Cakes, cakes and more cakes. x

Planning for the Garden Party is coming along nicely.
As you can see from the photo above I have finished sewing the bunting, the handmade cards(which have been lovingly put together by my mum) have been made and are ready for posting, all 30 pots of strawberry jam have been topped off with a circle of fabric and tied with a ribbon and finally, the cake stands have been sourced from charity stores. 
We still have quite a bit to do however my work colleagues are greatly benefiting from the variety of delicious cakes that are arriving in the staff room every morning awaiting feedback on the taste.  My mum has gone into overdrive cooking till 3am to perfect her recipes. There's being a perfectionist and there's plain bonkers.She is defiantly the latter x

The mix of prints work well together.

Really like the mis match of plates.

Project 3 Geek Club

Shown above is a photo of Origami in a front fitted piece. Although it may not look it, this by far has been the most challenging project I have set my enthusiastic geeks.
The 1st part of their challenge was to learn about grading. They then had to grade a size 12 fitted bodice block up one  size to a 14 and down one size to a size 10. For this you must know your horizontal from your vertical and after a few puzzled looks they produced different size blocks. :)
The 2nd part of their challenge was to incorporate origami in their bodices. This involved drawing design lines, slashing and adding folds and re-cutting in fabric before attempting to match the oh so many notches. This was extremely difficult but they did it and the results are great.

Follow my blog with BloglovinFollow my blog with Bloglovin

Mad Hatters Tea Party

My parents anniversary is fast approaching and to mark this occasion my mum has decided to have a traditional Garden party with a huge variety of cakes, triangle sandwiches and tea drank out of a cup & saucer the way it should.
As I have been summoned to help organise this event, a 'to do' list has already been drawn up (sad , I know,but my middle name is organisation)
My 1st job is to make the bunting (decorative flags) to go inside the marquee. So I spent most of my breaks today sewing what felt like a million triangle flags together ready to bag out.

Doesn't look that many flags, maybe it's the angle of the photo.
I then returned home to make my daughters dress for this event.  Sticking to the floral theme for the Garden Party I sourced out three disgusting old garments from the boot sale bag each chose for their print, not their style. I then proceeded to cut the garments up into strips and create a very pretty maxi dress for my little girl.
I can see a busy few weeks ahead with the 'to do' list I've got to get through, still at least I've ticked one thing off my list.

Subtraction Cutting Workshop

In previous posts I have wrote about my love of Subtraction Cutting. So last Friday I delivered a workshop on this method of pattern cutting. I asked the group before they started to sew various pieces of fabrics together for a more interesting outcome. Some kept their dresses basic, others began to introduce circles to experiment. The end results were great. Below are pictures of just four of the dresses.

Front

Back view

Project 2 'Geek Club'

In a previous entry I spoke of Geek Club. For the 2nd challenge I looked to a book called Pattern Magic for some inspiration.
My geeks had to create a full skirt and cut a small hole to which a fabric made tube was placed inside & pinned. New design lines were drawn on  the toile using the hole as a focal point. The lines needed to radiate out from the tube. Scissors were taken to the new design lines cutting the toile up and patterns were taken from this.  
Unfortunately I wasn't quick enough to get photos of both skirts on stands, so the best I could do is take a photo of a photo.  No time was wasted with the photo shoot for these skirts and the results are amazing. This was a really strong portfolio piece & the quality of the skirt was top notch. My geeks rose to the challenge.

The Hannah Dress

Once again, another dress created using Subtraction Cutting. The 'Hannah dress' was made using stretch t.shirt cotton and features  a tulip sleeve and gathered sections. Really pleased with the way this turned out, it has a grecian feel to it and my friend was tall enough to carry this look off. Loving the new maxi. : )

The Torie Dress

The photos show a dress I made for my sister to go to a wedding.

Geek Club

Geek- an obsessive enthusiast.
This was the name that was given to the  club I run during lunch hours to give my students a chance to carry out some inderpedent work. Six students signed up for this and what with Pattern Cutting and Manufacture not being the most popular session to a young fashion student, I was pleasantly suprised by the numbers. True to form the numbers dwindled and I have been left with two enthusiasts and myself.   This is Geek Club, with the grand total of Three members and all of us are obsessive enthusiasts for Fashion Design.  Below are photos from the hoody project . They were asked to take apart a hoody, trace a pattern from it and make up in their chosen fabric.   The results were pretty good considering they were 1st year students and never worked with stretch fabrics before.

The Olivia dress

The dress in final fabric.

Olivia Dress

 In my previous post I wrote about Subtraction Cutting. I have totally fallen in love with this method of pattern cutting, it's quicker and there is a certain freedom about it. With the Olivia dress seen below I added a few pin tucks in the front, following the seam line to add drape.

toile















toile



Subtraction Cutting

After attending a Julian Roberts Subtraction Cutting seminar in Liverpool last year. I finally got around to experimenting with this different pattern cutting technique. Roberts views the body from a birds eye view and his dresses are based on tubes.A piece of Fabric is sewn together and resembles a sleeping bag with an opening which will become the hem of the dress when finished. Front & Back bodices are thrown on the fabric randomly and joined together with drawn lines which are then cut out and sewn at the shoulder and side seams. Below is my 1st experiment using circles which were sewn together to add more volume. I also mixed two fabrics together to see where they would fall.

Endangered Animals, Don't Worry Liv & Jaz are on the Case.

After a conversation in the car about wildlife and the planet with the two little bunnies pictured above, they made the decision to raise money and help endangered animals. http://www.wwf.org.uk/  My part in all of this was to make the costumes. As cute as they look the blue faux fur was a nightmare to work with. By the end of the day I was covered in blue fibres and it found it's way into every corner of the room. All of this aside, my little customers were more than happy with the results of their fundraising costumes. I will follow their progress & report on their fundraising in a future post.
Good Luck my furry friends x