All posts filed under: What I wear

The Little Bit of Red/Lips Kiss My Blues Away remake

Last week’s challenge on the Sew Weekly was music. I had dreams of something elaborate involving metres & metres of blue crepe, but the plans went awry (not sewing mistakes) and made me very blue indeed. So I needed something to chase those blues away, and what better than one of my favourite songs, a fix up of my Little Bit of Red dress (remember how I was never thrilled with it?), and some Besame Red lipstick? The song is Red Lips Kiss My Blues Away, and the cover artwork is adorable: My Little Bit of Red dress is not a perfect match to the Red Lips Kiss My Blues Away cover art, but I thought with a bit of tweaking the Little Bit of Red dress could effectively capture the mood of the poster, and rescue my sewing week (plus get something off my UFO pile). So I completely pulled apart my Little Bit of Red Dress, re-shaped the bodice, re-set the bodice ruffles, took in the skirt, cut hip ruffles, hemmed said …

Why I’ve been sewing with acrylic (and why I’ll never do it again).

Published by The Dreamstress

You may have noticed that I’ve sewn two things recently with cheap acrylic fabric: my ‘Win in Black and White‘ 1940s swing coat, and the Reproduction jacket. I complained about working with acrylic with both items, and Lynn even called me on it with the reproduction jacket, point out that “it is not worth wasting good sewing skill and time on fabric that is less than the best one can afford.” And she’s absolutely right! And this is something I know, and have known since my earliest sewing days. I am the product of fabric snobs (in the nicest possible way). My mother is a fabric snob who managed to live through the 1970s without every wearing synthetic clothes. My first sewing teacher taught me to work with lovely quality quilting cottons, and then I went away to university where I worked for a professional costume shop that only used the best materials. As a historic seamstress, my stash is full of natural fibres: I sew in silks and linens, cottons and wools. I barely …

The ‘Ice Cream Banana’ blouse

Published by The Dreamstress

For some background music for this post, put on Gin Wigmore’s ‘Too Late for Lovers‘, because Gin is awesome, and her yellow uniform in this video is awesomely awful. Also Dennis Pavao’s ‘Ka’ahumanu‘, a wonderful old-school Hawaiian song in honour of the Hawai’ian queen who abolished the kapu (taboo) system by eating bananas with her son, the king. Before this women were not allowed to eat with men, and bananas were forbidden to women. Right. The sewing. This blouse has nothing to do with ice cream. It’s all about bananas. You’re probably familiar with Cavendish bananas from the supermarket, and perhaps one or two other novelty varieties, but did you know that there are actually hundreds of different varieties of bananas? The Hawaiian’s alone had at least 44 different varieties of bananas before European contact. Sadly, almost half of these varieties have gone extinct in the last few centuries, and only 23 varieties of Hawaiian bananas remain, and 19 of these are very endangered. The fabric for this blouse instantly reminded me of the creamy …