Work in progress

I'm on holidays from uni for 2 weeks - 1 week has already gone :(. I went to stay at my Dad's house in Albany for a few days, so no sewing has been done. Here is me looking thrilled when halfway up a massive hill, 1 hour post my exercise limit.

Before I went away I started work on a lavender blouse. It was supposed to be all sexy and romantic but so far it looks very lackluster indeed. One of the most important skills to learn with sewing (and anything else creative) is when to persevere and when to give up.

What do you guys think? How do you know when something is going to work out or when it's just going to be a big fat waste of time?

Self-Stitched September

So I was supposed to do this last year.... but alas it did not happen. But I'm totally excited to do it this year! I'm actually quite annoyed that September is still 2 days away.

I don't have enough clothes to do full hand-made outfits or post every day (unless you want to see me wearing the same thing 3 times per week), but....

I, Lily Bart, sign up as a participant of Self-Stitched-Sept '11. I endeavour to wear at least 1 hand-made and/or refashioned item each day for the duration of September 2011.

Electric blue, big sleeves

Two blog posts in two days! Goodness me!

I made this dress a while ago from an enormous 80s dress that I bought at an op shop. I loved the colour and the sleeves but the it was huge, long and high necked*. Why why why do I never take before photos??

This is actually one of my favourite dresses and I *think* it looks good when I look in the mirror, but it looked quite awful in some of the photos I took (and immediately deleted!). Now I am rethinking its favourite dress status. Which do you think lies more, the mirror or the camera?

* Seventh Day Adventist style. I hope I didn't offend anyone with my last post. It's just not the particular sartorial experience I am going for!

Seventh Day Adventist

Ohhhhh dear....
It's been over a year since I last blogged. That is outrageous. My absence was somewhat due to laziness but mostly due to my lack of a decent camera. Now I have semi-permanent access to some sort of fandangled SLR thing so I'm back.

Much has changed in the last year! My boyfriend and broke up, I totally ruined my hair and got some awesome wallpaper.

Here is my latest dress! I nearly threw it out because it made me look like a Seventh Day Adventist, but I shortened it, cut heaps out of the front and I think it's OK now. I've wanted to make a dress with faggoting (hehehe!) for ages, but I couldn't be bothered with it so I used an insert instead. I also gave pintucking a go, which was surprisingly difficult, and mine looks pretty messy up close.

I'm wearing the dress with an awesome cotton slip I got from an op shop for $2.50. I love how its previous owner wrote her name on it with permanent marker. (Although it reminds of when I was a kid and my mum wanted to write my name in my underwear when I went to school camp. Urgh!)

Apologies for my hair. I'm growing out my fringe, trying to get it back to my natural colour and trying to grow it long again (all very unsuccessfully) and it looks terrible and I have no clue what to do with it. Any ideas?