Something with spiders...

Heeey, Halloween's coming up and guess what: I'm actually making a costume! Well, the making part is over, but I've got to buy some things and put them together to finish it. Here's a sneak peek, though:

Oooh, and did I tell you I got a new mannequin? :D

I first thought I'd make a '20s dress, with a beaded, black net overdress and a green slip (which I could have used as this week's hsf entry, too) but decided it would be too much work. Plus, as Halloween isn't that established in Germany, you usually dress up as something scary if you dress up at all, or people tend to give you funny looks. As I said before, people in the south mostly dress up at carnival, and that's where you get out the funny (or just about any) costumes. (Unless you're in one of the quilds, they can have some pretty scary costumes...)
Another cool thing about the south? Living in a mostly catholic state (I'm talking federal state here, not Germany itself) we get All Saints' Day off - the day after Halloween. (There's also a ban on dancing on All Saints' Day, so the club might be shut down by the police after midnight, but usually the music's just turned back on when they leave after a couple of minutes ;) )
Okay, enough about the culture, back to the costume: so I wanted something scary. And I really don't remember how that idea cam into my head, but sometime last week I found myself thinking: "Hm. Something with spiders..." And went on from there. A couple of considerations that went into planning:

• I am planning to go to a club with my friends, so I need something I can dance and move through crowds in. That means: no big wings, no trains, nothing too warm
• Very little sewing. I'm back to only having the sewing machine on weekends and when I started to plan only had two weekends that I also didn't want to spend entirely at the sewing machine.
• Money! I had just spent a lot of money on fabric for another project and wanted to do this with as little expense as possible. 

Another reason for me not wanting to buy fabric unless I absolutely have to is the appearant lack of acceptable fabric stores close to where I live. There's an Ikea that has bad quality fabric with strange prints, a small mercery store downtown that seriously looks and feels like someone just cleared out their grandmother's attic and is selling everything they found there, and last but not least a gigantic fabric/quilting/crafting/everything that I can easily spend >50€ in without buying any fabric, but that's more than an hour away from me by public transport - the only transport I can use there.

Um, where was I? Ah, yes, the costume. Can you guess what it is? I will have to try some things out before I decide on how to style it eventually, but I can't wait to show you the finished result! :)
Some production pictures:

 I made the pattern from adjusting and tracing one of my tank-tops. Didn't take into account that its jersey and stretches, which inevitably came back to haunt me later.

 Tracing the pattern (the top) and some construction (the bottom) onto my very flimsy fabric. If it hadn't been just for a halloween costume I would have made a proper pattern and actually pinned it onto the fabric, but I was too lazy and didn't want a too clean look anyway.

I folded along the center fold line after tracing one half, and that's when I started pinning. Cut one piece out and...

...used it as a pattern piece for the other side. More pinning!

Pin all the fabric!

Did I mention that I hate pinning?

 The two sides pinned together. Pretty basic shape.

I had this idea that I was gonna flatfell all the seams, but gave up after the two shoulder seams. (note: synthetics don't iron well. Also, quick and dirty Halloween project.)
I simply shortened the seam allowances, finished them with a zig-zag-stitch and ironed them to one side. As this is gonna be a club costume, I hope my legs will distract from my messy sewing.
(We just reached the usual point where I'm so engrossed/frustrated by my sewing that I forget to take pictures.)

 Because I've done so successfully (on a flimsy fabric) before, I used a rolled-hem-foot (successfully!) to make a ... rolled hem. I was literally sitting at my sewing machine going: "yay, something works!" :D

I had some fun with the left-over fabric while taking the "finished" pictures, but that's it so far. Stay tuned :)

