Monday

Here is Monday's outfit. The dress is a simple drop waist shift dress made in stretch cord. I made it six years ago for a party. At the party I wore the teal silk scarf, made at the same time from a remnant (and just visable at the neck) as a belt, but it's more appropriate to wear one of my loveley fairysteps belts for work. The cardigan was knitted a year and a half ago in August. I know that because I was knitting it at son's party and his friends all seemed astounded that I was knitting. It was a nice pattern from Ravelry but I can't remember what it was called, the yarn was very cheap in a sale

Making a mannequin - the Conclusion

The mannequin making has been a great success.  I will now be able to take much better pictures of my outfits, which was my main aim.  She is certainly accurate enough to my body that I will be able to use her for fittings for most of my sewing.  I tend to usually make semi fitted items, I would have reservations about using her for very fitted items.
She is quite firm, not squidgy like a teddy bear, this might be because I used rags to stuff her and not propper stuffing material.  The down side of using rags is that she is quite heavy.  I have made her firmer by coating the outside of the 'jumper' with a layer of paint.  Eventually I am going to paint her a pretty bodice so that she looks nice stood in the corner of my conservatory/workroom.  However, I'm far too eager to use her this week to do the painting. 
I am planning to finally blog a whole weeks worth of work outfits.  I have tried this before but never succeeded to get all my outfits.  So watch this space, I'll be back tommorrow evening with outfit number 1.
P.S.  I thought the mannequin needed a name, so I have called her Millie.

Making a Mannequin - Part 2

 Having left 'the body' on its pole overnight, I was very releived to find that it was OK in the morning and hadn't collapsed in any way.

I took her off the pole and measured her vital statistics.  She was a bit wider than me round the waist and a bit deficient in the bust (even more so than me).  These were easily rectified by tying a string tightly round the waist to bring it in.  To correct the bust, I found an old bra and stuffed it with socks (what else).

I didn't like the glaring black on the tape and I had a cream polar neck shirt that I never wear because it is so thin.  Here she is loking much better.

I couldn't resist trying her out, so I grabbed a shirt from the ironing pile and tried it on her, to make sure that she worked.

m 

Making a Mannequin- Part 1

I have always wanted a mannequin or dressmakers dummy, but in all my years dressmaking I have never justified the expense.  The time has come to rectify this situation, but I am still not willing to buy one.  A few years ago I read in a magazine about how to make a dressform from duct tape and stuffing. 

There are many websites that describe the process, but basically you wear an old T-shirt, wrap your torso in tape, cut it off and tape up the cut then stuff the shape and you have something that is similar to your body shape.

I enlisted the help of daughter to help 'wrap' me and here is the very unflattering picture of me in a half wrapped state.

I have been saving odd bits of old clothes and addments of material etc.  which I used to stuff the bodyform.  I also inserted a tube that had held a wall planner up the center of the form so that I could insert my 'stand' which used to be a mop!!

And here she is in her 'raw' state.

There's some finishing to be done to smooth her out, but overall I'm very pleased.

Pretty Flower

I just had to show you my lovely orchid.  My children bought it for me for mother's day two years ago and it flowered for most of that year.  Last year it didn't do very much and I wasn't sure if I should get rid of it, but I am so pleased I didn't.  I put it in the spare room and watered it occasionally and then in October it started putting out a new flower shoot.  I waited very patiently and finally last week the flowers started opening.  Also in the picture is my mirror which we bought from reclaim over seven years ago.

New Slipper's

My felted slipper boots, which I made many years ago are finally beyond repair.  I took off the leather soles to darn the holes (for the umteenth time) and then thought better of it.  I had a magazine from a friend just after Christmas and ever since I have wanted to crochet the slipper's from it. 

The pattern size was unfortunately a bit too small for me, but after a few attempts and a change to the hook size I have managed to get them coming out the correct size.  The yarn was again taken from my 'inherited' stash and is one of my favourite colours.  When they are complete I will put a leather sole on them as this protcts the slippers from being damaged too much by the tiled floor in my kitchen, they also stop me slipping on my wooden floors.

Latest Makes

 

Here are some pictures of the swing waistcoat that I have been making.  I will be outting together some better pictures of it in action, but I'm just about to uplaod it to Ravelry so I thought I would show it here as well.

I have also realised just how many people I know who have birthdays in February and March.  I will be busy making up a whole lot of presents over the next few weeks.  I will also be making some cards as well.
Here's the next present, a textured scarf for my daughter's friend.  It's knitted with a yarn that has thick and thin sections and this creates the teture.

Running.......

Did I mention that I run?  Well perhaps running is an optimistc description, more like puffing along rather slowly.  Last year I was injured from about May onwards and struggled to run further than a couple of miles.  With the addition of yoga and swimming to the trianing schedule, I got over the injury and have now started a half marathon training schedule.

I haven't actually booked to run a half marathon yet, there's a local one in March, but I'm not sure that I will be ready by then.  I ran seven and a half miles this morning and that was just about ok and I ran four miles yesterday.  I am on schedule but I'm really tired now and I have to go to the shop to get milk and walk the dog and cook the dinner etc, etc... I really don't know if I can keep this up.

Henna Hair

The henna block

I have naturally mousey coloured hair that I have always hated.  I have been colouring it since I was about 14.  When I re-discovered my eco streak several years ago I had a dilema because I couldn't find a suitable hair dye.  I completely stopped colouring it for a while, but mousey hair isn't really me.  Then last year I discovered that Lush did henna, I first used the braun but it was a bit too dark so I now use the marran.  I dye it about every six weeks.

