Looking the part

Dusting, vacuuming, washing the floors, all used to be really boring stuff. I tried to put a positive spin on it, I mean, at least I was exercising. Sort of. After all I was moving about, and at the same time my home got a bit cleaner. 

When my little brother refused to clean up, I would put on a really fun song and say "This is the Clean-Up song. We have to tidy up and put all the toys away before the song is over." Believe me, it worked. 

The song trick didn't work so well on myself, but then I made this apron:

Dressed in this apron I look like one of the servant girls from Downton Abbey. Reliable, efficient and thorough. 

I can see now why uniforms are so important. It puts you in the right zone, you dress the part. Armed with my little white apron I'm all about the tasks at hand. Afterwords I'll have a nice cup of tea, naturally. 

Where did I get such a magical apron? I made it from an old Victorian pillow case. It was way too big for my own pillows, so for the longest time the case was just tucked away in a drawer. 

It's so beautiful, embroidered and everything. Since I don't believe in hiding things away, saving things for imaginary grandchildren or some special occasion that might or might not happen, I wanted to make the pillow case into something I could actually use. I'm sure the original owner would agree with my decision. 

After all, people were much better at reusing and remaking things than we are today. Our habit is to buy, not to restore or reuse. 

Us upcyclers are trying to change all that. We want to create, re-design, give things a second chance and a new life. 

Would that be all Lady Grantham?

Eco Bride

A few thousand pounds for a dress? Of course, it's a wedding dress! That is what they are worth.

Or are they? Isn't it a fact that most wedding dresses are ridiculously overpriced because that is what brides are willing to pay for them?For a dress she will only wear once. 

Totally reasonable.... I mean, they are made of 100% silk, nothing but hand-stitches, lined with the finest satin, designed by world famous fashion designers. Not so much, not most of them. 

For those of us who wants the perfect dress, but is not willing to pay an arm and a leg for it, there great options that doesn't require down-payments and depleting the savings account. 

I'm talking about second hand shops. Yes, you do in fact find great wedding dresses at thrift shops and vintage stores. For my big day I wore a dress I found at a thrift shop in East-Finchley. I just happened to drop by on my way to the movies, and there it was; the most beautiful dress I had ever seen. 

Red Cross have a fantastic bridal shop, you get the most incredible dresses for a tenth of the original price. I told a fellow thrift-store-shopper/bride-to-be about this second hand bridal shop, and this is what she found for her big day:

It had only been used once on the catwalk for a bridal show, now it was waiting for the perfect owner. Neither the bride or I liked the Star Trek arms, but otherwise it was a winner. The bride wanted plain spaghetti-straps, and it had to be taken in a bit. Not a problem.

 

After the few alterations it was a perfect fit. Why pay more when you can look just as great for less?

Here is a picture from the big day:

Which was only yesterday! Some of the guests thought I had made the entire dress, so I go a lot of unfounded praise. 

I'm so pleased it turned out so well, she was positively stunning. 

Below is me on my wedding day:

I paid the total sum of £25 for this dress.That's more like it! I might add that it had the original price-tag on it,  obviously it had never been used. The previous owner had paid something like 1800 pounds for it. Gheezus. 

If we are getting so good a recycling plastic and paper, buying organic food and drinking fair-trade coffee, why not be an Eco Bride? You save the environment and your wallet. This is a no-brainer, even  for a bride on Cloud Nine. 

Revealed by the Wind

I adore my floral Zara silk dress. It's so beautiful and lovely, there is only one annoying catch:
I'm never quite sure what the skirt is doing. Is it stuck on my jacket hem, am I walking around like lady Gaga with my butt on display, or is the skirt hanging down like it's supposed to? Unless I constantly run my hands down the sides of the dress, there is no way of telling what is going on back there.

Someone told me that the royal seamstresses sew sand into the hem of the Queen's gowns. Not only does it make the dress hang nice and straight, it also prevents public embarrassment when gusts of wind   rushes through the royal parade.

Even though I'm not a public figure, there is no reason for my own skirts and dresses to misbehave, regardless of weather. A while back I bought a spool of lead-thread, like one does, it was just what I needed for my flowy dress.

The lead thread isn't super heavy, but there is just enough weightiness there to keep the skirt in place.

All I had to do was rip open the seam along the hem, insert the miracle thread and close up the hem again.

Now I can wear the dress in the carefree, easygoing manner it was meant for. No more paranoid looks, straightening it into place and silently hoping all is as it should be. I know all is well, thanks to an impulse purchase of lead-thread.

Sleep Tight?

Fun fact: In the olden days mattresses were held in place by ropes. Over time the ropes would slacken, the mattress would start to sag in the middle, so the ropes had to be tightened. Hens, the expression : Sleep tight.

Sleeping tight can sometimes be a challenge, especially at cheap inns and motels. Is that ....stain supposed to be there....? And what is that faint smell? Mildew? Gun residue from the drug bust that went down last May? Is there a forgotten garbage bin somewhere?
Even if the room looks perfectly clean, I sometimes suspects the linen to host more bedbugs that I'm comfortable with.

The solution is simple and weights almost nothing: a thing cotton sleeping bag.

