louisejhampshire

I went and bought the material yesterday for the curtains i am making for someone....



i love it!! its quite sheer aswell so that when the light will shine through it it shall look really rather cool!

Also i managed to find some really good quality blackout material for the set of curtains that shall hand behind these ones - giving them different options on how much light to let through etc.  Most the of the blackout material is really stiff and horrible feeling - but this one i found is like normal material and feels like it will be nice to sew with (fingers crossed that is!!) Cant remember if i put the plans/designs on here for how these will look so here is it again just in case....



We've changed the red back material to black though, and the curtains are going to be attached to the pole via circle holes...kind of like these ones..

          (not my piccie - from http://www.twenga.co.uk/offer/0131811205.html )

Just waiting to hear if they want the circles to be black, white, ore silver!!!! am really looking forward to making these and seeing how they shall finish up!!

have been having a look on the old t'internet and found some images of the andreas guy out of Alcazar wearing the suit I made him for when he was in Saturday Night Fever - even if i say so myself, it looks rather good!!!







*blush* i am proud!

edit: these arent my photos - i got them off www.nightfever.se - thought i best say this incase i get in trouble!

So i finished the dress off yesterday - didnt stop for lunch at all as the lady was coming round at 4h30 and i had ALOT to get through....

Anyways, here are some images of the work in progress....

First of all I had to figure out how to make a cap sleeve without actually having a seperate sleeve....

I decided to just curve the shoulder seam done abit further and try it out at different lengths to see what would be best....



now remember this dress is not for me (my arm) and believe it or not this was actually 2 inches below the ladies shoulder line....anyways, i thought it didnt look much of a cap so i decided to take it abit further....



This one i liked, on me it doesnt look much but on her i was sure it would sit like a cap sleeve would (or the one she wanted anyways)....

Then it was down to the pattern manipulation..... Here you take the basic body block and slash it to add gathers where you want them...

she wanted gathers at the neckline, shoulders, waist and hem, but none around the bust area....



This is just before the first cut - always the scariest!! cutting into 750:- worth of fabric (about £60) is quite daunting incase i slip or bodge it up!!

You can see from the pattern how the slashing worked out and where i want it to gather and not....

.........

skip abit (im really crap at taking photos of the work whilst im doing it)

........

The dress is done!!! I dont have a photo of the lady in it as she felt like she wasnt suitable enough (i think it was the use of sock as footwear that did it! ;-) ) but i will get one!!!



It doesnt look much here at all, but when on, it looked lovely!  VERY pleased with the outcome indeed..



close up of neckline and shoulder gathers - these werent half difficult! made worse by the fact that the fabric is soo slippery... turn out nice though..



the different coloured beads i put in an earlier post....look good i think! cant really even tell they arent buttons!

.........

So all in all, very happy with myself....and thankfully so was she!

....on to the next project!

here are some piccies of the materials and buttons i bought yesterday for the dress......



so im going to be making 2 belts for the dress, one out of the sand colour and the other out the grey, meaning she can have different looks but the same dress!!!

very happy with how close i managed to match the colours.....



so these are the buttons i managed to find yesterday whilst out shopping - ok but nothing too exciting...



these are the buttons and beads that i am thinking about using.......would i get away with it??? i dont think you can really see that much difference in them....i mean could you really tell at a quick glance that they were different???



these are the final design ideas that the lady settled on...the one in the middle is quite self explanatory, to one on the right show how we are going to have a buttoned back opening (with white loops rather than button holes) but instead of the band in that picture, we are going to have a tie round belt like in the one on the left..... I think this should look really lovely!!!  Other alterations are that she wants the back neckline rising, and the front one to come up just a tad....

SO its now on to the pattern manipulation!!!! eekk!!!! by tonight i should have all this cut out and started to sew!!!!

Deadline - 32 hours!!!!........

So the lady for the dress came over today and we finalised on the design and had a fitting...Went well and not too many alterations.  So the rest of the afternoon was spent running around town trying to find the fabric, and hardest of all, trying to find sodding buttons!!!!! why can you never find the buttons in a colour you need! guaranteed the next time i want buttons but in a different colour, i'll find the perfect ones for now!!!! argh! ah well...am thinking about using beads instead..not sure if i'll be able to get away with it or not.....hmm......

So will put up some piccies tomorrow (am writing this all snuggled up in bed and im not gettting up for anyone...sorry x) to show you how it is coming along...She is coming over on wednesday for the final fitting - giving me 1 day left if there are any alterations needed....close and tight deadline this one, but it is quite simple in construction so that should be no worry....its whether or not i get the pattern right in the first place!!!!!

fingers crossed..!!!!!

So the lady has gotten back to me and she wants to go ahead with something like 2 and 5....... so its back to the drawing board to develop and design the back.....eeek! this is getting exciting!

So one of the new projects im starting got underway yesterday - it is a dress for a lady to wear to her mothers 85th birthday.  Yesterday we went fabric hunting and eventually settled on the one in the pictures - it has a smooth shiny quality to it and is really soft to touch.  We then sat down over fika (coffee break in swedish) and had a talk about the design.  She wanted something that wasnt too much or too fancy - wasnt too low cut or too tight - sat on the knee length wise, and had a belted waist.  We did some doodling and came up with a few aspects for me to focus on.  So then last night and this morning I narrowed it down to these 8 designs which i have just sent to her to choose/evaluate......we shall see where this goes!!!!

Here are the piccies of the designs so far....










So as you can see they are all pretty similar but with the top and straps varying......

My favourite is design 1 as i think it is rather different.  I also like design 4,5, and 7 as these are again something that is abit unusual.  For the back of these im thinking of having an opening that is fastened with different coloured buttons using the colours in the fabric.  Also the belt like middle bit will have the buttons at the back, but this is my idea at the mo and need to clear it with the client.

So now im off to go and draw up her basic body block from which to make the patterns from....oh and i have the get the jacket cut out again with the alterations as that lady is coming again in 2 days......eeek! getting rather busy now!

Please leave me a comment to let me know what you guys think to the designs...... many thanks x

been busy for a while, but am back to say boo and show what ive been up to..

SO, been busy applying for a masters course...also finished the suit and have now got 3 more orders! eek! so fingers crossed on them..and have an interview with a shop to sell come of my cards over here in sweden! all fingers crossed i think!

so here are some piccies of the work ive been doing for my portfolio....





they are piccies of the work for my bachelors degree jumbled together so i dont have to cart all of them around, and because i think they look better together!!! frankly!