It's Halloween time!

As a quick update from my previous post please replace all occurences of "broderie anglaise" with "eyelet", how silly of me! Lol I remembered the correct word days later and yes I'm ashamed that I could forget it in the first place :) Anyway, today is the best day of the year aka Halloween, I'm eating chocolates, reading some True Singapore Ghost Stories and naturally I have made a little something to celebrate:

Complete with fluffy black cat tail!

So I recycled an old me-made top for this project, the band and pocket used to be blue and there wasn't any cute cat peeking! The original garment was so worn out (yellowed neckline, loosen seam lines...) because I loved it and wore it a lot that I was about to throw it away, so why not give it a nice final makeover before getting rid of it? I simply replaced the blue parts with black ones, drew a cat with fabric pencils (I copied it from the manga Plum, this character is called Princess and is beyond cute) and finished everything with orange fabric because Halloween:

Also, as usual I made a garment for my mum's birthday, this year it's a green crepe cotton dress with a me-made cross stitch detail:

Hope you have a great celebration too!

I made a dress

I love broderie anglaise and I'd wanted a black broderie dress for a while but I knew I couldn't wear something fully lined here in Reunion, so I settled for a mixed fabric garment instead. I went for broderie ruffles with a plain poplin shell:

I bought the black broderie in Singapore because it was super cute and the quality was very good, and the poplin is from a local shop. I used an old Ottobre pattern that I slightly altered, I think the original dress had tucks instead of gathering and puff sleeves or something like that, and of course I added ruffles that I finished by encasing the raw hem in folded narrow bias tape:

I like my dress because it's really nice to wear, I have my broderie details and even though it's black I don't think I look overdressed in it, or do I^^?

Holiday bag

I know it's been a long time since I last posted something on this blog but life got in the way and I didn't have the time or will for documenting my makes. When I say "life" I mean an asshole employer from hell but thank God I was able to quit and now I have peace of mind as well as plenty of time to post about sewing!
I'll go on a trip soon and I wanted to bring something new so I made a tote bag using remnants from an awesome border print, double gauze fabric that my mum had brought back from Japan. It has multicoloured rabbits playing instruments, jewels and psychedelic flowers, ie the basics of any correct print IMO^^:

The border prints were slightly different on each side of the fabric and because I loved both of them the bag has two different sides :) Since the fabric was very thin I interfaced it with some beige polycotton remnant, treating the two layers as one when sewing and used stiff, sturdy denim for the lining, so that the bag would hold itself nicely:

I only had black webbing for the straps so I covered them with purple polycotton to match the fabric, the finished bag has a pocket inside and it closes with a magnetic snap:

I love it, it's super cute and practical, not too big and neutral enough that I can use it with all the outfits I have planned!

Fuji san summer dress

I love novelty prints and Japan so when I came across this cute, colorful print of mount Fuji complete with its tiny Hokusai wave and pine trees I went nuts!

 

 
I found it in a shop at People's Park Complex in Singapore and as if the fabric wasn't adorable enough, one of the sales assistants was wearing a beautiful 3/4 sleeved top made with it: it looked amazing and I could immediately picture the same top lengthened in a babydoll dress for meeee^^
Unfortunately it's so hot where I live that in the end I had to settle for short sleeves but I'm still very happy with my dress:

As usual I finished the neckline and sleeves with bias tape, the hem is simply folded and machine-stitched and I added pockets, but since they're boring white cotton I didn't take a photo of them!

Second Grainline Alder

I'm in love with this pattern! Here's my latest version in striped cotton from a local shop:

About the fit, I forgot to mention before that I cut the size 18 length because it would have been super short for me otherwise. I made a simple folded hem and finished the armholes with bias tape. Also I made self-covered buttons with a Daiso kit and, to conclude, even Dora likes it:

First Grainline Alder

After hesitating a good 6 months -I was afraid about the fit, having never worked with a Grainline pattern- I finally gave in and bought the Alder shirtdress PDF and there's no going back! This dress is everything I love, it's cool, girly, comfortable and flattering.
View A looks great but for the moment my favourite version is view B with its cute gathered skirt, I made my first one out of vintage fabric found in a local shop:

The width was only 35" which is a rare find here in Reunion but I had 4 yards so it was plenty enough for the dress. I'd say the print is cute yet groovy :)

So about the fit, I chose size 6 based on the finished measurements and it's perfect, I only did a minor sway back adjustement by remonving a 1/2" curve from the back piece.
I lengthened the skirt portion by 2" too but it was useless and I chopped it off before hemming with some bias tape.
Also I was lazy and didn't do the attached button band on the right, it's simply folded twice as on the left side and since my fabric was too narrow I couldn't cut the back skirt on the fold and had to cut two pieces but with the busy print you can't really tell.
Of course I'm already making another one, I hope I can finish it quickly because with summer kicking in it's the best kind of dress to wear!

Happy Halloween!

This year's outfit is not very glamourous but it is the intention that counts, right^^? In honour of my favorite celebration I wore an appliqued t-shirt featuring a cute, silly ghost:

 My left big toe is clearly haunted.

I copied it from a small picture in a Japanese book, the body and tongue are cotton fabric and all the black details are embroidered.
On a positive note I'm wearing these atrocious jeans and shoes because I'm now an almost full time vet assistant! Lucky me gets to clean all sorts of animals' various, hem, productions and it's hard to do that in a skirt. I sound sarcastic but I'm super happy to have this job, as I've already said I'm fond of animals so getting to be with them several hours everyday is wonderful :)

Also as usual I made something for my mum's birthday, even though she chose the fabric a few months ago she had completely forgotten about it so it was a nice surprise for her. I get my love of all things cute from her I guess:

Adorable owls and bow!

Have a great Halloween, I'll spend mine eating chocolate and watching Tales of terror from Tokyo, so fun!