This one is made from an old, super-soft, sheet, and a summer curtain grandmother gave me. 

Folded up it is the same size as a clutch bag. 

Doesn't it look cosy and inviting? Even when I stayed in a room with a pigeon nest outside the window (aka-lots of bird poop), damp walls and no ventilation, I slept like a carefree baby. As long as what is touching my skin is fresh and clean, I can sleep in almost any surroundings. Almost. 

I made the opening with buttons, not a zipper. 

You can of course buy these, but they tend to be made out of polyester or other synthetic materials. I like to sleep in cotton, something that is soft and breathes. AND easy to wash, ready for the next adventure. 

Nothing to Waste

What do you do with all of this?

 

Scraps, strips, small pieces of fabric. I never throw any of them away, just save them all in a big chest for later use..
Don't get me wrong, I'm no hoarder, I can't stand clutter. Feng-Shui has robbed me of any desire to collect and gather. It's like that Chinese saying: If you own more than 10 things, the things own you.

Fabric though, it is too precious to be discarded. It would be wasteful to throw away velvet, wool or silk. Regardless how little or small.

Used in the right way, all these tiny pieces can become marvellous things. A baby quilt, a sofa pillow, a patch on your favourite cardigan, or a quirky fabric basket. Like this one!

I rummaged through my fabric-chest and selected a variety of fabrics. 

What we have here is a piece of a shirt, a blouse, a cloth napkin, garden table cloth and the left-over fabric from a dress I made last year. After being ironed, sewn together, measured to fit the basket pattern, I was left with this cosy thing: 

You need the strips to form 5 squares, 4 sides and one bottom. You can either line the basket with 5 additional squares or make the sides taller than the bottom and simply fold them in to make the lining. That is what I did with this one. 

In the basket below I made the lining out of an old table cloth that had frayed at the edges. The main fabric is hand-woven tweed. Ahhhhhh. 

Once done the wee basket got shipped of to Glasgow as a surprise mid-week present to the person who always, always makes me laugh, every single day. Laughter deserves gifts in all shapes and forms. 

Flowy or Flattering?

 Not everything needs to be super fitted or mega tight, but there is no need to look like we are wearing a big tent either. Just because a blouse is loose fitted, doesn't mean it can't have any shape at all. What puzzles me is when a top is tight-ish, but it doesn't come in at the waist. Square and tight is simply not a good look.
The solution: take it in.

Don't take it in too much,  you don't want to mess with the original shape, but just enough so the shirt or blouse becomes flattering and fitted. You can make darts in the back, take in the side-seams  make pleats in the front, wherever it would be most appropriate. The cashmere top above simply got taken in at the side-seams, imagine a thin moon-shaped seam at each side. (Like the red dots.)

Sew and try it on, inch by inch. I have destroyed a few tops by taking them in so much that the buttons refused to close. One blouse got taken in way too much at the hips, I forgot the hips are quite a bit wider than my waist........ So just try and see, it really doesn't take much before outfit starts to take shape.
Here are a few other tops I've taken in:

This is a knitted sweater. Tight arms, fitted, but again no indication of waist....Peculiar. 

A cute pussy bow blouse. Fitted in general, but no shape to speak of. I made 2 pleats in the font (starting right under the breasts) and 2 pleats in the back. 

A standard black cotton top from GAP, same dilemma as the red sweater. Fitted, but in a square shape. Good thing we can sew. 

Another pussy bow blouse, but this one was really a tent. I had to shorten it, take it in and make pleats at the back. It's still nice and loose, but without looking like I'm in my first trimester. 

One of my most treasured sweater (£2 at a thrift store), is my knitted Picasso sweater. It's long, warm, AND flattering. Why? Because the brilliant designer (H&M) knows that women are not shaped like boxes. It was already sewn with a female shape in mind, not a fridge. 

In almost all of my Picasso pictures, he is wearing a version of this sweater. I'm so glad I have one too, and that I didn't have to lift a needle before I could wear it. Ready to wear means having time for all the other things in life. 

Fit for a Princess

This looks like a lesbian wedding picture, but it' actually me as the maid of honour and my best friend on her wedding day. 

It was a truly memorable day, starting with swimming in the loch and drinking champagne for breakfast. After swimming, eating, make up and hair it was time to put on the dresses. I had bought a tailored vintage dress for the occasion, £40 from a local charity shop.

Do you know why it is so great to shop at thrift shops and charity stores?

1. The money goes to a good cause

2. Reusing clothes is a really fun way of saving the planet

3. You have the chance to find a real treasure

This dress was a treasure for sure. But, it was too tight. Really tight. I looked like a badly stuffed hay-ball. 

After wiggling my way out of the dress, careful to not rip any seams, I turned the dress inside out to see if I could take any of the seams out. 

I could! Vintage dresses, especially tailored ones, usually have plenty of seam allowance. What a relief! 

I paid for the dress and took it home, ripped up a few seams and sewed the dress out 1/5 inch in four different seams. The result: 

This gem of a dress is over 50 years old and is still going strong. They say people had smaller rib cages before, and that's why the dresses are so tiny. I don't know, I think we are fatter as well, but regardless the reason, don't despair when you can't fit into your favourite vintage outfit. Just take it out a few inches.