Tuesday - smocking / shirring tutorial - summer dress from a sarong.

Some time ago I bought a bargain piece of material on ebay.

Digression :- Got to love ebay and those buyers who don't try to rip you off for postage abroad. Just because I live in France I have not had all my brain cells removed and I KNOW one paperback book does not cost £15.00 to post!

Anyway back on track - this is the material.  It is hard to tell from the photo, but it is various shades of blue in a tie-dye style with sequin stars and dots.

It was a rectangular piece, 115 cm x 149 cm, in a nice light viscose but thick enough not to need lining for decency.

The first thing I did was hem all the edges to prevent fraying. Then I joined the 115cm sides to each other sewing about three quarters of the way down from the edge that will be at the bust line, leaving the last quarter open for a split on the legs.

Left with a tube, too big to wear as is even with a couple of shoulder straps, I decided to have a go at creating a smock (shirred) top to this dress.

I am sewing all of the smock section on my trusty sewing machine - the first time I have ever tried this.

Thread your machine as normal with a strong poly cotton thread, but not too thick.  Then take your bobbin and some thin elastic (I stole mine out of my jewelry making kit, it is normally used for beading bracelets).

Hand wind the elastic around the bobbin taking care not to pull and create any tension in the elastic.  I had to wind the bobbin about 4 times in total to finish the smocking, each bobbin did about 3 rows of stitching.

I opened  back the seam and used some pins to mark the spacing between each row of stitching.

To sew the smocking you will be sewing on the right side of the fabric, so that your thread shows and not the elastic.

Remember to reverse back over the start and end of each row in order to secure the elastic otherwise it will just pull straight out as soon as you tension it.

Then start sewing.  The first row is the easiest, as the material stays flat as your run around the full diameter of your 'tube'.

As you move down to the next row, you will need to pull the material out flat as you go around, don't let the material bunch up with the elastic.

 Sew several full rows around the top of the tube extending approximately 15 cms from the top hem line.  This creates a shorter smock effect top with an empire line dress falling below.  If you are graced with a more forgiving figure then you can continue smocking for another 15 cms to create a skirt that falls from the waist.

Now I think it is time to try it on, mix myself a cocktail and relax by the pool.

Take that Gok Wan!

Sunday's brief project - fly curtain for the studio.

We went to the sales yesterday.

Considering how rotten I was feeling and how much my psyche was begging for some retail therapy to ease it, I managed to stay strong and resist all the bargain clothes reductions - I didn't even buy a pair of pretend suede ankle boots  in soft beige with big buckles and stocky cowboy stack heels that I found in the sales reduced to 12€.  That's how strong I am!

Phew - wipe the sweat of resistance from my brow, and then shamefully admit:

"My name is Monika and I am a bargain basement material-aholic"

Having taken Thea around all the trendy young thing shops - (so no temptations there at all for me), we also trawled a couple of the larger supermarket for their sale bargains.

I must clarify (and digress) - I love the French way of handling sales.

There are only 2 sales periods in a year, one in February and one in July.  All the rest of the year you get the odd promotion, but not a real sale with knockdown prices and bargain bins of tat.  Nor do you get that very UK things of non-seasonal items reduced all year round, so for instance, you can't buy your next years Christmas decorations in the New Year sales, because there aren't any, and by February when the sales are on, no Christmas things are to be seen.  You have to buy Christmas decorations and cards etc before December 24th, and you may find things on 3 for 2 promotions or buy one get one half price then and only then.

This comes as a very real culture shock having spent the last few years in the UK getting used to being able to buy anything at any time and usually reduced.

You can't buy a swimming costume in France in the winter unless you go to a specialist sports provision shop.  Fashion swimsuits and bikinis arrive in the shops in May, and are all gone by August, if you miss them, you have to wait till next year.  Even the home order catalogues are seasonal.

I was struck by this after flicking through the summer La Redoute catalogue the other day.  I saw a couple of things that looked quite nice and so when I got home I went online to see if I could get a bigger picture of it to try to copy it (see no buying new clothes - just plagarism instead).  But I made the mistake of looking on the English version of the site and found all sorts of things including thick tights, winter boots, and mittens.  On the French site - only beach cover-ups and swimwear - nothing 'wintery' at all.  Very strange how different the stock levels of the UK/non UK catalogues are.  In fact the two catalogues bear no resemblance to each other.

Anyhoooo - back on topic.

We went around the supermarket sales, and in one of the dark and dusty corners I found a cardboard bin of opened and ex-display bed linens.

Now I actually think I was quite restrained.

Material is very expensive to buy, as are bed linens, but I managed to hold back from throwing the contents of the bin into Brendan's arms and running off cackling manically for the tills.  I actually sorted through the sheets and duvet covers and just bought those that fitted and the colours I needed for lining materials - and at 2 € a double bed fitted sheet they were real bargains.

I also bought a lovely voile tab top curtain for 2€, which I naively offered to Thea for a wall hanging, then when I got it home I squirreled it away into my studio instead to use as a door curtain to keep the flies out.

All that was required was a quick hem to shorten it, then a couple of hooks and a bamboo cane stolen from the garden to suspend it.

Job done.

And just because Thea insists that I am biased towards Ferguson (well he is the most beautiful kitten in the world)  here is a quick photo of Pond in the clover.

Productive Day in the studio - new bag design on vintage fabrics.

The lovely weather is continuing - not - lovely for ducks perhaps. With the grey skies looming overhead with the threat of yet more heavy rain I decided to shut myself away with my stereo and my sewing machine in my studio.

I designed another easy bag on my very useful plastic coated publicity material, lit the fire and started cutting away.

I finished sewing up the bag I started the other day, finished it with some wooden beads,

 then used the same vintage 70s cotton to make up another bag in my new design with some hand crocheted flowers to add a bit of detailing, then had a go at another nautical themed bag in the same design.

 Very pleased with the way these have turned out, and also how my new design works, only two pieces, a round bottom, then a single cut of material to form the tube body of the bag, then this pattern piece is folded in half and creates the template for the handle.

Very productive day.