up from the local beaches. I don't have a permanent setup for beading and wire like I do for sewing, so I usually drag it all down to the kitchen table.

A friend asked me to make her some hair clips for her birthday, so that was a nice thing to work towards. She shares my tastes in clips, so I knew I could be creative for her. 
I wrap the wire around the bits of glass, using the odd edges to make it secure. Thicker wire also helps a lot. This fish has been in my bead box for years, so it was nice to be able to put it on something.

It's hard sometimes to avoid compromising the teeth of the comb: you want it to stay in, particularly as the beach glass is quite heavy for a hair clip. I try to only wrap around the very top of the comb.

Matching pins? Why not!

The decorative bobby pins were a good base to attached the glass to. I wrapped the glass and then slid the pin into the wrap, before securing it.

One set done!

I went for different colours in the next piece. The silver leaves came off an old, broken piece of jewellery that was donated to me for upcycling. I think the tassle came off an earring of mine, too.

While I was playing around I put this one together, too, to go in the craft stall box. See the bottle neck in there? I pick quite a few up on the beach, mostly brown ones.

It kind of reminds me of a coral reef, one of those odd combinations you sometimes find in nature.

Lots of combs leftover, so I'll have to sit down and make some more soon. I need more of the rare colours in the glass, the greens and dark blues, so we might have to go walking again soon!

Pretty Alcohol Ink Pictures

My cousin-in-law invited another cousin and I over this weekend to help her with a project. She has gotten into art using alcohol paints, where she creates pictures on glass. Like this:

This was a small picture frame, about 20cm x 20cm. Her next project was to do a much larger frame, and she thought that she would need two people to help. I'd never come across alcohol inks before and the process was fascinating. We all had a go!
You start with a picture frame and remove the glass from it.

We cleaned the glass, to make sure that it didn't have any dust or fingerprints on it that would be immortalised in the finished product. 

Things we needed:

• foil-covered tray to work on
• alcohol inks
• iso-propyl alcohol
• fire lighter

You can see the marks from previous sessions on the tray.

It was hard to choose a combination of inks, I wanted to use them all! But whatever you chose, you ended up with stained on your fingers!

Though the inks themselves are alcohol-based, adding the iso-propyl alcohol to them creates a larger, different effect. We used syringes to drip it on.

We had to work fast in this medium, because the alcohol would dry out very quickly.

Step 1 - add the colours to the glass, drip by drip.

Step 2 - add the iso-propyl alcohol. See how the spots of colour expanded with the extra alcohol added? We tried two methods. This first one was with a syringe, which gave a blotchy effect.

This second one was using a spray bottle. This had a slightly different effect, making splatters with the ink.

Step 3 - swirl or move the glass for the effect that you wanted.

Step 4 - LIGHT IT ON FIRE. 

The fire sets the ink, who'd have known? It only burned for a few seconds, but it was a bit freaky the first time!

At this point it didn't always look amazing....

But then you put them on white paper and the colours come out. This was my first one and I love it!

My other cousin did this one:

And this one:

Once they had sat out for a little while, we could put them back in their frames. The side that the ink is on faces inside, but the colours and patterns still show up well. We swapped them around until we were happy that the frames matched the contents.

Some finishing touches on a couple of them and they were done!

 I think this one still needs something, maybe some stars?

 Jellyfish?

 I love the little tail in the top right of mine, like there's some kind of creature in the picture.

As it turned out it did take the three of us to do the large piece of glass, using exactly the same technique.

We all stepped back from those flames in a hurry!

It was harder to swirl the colours, but the final look was very effective.

 I don't think I need another hobby, but this was a lot of fun!