end of an era of blogging…for now.

I think it is time to say good bye to this blog. I know I have been neglecting it. This will be my little horcrux documenting my life from 2010-2016. from my year 12 to the end of my bachelor degree. 25% of my life so far!

in the quarter of my life I did document finishing high school, starting uni and trying out uni life, transferring to my dream course, moving to live interstate, experiencing more of uni life and also college life, making some amazing friends who I will have for life, meeting my most loveliest soulmate, going on adventures together, all the birthdays, moving into a share house, balancing uni work and a social life, balancing life in two cities, finishing uni and looking to the future (the last point i haven’t really blogged about; too many thoughts and emotions to write down). it’s been amazing and shaped me to be who I am now and I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

perhaps I will return to blog in a few years. and I know it will always be here if I ever feel nostalgic.

sewing series: oversized dress to a two piece crop and a-line skirt

Hello again,

Here is the next edition of my sewing series.
I bought this size 16 dress from Salvos because I liked the print. I can’t remember how much it was but probably $6 or less.

here is the before:

I made a cut around the waist to separate the top and bottom.

First I worked on the crop top. I seam ripped the side seams (keeping the sleeve seams intact) to alter the dart to make it sit higher up. I wore the shirt inside out and pinned the excess fabric at the sides and sleeve arm seam. Sewed that and trimmed the excess. Once it fit well, I hemmed it with a rolled hem to the desired height about 1 inch above my belly button

For the skirt: I wanted a high-waisted skirt with a fitted waistband (rather than elastic). I tried the skirt on, holding it up to where I wanted it to sit above my knees and cut the excess fabric above the waist (this excess fabric would later be the waist band. This was to keep the existing hemline of the skirt to avoid extra sewing (hems are laborious).
Initially I thought I would pleat the skirt to bring in the waist line. But after trying it on, it didn’t look like how I envisioned, so I went for an A-line skirt instead. I tried the skirt on inside out and pinned the a-line outline then sewed it and trimmed excess fabric. I had to seam rip some of the hem when sewing down the sides. I seam ripped the centre back for the next steps.

Waistband (pic above): Using the excess fabric, I cut a rectangle 4cm wide (for a waistband of 2cm width with seam allowance 1cm either side). It wasn’t quite long enough to go all around my waist, so I had to stitch two rectangles together. I matched the seam where the two rectangle strips met to one of the side seams of the skirt then pinned it to the skirt all around the waistband.
And this is where, upon reflection, I would have done things differently.
I sewed the ‘wrong side’ of the waist band first. That is, I matched up the right side of the waistband to the wrong side of the skirt (similar to how I would sew bias binding). My logic was that I could then do a nice topstitch when I folded it over. However, I forgot to consider the zipper that would be sewn on later.
The easier way to do this would have been to pin the right side of the waistband to the right side of the skit and sew. Then the zipper could be attached and the excess ends of the zipper could be folded in with the waistband when it is folded inward and stitched. This is hard to explain without pictures, but I hope what I have written makes sense.
The way I did it meant that I had to undo some of the waistband seam at the back to allow me to insert the zipper later.
The waistband was finished with top stitching on the top and bottom hems (is that the right term?)

Sewing in the zipper (pic above): I bought a black zipper from the op shop for 50c. The seam I ripped earlier at the centre back was re-sewen together using a basting stitch over where the zipper would lie and a regular stitch for the rest of the seam. I sewed the zipper in. I used a video by Annika Victoria on youtube to learn how to do this.
side note: Go check her out if you’re into sewing. She does a lot of up cycling as well as sewing from scratch.
Once the zipper was in place, I re-did the waistband hem and tried the skirt on. The a line side seams needed a bit of adjusting to get them to sit right, but other than that, it was done!

Here is the after pic:

What I also like about this outfit is that I can wear them together or separately!

I haven’t been up to much sewing lately, so I may run out of things to post soon! haha. I recently went to the op shop and found some items. Most of them were in my size, so no alteration needed. There was one I may attempt to alter. I’ll keep you updated

Thanks for reading. :)

mmm. yes. what was that about trying to blog again…

Things I have done since the last blog post 1.5 months ago

- Had dinner at Paul and Andy’s where Quyen and I cooked
- Went to the French Film Festival and saw a lovely film called ‘All Three of Us’. It was just so well written with a good balance of drama, emotion and humour. I highly recommend it
- Had Rachel over for dinner. She finally got to visit our place after more than a year
- Rode to Glenelg with Connor on Anzac day for pies and pasties and a walk down the jetty
- Dinner Under the Stars/Escape with AURHA. Mystery location dinner in the hills with the Rural Health Alliance/Society. Lots of nice food was eaten and glasses of wine consumed
- Dessert night at Devour with Connor. Had a flaming bombe Alaska. Exciting presentation with the flames, but too sugary sweet for my liking.
- Ying (and other grads) returned to Adelaide for their graduation ceremony. Caught up over brunch. To think that will be me in a year’s time…
- Did my first fixed-fixed bridge prep in clinic! Two teeth cut, impressions and temporisation, all in the one appointment. I am proud of myself. (will this dot point make much sense to non-dental readers? :P)
- Went for Bowerbird Bazar with Rachel. First time I’ve been to something like this. It was like a trade-show for creatives. Bought some candles and a gift for Connor
- Basketball has started up again. So far we have played 3 games. We are on a winning streak!
- Went on a driving lesson with Connor and his dad
- Dinner at the Hanuman with Connor, his dad and his dad’s uni mate, Radley. $240 on dinner and 2 bottles of wine!!! It was gooood (and free for us students :P)
- Our dent final year hoodies arrived!
- Went on a date to the gallery to see the Magic Objects exhibit. Lots of quirky art pieces. It appealed to that weird-stuff-loving side of me.

that’s most of what I have done in the last 6 weeks.
No pics this time. Check out my instagram if you follow me on there.

I may do another sewing post this weekend or during next week

sewing series: striped wrap crop top

I had this tutorial on pinterest for ages: http://thefeltedfox.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/wrap-crop-top-diy.html

It uses the fabric of an L/XL men’s dress shirt to make a convertible wrap crop top that can be worn in 3 different styles. I sourced a shirt from the local salvos for a few dollars.

This is the shirt before:

And this is it after:

Apologies for the low res image from my snapchat haha.
Here I have paired it with a high waisted velvet skirt that I made from thrifted fabric I found in an op-shop in Melbourne at the start of the year.

I didn’t take any progress shots as I didn’t actually plan on making a blog post documenting this project. The original template on the blog was for a US size 2-4 (which is about size 8 AUS). I am a size 8/10 AUS, so to err on the side of caution, I attempted at upsizing the pattern at the shoulders and the torso width. That ended up working well, though I forgot to adjust the wrap part of the pattern, so the seams don’t quite line up. But I can cover that up when I wrap and tie it up.

The neckline and arm holes are finished with bias binding. It took me only a day to complete and I am happy with the result. This pattern pretty much uses up the whole shirt and I removed the buttons to keep for future projects.

I wore it out for the first time to Fresher’s Basement party with this high waisted skirt.

And that’s it! My first blog post for this ‘series’