Making My Millitary Skirt

Over the past few weeks we've been making skirts from our skirt blocks, the current skirt (millitary skirt) now include a box pleat, kick pleat, a yoke, and a facing.

  I still haven't finished but I don't want to hold this post back any longer; Here are some images I've taken so far of the process.

The above photo shows my fabric folded in half and my paper patterns pinned ready to be cut. From this exercise I learned the importance of the grain line. If I did not follow the grain line I would have a twist in my garment. 

The above two images show the front and back facing for the skirt, on the right I have ironed on interfacing. Interfacing strengthens the fabric, in this case it will hold the waists shape. 

This image shows how I constructed the box pleat on the front skirt. Note, notches are important here.

In this image I sewed the yoke on to the front piece. To finish it I top stitched along the yoke line, I found this quite tricky as the fabric moved slightly under the machine foot.

This is a close up of the yoke.

These are the two back pieces with the yokes already attatched

I then had to sew in the invisible zip making sure my yoke lines matched up. To do this I sewed down one side of the zip and pinned the other side to where it matched.

This shows the kick pleat. This looked more difficult to construct than it was.

This is the front and back pieces sewed together on one side.

I've gotten a lot further than these pictures now and I'm really close to finishing at the moment its really long and comes past my knee's, It really starting to look like an Aircadets uniform skirt.

I will be sure to do another post once I've finished my skirt and I can safely say I probably wont be wearing it wont be wearing it.

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked this post. Have you ever made a skirt before? How did it turn out?

Jenny xxx

'Le Ballon Rouge'

On Tuesday we watched short film by Albert Lamorisse called 'Le Ballon Rouge' its about a small boy and an abnormally bright red balloon.

I really enjoyed watching this movie and it really showed how the balloon seemed to be his only friend.

'Le Ballon Rouge' has also inspired many adverts, artists , music videos etc...

Here are some examples of work inspired by 'Le ballon Rouge'



Banksy

Dior Miss Cherie

The story line in Mark Ronson & The Business Intl - The Bike Song, is highly influenced by 'Le Ballon Rouge' if you've watched them both they you will definitely know what I mean.

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked this post.

Jenny xxx

Berry Bow Nails

Last week (I think) I bought a Barry M nail paint 'Berry Icecream' I really love the colour and it compliments my skin really well. I've wanted to get the Berry Ice cream ever since I got the Strawberry Ice cream but at roughly £5 a bottle I wasn't all that willing, but thankfully the price went down to £2.99 *happy face*

As its me I don't just paint my nails, I decorate them and because I'm not left handed it took me about two hours to paint my nails, but I guess it was worth it. To decorate them I just used the wooden sticks you usually get in nail sets, white nail paint and the Strawberry Ice cream paint to add some colour.

Because of my stupid camera today was the first day it decided to take some decent pictures or my nails, there a little chipped and some of the pearls fell of, but they lasted a week of wear and tear.

Here are the pictures, please excuse my awful skin (due to eczema)

 Thanks for reading this post, I hope you liked my nails as you can see my right hand is much better than my left. How do you guys normally paint your nails? any tips or questions, feel free to comment.

Jenny xxx



Holy Moly

This post is a bit late again but this is the first chance I have had to do this post.

Last week in pattern cutting we made button hole using this fancy machine that can sew letters and pretty patterns.

It's super expensive so I was a little worried about breaking it or even getting it dirty!

The actual sewing part was really easy all we really had to was punch in some settings and press the treadle and there we go a button hole.

Here are some buttons I found that i thought were pretty cute.

 

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked this post. I'm now very tempted to make this bracelet.
What do you think?? have you ever made any jewellery using buttons?

The September Issue

Today in lesson we watched 'The September Issue' the documentary is about he 'most power full woman in the USA - Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. 

The documentary follows the preparations for 2007 fall-fashion issue, which is the biggest issue to date. The amount of work and money that goes into one issue 

From this I have learned that I definitely don't want to work for a fashion magazine!!

but i have taken a lot from this and I will definitely be more organized and do much more planning for my work in the future.

Grace Coddington, the creative director for vogue has definitely inspired me to work harder to achieve my goals. she was previously a model for vogue and went on to work for British vogue and then moved on to America.

Her work is amazing you can see some at
http://models.com/people/grace-coddington

My Favorite Fashion Illustrators

One of our tasks has been to research some fashion illustrators off a given timeline and find some of our own.

I never really like doing research but I really enjoyed recreating some of their work, unfortunately I don't have any pictures from my sketch book to show you just yet as its being marked.

Here's a list of my top 5 favorite fashion illustrators I researched :

5- Stina persson

4 - Kime Buzzelli

3 - James Jean

2 - David Downton

1 - Rik Lee

Rik lee is definitely my favorite illustrator i just love the style of his work, words cant really describe how much I love his work. Some of his illustrations are like all of my favorite things put together.

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked this post and who's your favorite illustrator or artist?

Jenny xxx

Zip Me Up!

Today's post is about my last pattern cutting lesson, I know it was about two weeks ago but I've had so much work I had to hold it back until now I'll update on that soon.

So in our last lesson we sewed zips to two pieces of fabric; I got excited about pattern cutting, like I do every lesson but this time the spoon head inside me came out and I made a few silly mistakes.

(sorry about the pictures, my camera isn't all that good and I litterally had to take them in pitch black for the stiches to show)

The first zip we made was a centred zip. You will see centred zips on things like the side of your skirt. The mistake I made on this one was at the very beginning.

Incase you cant tell I sewed the zip on backwards, unfortunately I didn't realise until I had almost finished so it was too late to go back. I may have to go back and do this again but for now I have annotated my mistake.

The second zip was a lapped zip. Me and my teacher were very pleased with how neat and straight I sewed the top line. However I didn't catch one of the layers, as you can see in the picture on the right, so I had to do it again, and I will  finish it next Thursday. next time we will also be sewing invisible zips (not actually invisible).

Thanks for reading this post I hope you liked it, any of you worked with zips before? and how did it go for you?

Fancy a Skirt

Its been a while since my last post as college has been so busy. But I am getting much better at sewing and drawing.

We have pattern cutting days every Thursday, which is my favorite day, this Thursday we made skirt blocks, a pattern and a skirt (toile). I know its not the prettiest skirt but we only used a bed sheet.

As for my still life drawing, well I'll let you be the judge of that.

As for future blog posts I'm not quite sure what will be next but as soon as I get some material I will be doing a DIY post. I'm torn between these 2. I have a feeling I will make them both at some point but I think I might let you guy choose which you would like first.

 

            Crinkle Long Skirt                                             Vs                          Sleevless Maxi Dress

(Images above from http://www.cutejapanesefashion.com/)

   I hope you liked this post let me know which one you would like to see first.

Jenny xxx