China Girl

In the previous post I wrote about how the colour yellow was reserved for the imperial clothes of the Emperor of China. I'm glad to report that neither past or present regulations keep me from wearing Mandarin design in general.

I have always admired traditional Chinese clothes. The collar, the frog buttons, the straight lines and the play of colour and patterns, the combination is to die for. Everything from a simple peasant blouse to the intricate robes of the concubines are stunningly beautiful. In my humble opinion.

I have quite a few Oriental treasures in my closet. Silk Mandarin dresses, an antique woven jacket, a few blouses, even an authentic Mao uniform. (Connections, connections.)
At one point I was so obsessed with Oriental clothes that I even went on line and bought Asian sewing patterns. Have a look for yourself:

http://www.folkwear.com/asian.html

I spent long and painful hours practising making the traditional frog buttons. It's difficult, but it can be done. Fun fact: there are no button holes in Asian clothes. Only loops and knots. In case you were wondering.

I could go on and on about the wonders of Asian clothes, but let's zoom in on my white Chinese blouse.

Leaf-like silk, beautifully embroidered, impeccable condition....so how come I never wore it? It was the sleeves. Too tights around the wrist, too restricting, I just dreaded putting it on. The sleeves had to go.

But then what? It's all fine to take out the scissors and cut off pieces here and there, but that is just the beginning of the re-designing process. What's next?

Since traditional Chinese sleeves are quite wide and straight, I decided to stick with that design. You often find contrasting ribbons and embroidery along the edges of the garment, so that felt like a step in the right direction as well.

In the end I ended up with sleeves looking like this:

Doesn't it look great! Now when I wear it I feel so regal and calm. It's like I belong on a mountain top sipping tea and watching the sun rise. Red sky, green tea, white blouse.

Obviously, obviously, obviously I will keep the cut of sleeves for future use.

Something Blue

"When in doubt, dye it blue." This brilliant French fashion advice is a real life saver when you like the style, the cute, how it fits you, just not the colour.......

For a brief moment I thought I looked good in golden yellow and  mustard.Wrong. I think the ancient Chinese were on to something when the Imperial Court Mandate stated that only the Emperor was allowed to wear yellow. It was a symbol of his status and affirmation of his power.

Well, since I clearly lack the power to pull off this colour (with a few rare exceptions), I gladly went and bought some blue dye and went to work.

Here you see a small selection of the things I dyed. I love all the different shades of blue, and now I actually can wear these clothes again.

The top picture is showing a close up of the softest cotton top. The flowers on it hardly showed before, now they really stand out. 

Here are a few things to keep in mind before dying:

1. Always wash the clothes you are planning to dye. Stains take colour differently, so the colour ends up looking blotchy and uneven. 

2. Not all dyes work on all fabrics. Cotton and linen soaks up the most colour, dying artificial fabrics is always a bit of a gamble. 

3. The thread and other parts of your clothes might not take to the dye. That was the case in the dress in the bottom picture. I think the yellow stitches compliments the colour, but that might not always be the case. 

Even if everything goes wrong, whatever you were dying was probably something you never wore in the first place, so you really don't have anything to loose . I've mis-dyed a number of things, but I always managed to use the fabric somehow. Nothing is ever a waste. 

Buttons from Bath

I'm not a button collector, but I'm always on the lookout for unique things to make my sewing more enjoyable. Also, one of the easiest ways of improving a coat or a blouse is simply to replace the buttons. 

A few months back me and two of my very best friends went on a much needed girl-trip to Bath. Within 5 minutes after checking in at the B&B, we were laughing so hard we had to lie down. This set the scene for the next few days, all we did was laugh, eat, drink and sleep. I know that girls are famous for their shopping, but that was very low on our agenda. We did however stumble across a local treasure.  

On our way to the Fashion Museum we passed this cute antique store. It was this big space where different vendors had different stalls and shops. I was immediately drawn to woman selling buttons. I don't just mean any regular buttons, I mean really cool and rare buttons. This old lady had been collecting buttons for decades, and she had a vast selection from not only the 50s. 60s and 70s, she had buttons dating all the way back to Great Gatsby area. Was I really looking at buttons from the 20s and 30s? They were all so beautiful, I felt I would never be happy again unless I bought them every single one of them. I pulled myself together and settled for ten sets.

Here you see some of them: 

I've already used two of the sets. One on an Armani jacket (the original buttons were bland and surprisingly boring), another on a black officy jacket. 

When I went to pay, the old button lady gave me a very special button for free. I love it! Have a look for yourself: 

How precious is that? I still haven't figured out what to use it on, I want to make it into a pin so I can  wear it on whatever I want. Is it me or was Charles a bit handsome back then? When the button lady gave me this button she murmured under her breath that Diana woman was nothing but trouble for them, Kate is already such a hit.  I was amused and a bit shocked by her statement. I thought we all loved Diane, but I guess not. 

I actually have a Diana button, but I know better than wearing them together. 

Cashmere First Aid

Regardless of how hopelessly unbecoming a sweater is, if it's made of cashmere I cling to it for dear life. I fool myself into thinking that somehow the soft cashmere feeling will overshadow how frumpy it looks and hope that no one will notice that the colour makes it look like I'm suffering from vitamin C deficiency.
Still, there are only so many times you feel like wearing a sweater that brings out all your worst features, even if it happened to be handmade by cashmere virgins.