First I thoroughly wash my hair with bicarbs and rinse with apple cider vinegar, you can use regular shampoo but shouldn't use conditioner (I only ever wash my hair with bicarb/apple cider vinegar or plain water).

The mixture

Rough dry the hair, and as it finishes drying start preparing the henna.  My hair is just past chin length and I use two squares.  They need to be chopped up very small or grated and then mixed with very hot water - it forms a greenish brown paste.

me wearing the plastic cap

I put a little oil or facecream around my hairline and then wearing rubber gloves I spread the mixture over my hair.  Then cover my hair with a plastic shower cap and sit around for about two hours.  Then I remove the plastic shower cap and rinse the henna off under the shower.  I then wash thoroughly again with bicarbs and apple cider vinegar and leave my hair to dry as normal.

It takes another 24 or 48 hours for the full colour to develop.  This turns my hair a stunning shiny dark chestnut colour and seems much thicker.

Washed and nearly dry

Thrifty New Year

One of the comments below mentioned thrift.  I'm not sure that I can claim this, but

it is something that I aspire to be.  Every year I set myself new goals to move in this direction.  Generally I try to live my life in the same sort of way that my Nan would have done.  By this I mean trying not to waste anything or buy unnecessary.  We don't eat junk food, most things are prepared from fresh and we all sit down to a family dinner every evening.   It's not easy as I work full time, but I think that eating together is a very important part of family life.  It gets us all together, eating healthy food and it's cheaper than take-away's.

I try to make my own clothes as they are better made than most of the (cheap) clothes that I would buy in the shops.  Therefore they last longer and due to the effort involved in making them I value them more.  Also it avoids the dubious manufacturing conditions that some of the garments are made under.  Now that I have 'inherited' quite a lot of cloth and yarn, I have resolved to use only this for items for myself for the next six months.  I will allow myself to buy notions but not cloth or yarn.

me wearing the jacket and trousers

I generally try to make something new if I'm going out for a special occasion, that makes me feel more special and then the items usually go into my general clothes.  For example, today I'm wearing a patterned cord jacket and brown trousers that I made for a work conference a couple of years ago.  This way I usually have something new to wear out, I regularly replenish my wardrobe and when I wear the items I can ascociate them with a happy occasion.

Crochet Irish Rose Bookmark

Here's a quick  photo of the croch irish rose bookmark that I have just made as a little present for my friend.  It was ever so simple to make a three layered crochet Irish rose and then attach it to a jumbo paper clip.  I glued it on and backed it with a bit of card for support and then some felt to make it look tidier.

Update: the crochet waistcoat from the last blog is nearly finished, I just need to crochet round the armholes.

Ravelry

I've been using Ravelry for patterns, or more usually for inspiration, for several years but I never seem to have had a good set up for setting up my projects.  Well today I found them time to make a start thanks to the new netbook and now the ability to upload pictures properly.  So far only the bodywarmer and the latest W.I.P. have been uploaded.

For once the latest in-progress is actually knitted to a pattern, and as its knitted on size 12mm needles its knitting up really fast.  Its a rectangle loose top knitted side to side with a slit for the armsand no fastenings.  The grey yarn is Rowan silky tweed.  My aunt gave me a voucher for Christmas with the instruction that it was to buy yarn and I managed to pick this yarn up in the sales.  The red and cream is from my stash.  The original intention was to make another bodywarmer (there's still some duvet left and I love it to bits its so warm), but somehow it didn't seem right for a bodywarmer.  We are going to dinner with aunty and some other family members next weekend so I'm hoping to have this finished and ready to wear.  It's going to be just perfect with my newest shoes and some black trousers.  As this will be quite loose when finished it might need to be belted in (I saw someone wearing one in that way on Friday) and I have just the belt for this, in lovely berry red leather.

Nearly forgot to mention, I'm on Ravelry as buckinghamgirl, if anyone wants to see further details.
Now I'm off to make cookies for tea and check if the bread I made has risen well.

Sea, Sandcastle's and Moor

I was going to post these after my holiday in October, but I never got round to it.  So here they are.

We had such a lovely day at the beach,collecting shells and making sandcastles.

And we spent a day on the moors, where we came across these ponies and spent along time clambering over rocks in splashing streams. Unfortunately the pictures of this seem to be mostly my backside, which I don't want to post

Then I found this on the camera, daughter took it by accident when when thought she had broken the camera

I'm sort of back again

Things have been a bit hectic since my last blog. My camera broke, my mum moved then there was christmas and new year and then my nan moved, but things seem to have settled down now. The camera works again and I now have a netbook so no more fighting for use of the main computor whe n I want to blog- hooray. I still need to get a lead to contect the camera to the netbook and some photo editing software, but I'm nearly there now.

I have a huge amount of projects lined up and most of them won't cost me anything. During the various house moves mentioned above I have gained quite a lot of yarn and some fabric so I have loads to get on with.

Here is my lastest creation. Its a knitted bodywarmer in a lilac mohair with a fairisle panel at chest height (back and front) in cream grey and pink. The lilac and pink yarns were 'inherited' from my nan and the cream and grey were from my stash. I sucessfully managed to line it with an old thin childs duvet that no-one wanted any more. This makes it fabulously warm. The only thing that I had to buy was the zip and some thread to sew the lining and the zip. This is the first time I have lined or put a zip into a knitted item and I was unsure how it would work, but I'm really pleased with it.

I have been imagining a knitted bodywarmer since the weather started turning colder last Autumn, with all the Christmas pressies that I made it took a little longer to reach reality, but its good that I waited otherwise I would have had to buy the yarn.