Unbirthday

Chocolate and ginger cake made by Ceri.

Best injoke artwork ever!

Solid perfume smelling of apples.

The best tea in the world all the way from Canada.

I fixed my brooch. A petal had broken off and the pin had snapped off.

I have wanted a dress with little black cats my whole life. 

Halloween

Tansa Day

On Saturday I was pretty much 100% Tansa the fireworkmaker, complete with bright clashing colours, hyperactivity and klutziness. She is, however, a useful person to have around. 

Line drawing (aka the hard work) by Ceri, coloured by me.

Gloves - gift, Satchel - ebay

Dress - charity shop & selfmade, Scarf - charity shop

Coat - charity shop

Tansa is short, 5 ft 2 inches. She makes up for it by jumping up and down a lot. She has a wide smile and freckles, brown eyes, and slightly wonky (frazzled) eyebrows. Her shoulder length once brown curly hair is mostly multicoloured from testing dyes on it. She wears a scarf to keep it out of the way and a wide brimmed hat to hide the colours when she goes outside. Clothes-wise, Tansa is never without a leather satchel containing her wares, goggles, and elbow length leather gloves. She likes shoes she can skip in and sleeves short enough to not catch fire.

Tansa is a firework maker, inventor of alchemical fireworks and explosive devices; also an aspiring thief. In the words of her drawing teacher: Tansa is not the brightest pencil in the pencil box. However blunt pencils can cover large areas and she works very hard to keep up. Her illustrations of fireworks are excellent and the rest are passable.

She was brought up in a coastal town by her grandparents. Her parents worked night shifts organising firework displays. She has three brothers (two older, one younger) who are acrobats in a travelling circus. Her family was well off enough to save up for Tansa’s apprenticeship. She attended school when she felt it interested her, tending to sneak into more drawing and alchemy lessons while eschewing natural history and grammar. She has a gift for remembering miscellaneous facts and mimicry but rarely puts it to full use because she is simply oblivious to the wider world.

Addendums

Bag charm - Accessorize

Mismatched earrings -Vintage Fair

The silver one is perfect for Cialdorene and the blue for Sasha. I figured they would deserve something snazzier than buttons :-)

Happy Post

Seven happy things from my week.

Cute bow and new perfume

Summery red

Stays on for ages

They are so nice

Wearing a summer dress in autumn

Christmas Lush stuff

Finding shoes for Ceri in a charity shop

More Adjusting Things

I got this dress back in July. The back fits perfectly but the front is too small. Anyway as it was only £5 I decided to get it anyway and experiment with making it fit. 

First I unpicked the seam down the centre dress front, tried the dress on and adjusted the front knot to fit.

The zip is down the centre of the back.

The idea is to fill the space with an underlayer of fabric.

The best fabric I had was this old primark skirt I no longer wear much. A plain black or black with small yellow polka dots would have looked better.

I checked I had enough fabric and then cut the waistband from the skirt and ironed the fabric pieces.

I measured how wide it would need to be and created a gathered panel to attach to the dress. 

I tried the dress on again and once happy sewed the panel into place. The rectangle holds the gathered fabric together and covers the space over which the knot is tied. 

This is what it looks like tied.

Then I tidied the seams, cut off the extra panel fabric and hemmed it. I hemmed it last as the dress has a circle skirt and it's easier to follow the curve of the circle once everything is attached together.

Now after three months it is finally ready to wear.

Tutorial Time

Problem: A dress is too small at bust but right size at waist. There is not enough fabric at the front of the dress to take it out. Getting a bigger size dress would just mean having to take it in at the waist and back anyway. (And I tend to find vintage store dresses are smaller rather than larger.)

I've used this method a few times with good results. Similar logic can be used to add fabric instead to the front of the dress. Here fabric is added to the back as the dress has front detail I did not want to alter. 

Back of the dress (from vintage store) post alteration.

Dress front: Pretty ribbon and buttons!

You need:

Thread

Needle

Sewing machine

Pins

Lace and/or fabric

Dress

1. Unpick the seam at the back of the dress. Unpick where it is attached to the skirt in equal amounts in both directions. Unpicking and loosening the gathers can be used to widen the waist. Even if you do not wish to widen the waist, unpicking it will give space to work at the back bodice seam. My dress has two layers of fabric so I have pinned them together to keep them in place at the edges.

For dresses without a central back seam you can cut down the middle of the back of the dress.

2. Tidy up the edges where the facing has been attached with neat hand stitches. 

3. If you are widening the waist, unpick the gathered skirt as much as needed and repin to fit the correct size. Note do not take out a skirt greater than an inch as this will mean the skirt loses too much of its gathers and thus its shape. Note this method of alteration is intended to add space to only part of a dress - if the dress is too small everywhere then you might as well just get a bigger one.

4. Choose what you will widen the back or front of the dress with. This method of alteration works best on dresses already with trim and pattern as whatever you add can be made to blend in. Here the vintage lace matches better with the sleeves but the broderie anglaise is sturdier so I chose that.

5. The advantage of attaching lace at both sides is that you can recreate the back seam of the bodice. It allows you to take in equal amounts from both sides, thus keeping the design symmetrical while cutting a single piece of lace/fabric to fit requires more fittings and I struggle to pin things behind my back that I'm wearing on my back.

Tack the lace on each side, folding over at the top enough to match the length of the facing, then machine sew in place. I used a small straight stitch to follow the scallops. If you are using fabric you can turn the raw edges inwards and sew two small seams along the sides.

6. Turn the dress inside out. Match the edges together. Pin and tack how much space you want to add to the dress and where. Here the extra allowance is tapered at the waist (left) and top of the back (right) because I solely want to add bust space. If you are adjusting to increase back space only then this line will be straight. 

7. Once machine sewn it will look like this. Press the seam, cut off extra fabric and tie off loose ends. 

8. Next the inside can be tidied up. This can be done through repeating steps 1-7 to create a lining to add inside. I have strengthened the back seam with ribbon and added cream cotton behind the lace as it is quite thin compared to the rest of the dress. 

9. Reattach the skirt to the bodice and tidy the seam. 

10. Done! For dresses which button/zip up at the back seam you can do exactly the same for the front of the dress. 

Now it fits perfectly.