Finding the Foam and a note on London's diversity

What you see above is not a hat even though it would probably dispute this claim if you asked it. It is in fact my camera case. I do admit that it is less than ideal for a camera case so I have been meaning to replace it for ages. I wanted to make myself one of these well padded versions you can buy in a shop but I had one serious problem with that plan. For the life of me, I could not find proper foam to use as padding. I’ve been checking art shops and craft shops for months but this morning, I stumbled across a market stall selling foam in all varieties for upholstery. The only downside is that they wanted 10 pounds for a fairly large piece. I didn’t want to pay 10 £ and I didn’t want that much foam either. Some haggling later, I walked away paying 3 £ for some pieces left over from cutting something else.

I love Shepherds Bush market for that kind of thing. It isn’t what you would expect from an English market at all as it caters mainly for the Middle Eastern Community that lives in the area. It sells pretty much anything, from giant pots for cooking, gaudy wedding dresses, five kilogram sacks of rice all the way to goldfish. I think it is generally great how multicultural London is. The supermarkets are a perfect example: Just the other day, Tesco (one of the biggest supermarket chains) sent us a “Ramadan special offers” leaflet. When I went shopping there yesterday, I stumbled across 10 kg sacks of Chapati Flour, produced by “Tesco Everyday Value”, which is the supermarkets own cheap brand.The “foreign food” section includes one with Polish food, the meat sections sells Halal produce and buying things like Plantain, water spinach or Yam is possible every day. It really shows just how normal variety is here. I love it.

Phoney embroidery

Do you remember the little cover for my phone that I made myself a few months ago? Well, I remember it quite fondly  but unfortunately I have absolutely no idea where it went so I need a new one. While I really liked the simplistic style of the last one, I wanted something a little more elaborate this time.

I remembered seeing some absolutely gorgeous embroidery with buttons somewhere on the internet a while ago, which I really wanted to try out, so I grabbed a piece of dark blue velvet, some buttons and a white ribbon and just went for it. I have a sneaking suspicion it isn’t going to last long in the hard life of a phone cover but even if it’s only a few week, I think it’s worth it.

Since I started this I can’t get the though of a black corset, elaborately decorated in this style, out of my head. You have been warned.

The new blue dress

Look, the dress is as good as new! I don’t currently have much time to go into the details as I have to leave for the airport in about 15 minutes but I just wanted to share with you that I made it. It’s not perfect ( and also not very well hung up in this picture) I will try to take some pictures with me in it over the weekend.

I’m off to Hamburg now, expect some blogging from the road! Have a lovely weekend :)

Resurrecting the Blue Dress

I know that I’ve just started another sewing project but my grandmother’s dress will have to wait a little because I realised that I really need something to wear for my little cousins baptism next weekend. I bought the dress you can see in the picture above and I’ve worn it much but the material is so thin, the dress has started to unravel from the seams. I love the shape though (even though it looks a little frumpy on the hanger) and so I’m planning on cutting it apart at the seams, copying the pattern and then making a new version of it. I already bought 3,5 m of the most gorgeous dark blue jersey as material.

Keep your fingers crossed for me, this must be the most complicated stretchy dress I have ever made and I only have a few days. If it doesn’t work, I might have to do an emergency shopping trip on Wednesday before I’m off to Hamburg for a few days.

Dance lessons for my grandmother

A few years ago, my grandmother gave me a bag with the words “Here, some old clothes. Cut them up and use them as fabrics!” Being impatient as ever, I immediately looked through it. The majority of items were already taken apart. There was a cocktail dress made from a very heavy black silk, a blue and gold type of jacket, a few other pieces I have forgotten about, a Sari and, at the very bottom, a light cotton dress. Watching me pull it out, my grandmother remarked “Oh, I had forgotten about that. I wore that to my dance lessons when I was a young girl.” Considering that she is over eighty now, this must have been somewhere around 1950.

Later, I carefully tried the dress on. It is in very good condition, considering my grandmother is over eighty years old, but just about too small for me. That’s not surprising, I’m almost a head taller than my grandmother. Ever since, I have kept the dress planning to make myself a version of it some day. I think now might be a good time.

The dress is made from a very thin cotton in “misty rose” (according to Wikipedia). The fabric is decorated with little black flowers, consisting of three embroidered dots each. The material is quite sheer so there must have been a second dress worn underneath. That one was unfortunately not passed on to me so I will have to improvise.

The dress is fitted loosely, except around the waist, has ruffled sleeves and I think it is meant to reach  the middle of the calf (tea length). It’s only knee length on me but then I am distinctly too tall for it anyway.

So, the plan is to make a copy of the pattern (WITHOUT destroying the dress of course), then enlarging it and making myself a copy. I will try to keep as many of the details as possible. I think finding a matching fabric might be the first real challenge. This is going to be somewhat of a long term project but then, the one thing I definitely have at the moment is plenty of time.

Wrapping up the patchwork

I finished off my quilt! Or rather, the patchwork part of it, the actual quilting is still ahead of me. I thought I'd finally use the last few pieces to show you how I do it.

First I cut out a little paper heaxgon. 

I then pin it onto the fabric and roughly cut around it.

Using some thread, I sew the loose ends over the back, pulling out the pin in the process. The piece of paper is still in there and it gives it some structure.

Then I place two pieces with their nice sides together and stitch over the edge.

 Instead of attaching them straight to the big piece, I make these little flower shapes instead, with one of the turquoise ones in the middle. This isn't a full flower because I was filling the last edge. I then attach the flowers to the big piece and fill any holes with the dark blue pieces directly.

Done! I unfortunately didn't have any american coins but I think you get the idea.

305 hexagons make up the complete piece.I'm just not sure what to do about the edges. To you people with papter stichting experience out there: I want to attach a strip of fabric to the edge. How do I do that?