Let Me Introduce You to My New Friend...

Hi guys. My life has turned upside down in the past month. In a nutshell: my long-term relationship ended; a few other people also left my life, new ones entered; a few doors closed, new ones opened. Everything made me re-think my life, my goals and my priorities. I finally feel I'm doing things right and I feel awake, alive, my creativity is through the roof, and I feel a sense of peace and calmness. I guess sometimes in life you need one huge shake to get back on the right path.

Anyhow, meet my new sewing buddy Mimi:



I got Mimi a few days ago. I think she'll be a great help with sewing, fitting and detail work. Plus, I'd *love* to learn draping. I'm planning on getting some draping books. After reading reviews, these two ended up on my wish list: Draping for Apparel Design and The Art of Fashion Draping.

I did manage to get some sewing done. I have two small craft project to show. First one is an eye-mask I made for my ex-BF's mom:


It's made of fashion fabric which I interfaced with Pro-Tricot Fusible interfacing from SewExciting. (Btw, don't you just love her interfacing.) Then I sewed together two layers of black jersey to make the inside of the mask soft and so that no light comes through.


And the second one is an sunglass case for me, since I lost the original one. I lined it with some white jersey, so my sunglasses don't get scratched.


Next on the sewing table is a dress for my work's New Years party, so stay tuned.

Happy sewing everyone.

Books and Sewing Plans

First of all, I took some pictures from the All About Silk book I wrote about here. I cannot tell you enough how pleased I am with these books. They are worth every penny IMHO.

Here are 2 pages from the book. Click on the pics for the larger image.




Also, I bought the Adele Margolis' The Complete Book on Tailoring. It's a wonderful book and I deeply recommend it to everyone. I bought it over eBay and I found a wonderful surprise inside. I found an article on suede written by Sandra Betzina. It's from a newspaper, the bottom of the page says: 1982 Chronicle Publishing. I was 2 years old when it was published. Finding it was such a wonderful surprise, for some reason it seems I own a piece of sewing history - hehe I'm such a nerd sometimes.



Now for my sewing plans:
My sister is begging me to make this kind of a maxi skirt Nicole Richie is wearing on this picture:

credits: NicoleRichie.org

The pattern for the skirt is pretty straight forward, long wide A-line. I'll be using some mid-weight black viscose knit I have in my stash. I think with this kind of skirts it's all about the drape and weight of the fabric.


Since I started belly dancing, I'm in desperate need for some costumes. So, second on my plan are a long circle skirt and a pair of harem pants. My class is having an end-of year show in July and I need a skirt to wear. I wanted to buy one, but everything I found locally was a rip-off. Everything was made of cheap, and I mean really cheap, polyester, poorly made and over-priced. Plus all the colourful skirts had black lining, which killed the vivid colours of the over-skirt.

I bought two belly dance costume booklets online: Skirting the Issues and Pants for the Dance. They cover a variety of belly dance skirt and pant styles used for costumes; as well as pattern drafting diagrams, sewing techniques, embellishment ideas, etc. They are wonderful additions to my sewing library and I'm sure I'll be using them a lot.
Here's the photo of the booklets:


So, off to sewing. I'll post pics of my fabrics tomorrow when lighting is better.

Now I Know What Everyone's Talking About

Brocade, chiffon, double knit, satin, taffeta, organdy, poplin, seersucker, etc.
I've been reading these and many names of types of fabric for years, but never knew exactly what those were. Fabric stores here only label fabrics by their fiber content, so I never knew exactly what I was buying. I simply relied on the feel of the fabric. And, that's also one of the reasons why I was afraid to shop online.

I heard a lot about the All About series, and I decided to order the three books: All About Cotton, Silk and Wool from the Rain City Publishing. And let me tell you, this was the best decision I ever made.


(pics taken from the Rain City Publishing website)


Books come with numerous helpful information about different types of fabrics, their care, sewing guidelines and, my favourite part, fabric swatches. Now I can feel different types of fabrics with my hands and recognize the fabrics in my stash.

This was by all means one of the best purchases I ever made. These books are a treasure. And taping swatches into books was really fun.
I probably don't even have to mention what a Doh! moment feeling all those swatches was for me.