This particular sweater has seen me through many a cold evening, kept me snug and warm despite it's apparent flaws. I obviously wanted to keep it, but it needed help.

The two major flaws were:
1. Loose turtle neck. It was like the neck couldn't decide what to do or where to go.
2. The colour, pale ash grey, Siberian cemetery comes to mind.

Unfortunately I don't have a before picture, but after a few rounds of dying, cutting and sewing, it now looks like this:

First I dyed it in the washing machine with dark blue dye. I didn't know what colour it would end up being, but I new it had to be better than the starting point. Then I cut off the turtle neck and sewed stripy bias tape around the neck opening. I simply love bias tape. It adds, it freshens up, it is such an easy way of improving and putting a personal touch on the clothes. Finally I put red thread in the sewing machine and sewed with big, red, stitches along the neckline and on top of the side seams of the sweater. 

I'm already looking forward to fall so I can start wearing it again. When you think about how much energy, effort, labour and pollution that goes into producing one single piece of clothings, it makes total sense to try to rescue what you have, instead of filling up our closets with even more stuff.

Bows and Backs

I like clothes to be fitted, especially jackets. What is up with the perpetual box-shaped phenomena? Clearly none of us need to walk around giving off the illusion that we don't have a waist. And if that happens to be the case, a box around the midriff will only make matters worse. In order to escape the box fate, I rip open the side seams of my coats and jackets and take them in a few inches on each side. I draw a half-moon down from under the armpit to the hip area. Voila! Elegant and fitted.  

But, while I'm at it, I might as well improve the jackets in some other ways as well. Since I've always had a weak spot for 50's and 60's clothes, I tend to look for ways of vintagefying my outfits. 

A really easy trick is to make some kind of bow and attached it to the back of the jacket. It can be a proper Minnie Mouse bow, square bow, just a band going across the back, big, small, whatever looks the best to you. The bow can be made in a contrasting colour, different type of fabric, just use whatever you have at hand. We want to be eco-friendly, so rummage through your drawers and closets until you find something suitable. I often make bows from clothes I no longer use. Just because the outfit is ugly doesn't mean the fabric can't be used for something else. 

Here are a few examples of my bow-improved jackets:

I could get into all the technical details of each of these pretty bows, but for now I want the posts to be mostly inspirational. If someone has a specific question, I'll be more than happy to assist in any way I can. 

Grace Kelly Alert

I found this gem of a dress at a little thrift shop in Oregon. It was not in a good condition though, the top ripped six ways since Sunday. Minor things like that never stops an aspiring seamstress, especially not when encountering vintage clothings. Everything can be fixed or redesigned.
I paid the all of £15 for the dress and carefully brought it home. It hanged on my wall a whole year before I dared begin the mending process. I was afraid to mess it up, another challenge was that I needed matching fabric to replace the torn bits with.

In the end I "borrowed" fabric from the skirt and used that to fix the top. Operation "Save the Prettiest Vintage Dress Ever" took me an entire weekend, but when I was done I was the happy owner of a proper Grace Kelly dress.

It was the obvious outfit for when my husband and some friends went out dining at the historical Criterium. A fellow diner came over to our table and said "Excuse me, I couldn't help but notice your dress? Is it a proper vintage?" I confirmed it was indeed the case. "I have to say, you looked just like Grace Kelly when you entered the room."
More champagne please.

So basically I brought out the sharpest tool in the sewing box, Mr Seamripper, and began with separating the skirt from the top. Then I cut out as much fabric as I needed to mend the tears. The skirt on this particular dress is really full, so you can't tell that almost 10 inches is missing. I then carefully cut away all the ripped bits from the top, and placed the new and flawless fabric over it. The fabric is covered in pastel embroideries, and I have embroidery settings on my machine, so I pieced the fabrics together with embroidery stitches. It's all about making it look like no one has ever touched the thing, like it was made that way to begin with. When that delicate process was over, I sewed the top and skirt back together again.

This dress has no labels, it was clearly made by a proper seamstress or tailor. I wonder who it was for, what the occasion was. What a lucky girl to have owned such a dress, and lucky me for finding it in a little store in a little town in Oregon.

The Owl

What on earth to you make for your soul mate's unborn baby? A wall-hanging of course. It's one of those great projects you make out of all your leftover fabric. Every little tiny scrap can be saved from the trash and put to good use as a leaf, heart, border, anything at all really. I collect all my scraps in an old laundry basket under the sewing table. Each piece waiting to be part of a new and excited project.

 I happened to know that the proud mother-to-be is a bit of an owl admirer (just one of the many things we have in common), so I decided to make an owely, foresty motif.


All I needed to make the wall-hanging was :

1. A big piece of fabric for the background (an old curtain is just perfect)

2. Lots of little scraps of fabric

3. A machine that sews zig-zag

4. Practising drawing owls. (Not as easy as you might think)

The result:

As you can see  I put 4 loops at the top, that way you just put a regular curtain rod through it and it's ready to go on the wall. 

Obviously we never want anyone to see the messy backside of our creations, so I did put a thin lining on the back. Then I shipped it off to mother and baby, happy to give the fabric owl a good home. 

If always wanted to have a real owl pet, someone who could guard my jewelry box and give me silent advice about my future. You know, just like in the Czech version of Cinderella. 

Someone once said "You get what you want by giving it." I'm impatiently waiting for my owl.