Camping and cutlery

If I do something (especially for someone else) I try do do it right. So when my father asked me a couple of weeks ago to devise some kind of bag for our camping-cutlery, I knew two things: firstly, that this could be a very quick and easy project and secondly, that I'd make damn sure that it wasn't going to be too quick and easy.
That being said, me being a university-student first and hobby-seamstress only second, I had to get some studying and exam-writing out of my way before I could get to sewing, but at least that gave me plenty of time to plan the project and think and rethink what materials I wanted to use how. Since this bag is going to be used mostly in/with our camping van and I had tons of fabric left over from sewing the curtains, I wanted to use the green-checkered fabric in some way. I thought about using it as a simple lining, but then thought a sturdier fabric might be better suited to withstand knife- and forkpoints. After rummaging through my (and my mother's) stash, I found a blue sturdy fabric of a surprisingly narrow width - I'd say about 80cm. No clue what my mother used it for, as it was still in one piece when I foun it o.O
Anyway, I'd seen and read some tutorials about  piping and just love the way contrasting piping looks as a seamfinish, so the green-checkered cotton was going to be used as piping. On to the pictures!

Lots of biasstrips

Cutting biasstrips from checkered fabric is so easy that I got a bit carried away and cut a lot more than I actually needed. Which wouldn't be too bad if I also hadn't cut them so narrow that it's hard to use them for anything else than piping. Ah well, we live and learn :)
As I wanted my bag to be 50cm*50cm, I knew my piping had to be a little over 2m long. I sewed the three longest strips together, folded them in half and sewed in the cord using a zipper foot and moving the needle to the very left

Just keep piping, piping, piping...

(Stuck in my head right now.) I then sandwiched the green piping between the two blue layers (kinda tricky in the corners) and sewed around the square, using the zipperfoot and leaving a small opening so that I could turn the whole thing inside-out.

I think that's the first time I've sewn an entire
project with a zipper-foot... :)

After turning it inside-out and ironing it, I cut the piping ends to match, leaving a little fabric to be folded over to hide the raw edges. Then I sewed the opening closed by hand using a combination of a whip- and a running stitch (only catching the blue fabric going out, not going in)

The easy way would have been to fold the thing up and sew the compartments in the same blue thread I used for handsewing. But that would have looked so boring. (Plus I was too lazy to thread the sewing machine with the blue thread and wind a new spool. Funny how laziness so often leads to more work rather than less, don't you think?)
As I said, I had cut way too many bias strips for the piping, so I decided to cut four strips to length, fold the edges to the middle, fold the ends under and sew them onto the bag. Did I mention that the strips were a little too narrow to be comfortably folded and pressed? No? Well, I didn't burn my fingers, but by the time I was done bending over the ironing board I felt like Quasimodo. Anyway, as it was almost two in the morning, I didn't take any pictures of the process, but I think the result speaks for itself:

Much prettier than mere stitching.

The ties were made by sewing two of the strips together and turning inside out. All in all, it's a very simple project that everyone who's ever had a beginner's sewing course has done in variations (I know I have) but it still makes me happy that such a simple thing can be made so pretty. As I said before: if I'm gonna do it, I might as well do it right ;)

With the top folded down...

... and tied closed :)

Some more Regency

Let's start with the sleeves. I meant for them to be in last weeks photoshoot, but they didn't go with the dress, so I meant to take some pictures of the finished sleeves on me, which didn't happen either because I have a cold and couldn't be bothered. Sorry. So, instead, you're getting pictures from when I worked on them.

Working on the sleeves

You can see where I reduced by four
stitches at the ellbow

I knitted in rounds with yarn my mother bought a couple of years ago to make toques for my brothers, no idea why she bought so much of it.











Anyway, just the facts, ma'am:

The Challenge: #20, outerwear

Fabric: 2 balls of white yarn, I think it says polyacryl, but it feels nice and seems to be pretty warm

Pattern: none, just counting. Knitted in continuous rows

Year:  ~1800

Notions: thinking about weaving some coloured ribbon through at both ends to tie some pretty bows, the colour would depend on the dress though, so I haven't put any in yet.

How historically accurate is it? Uh... although knitted sleeves did exist, they would have been done in much finer yarn with much smaller needles. Maybe as a gift by a little girl learning to knit to her older sister?

Hours to complete: Done while watching TV or DVD's, so maybe 3-4 hours per sleeve? I really should start counting these...

First worn: not yet

Total cost: Free :D

And actually on me! The top

And the bottom