Autumn Zebra

Yay, today (or now-abouts) is the summer solstice, or, I guess, in the northern hemisphere it is the winter solstice. In Dunedin today the weather is cold and raining. It has hailed and it looked as if it would snow. But not so much now. Outside this morning, at about 0830, my fingers were freezing with that sharp cold in the air that makes me think of glaciers and Antarctica - an icy cold one would call it then. Generally, this seems similar to what those having the winter solstice now might be experiencing. The winter solstice is also known as Yule, in English culture, and although it gets a bit weird with all the different cultures mashed together in the generic Pagan year, the summer solstice mightbe Litha, or simply Mid-Summer, according to my sources. This is clearly ridiculous as it is not summery at all. Seldom is it even warm in December the last few years, generally reserving any good weather for January and February, but the last 2-3 years at least there have also been hot d...

Introduction Todays entry is an article of clothing I made a wee while ago. This is my pink skirt with fairies and butterflies on it. It is very simple, and not a masterful feat of engineering or anything. When I made this skirt, everyone was confused. It seems they could not understand the skirt, because it was pink with fairies and butterflies on it. Probably because I hate pink, and also girly things. Onto the explanation then in the "Inspiration" section. Inspiration and Idea When shopping for other material in Spotlight, I accidentally noticed this material. I thought it was funny, because I hate pink and girly things. To me that makes perfect sense and it would be clearly highly amusing to wear a skirt made of this material, especially since it was probably designed for 6 year old girls. The intended age limit for the material was further evidenced by the fact that it was only 112cm wide, and material designed to be used exclusively for items for small children are neve...

The letter I received today that I just mentioned was dated 11 days ago. What with all this talk of first-in-first-served, I might have liked it earlier. It only had to travel 2km... (at a completely uninformed guess).

Today I received my letter I was waiting for from the Otago Polytech ! Unfortunately it has this to say: "The returned enrolments will be processed in the order that they are received and it is only on receipt of your enrolment that your place on the programme/course is secured." In fact, it says that in bold type . And then it talks about wait lists and such. I feel this contradicts nastily with their first uplifting paragraph: "Thank you for your application to the Certificate in Fashion Studies. I am pleased to offer you a place on this programme which commences....." And, of course, there is that other letter I received that said that I had a place also. Presumably this all means I "have a place (on the list)". Plus, preference is given to those who wish to enrol full-time. :( Applicants are accepted based on order of receipt of this form, but I presume that, since the previous letter said the next letter would be sent by the end of November, I am a bi...

Washing my new possibly-silk material So yesterday I washed the Thai silk that I bought on trademe and after work I hung it out to dry. By the time I had finished hanging out the 5-6 pieces, the first ones were nearly dry. Since I thought this was absurd I left them out there for another hour or two anyway. At which point they were definitely completely absolutely dry. (Are any of those words spelt right? Are they supposed to have 'e's? I can never remember.) Another good thing is that they no longer smelt of turpentine. I think that's the liquid that goes with that smell. I find it hard to remember what object associates with what smell. Anyway, I have no idea why they were smelling of what might be turpentine, but they did when I got them out of the washing machine. And so did my hands, presumably from the water from the material on my hands. It was really weird, and it did not smell like that when dry, either before or after washing. If anyone knows why my material migh...

So, this update is not about sewing, but about me. Although, all sewing entries are also generally about me too. And I think it might actually be a bit about sewing anyway. I am currently waiting for more information about my polytech course to arrive, and it might not for days at least, and I might die of expectant waiting by then. I mean, waiting expectantly, not while expecting, of course. Those words, the ones beginning with 'e' back there, have ceased to carry any meaning after I started thinking about them too much, rather like when you say or see a word too many times and it starts to look or sound funny, now I can't work out if the sentence makes sense or not. Anyway, divergence over. I have been waiting, eagerly and expectantly, and if nothing happens on it's own I have to make the excitement by simply talking about it. I enrolled a little while back, for the Certificate in Fashion Studies, as I mentioned. And they said they were full up! But they would contact...

Current fashion Cherries and polka dots people, cherries and polka dots. And, since dresses are in, cherries and polka dots - on dresses! Polka dots (or is it polka-dots?) and petticoats As stated in a previous post, my current clothing obsession often reflects what is actually in fashion, which is handy. I also have long-term obsessions that are either unrelated or are a long-term fashion undercurrent. Like corset (inspired) tops. So I am interested in polka dots and cherries currently. I think they are also in fashion. Someone told me yesterday that they were. I saw some black material with white polka dots the other day when I was looking for black material to make a petticoat, and decided I should get that instead and make a petticoat that can also be an outer skirt. It was even only a little extra, about $1/m, than the plain cottons I was considering. This is a "current project" that is as yet unstarted. This petticoat would be a three tiered skirt, with the top tier fit...

Final Item I have no head or feet. Inspiration, Design, Planning See a previous post a few posts ago. Draft No draft... Sewing then? Yes! There WAS sewing! First I started with the middle section of the dress as I would need to attach both the top and bottom parts onto this. I measured around my waist and bust, which is where the bottom and top edges of the middle section would go. So, adding seam allowance for the join on one side and overlap to button on the other side, I made the two pieces as much around as my bust. Using the dress dummy and my waist measurement and trying it on myself, I worked out where the two front darts should go and how much they should take in. So these are two darts taking in material at the waist and going up to the bust. I worked out maybe how much skirt I would need to go around me and gather a bit while still leaving enough material to do the top section. Normally I would probably want as much gather as I can get - the more is more attitude - but in thi...

The dress. Blurry face because I wanted to see if I could do that in photo-shop. Ha-ha. Ok, so it isn't really that orange, but sort of. Using this material - this is a picture of it with the light falling on it, although it can look better than this also. It ranges from a kind of dull brown to this colour, and if it falls in certain ways looks orange and in others, black. Hmm, that picture is kind of big, but we will try and live with it ok? This is also the same material and dress I posted about a couple of days ago and have been waiting to get pictures of and so on. Design Well, it was tough. This is a sort of test-run for my wedding dress, one part of my wedding outfit. I was having all sorts of trouble working out how I wanted to do the skirt, although I had worked out I wanted a fitted top with a square neck and little puff-top sleeves. For some reason. I wanted the skirt to be smooth over the hips, I think. That was part of the problem - I didn't really know what I want...

I took pictures of my new dress that I made last weekend, but didn't have time to sort them and crop them yet because I waws making... something else. Maybe one day I will have pictures of that too. Problem is, the sewing is more fun than the writing and the cropping of the pictures. Anyway, today I got a parcel. It is some large hatboxes for the purpose of storage from Ezibuy . Ezibuy is great (if you live in NZ), you can order online and for an example of turnaround, read as follows: I ordered on Friday online and got email confirming order. On Monday I got an email confirming payment of order and that they were packing it and so on. On Tuesday I got an email saying they were posting it now. On Wednesday morning it was on my doorstep! Excellent. When you order on their website you also get instant feedback as to whether your choices are even still available, and whether they have it in the colour and size combination you want. Otherwise you have to wait for the packing slip to te...

I was hoping to do the Certificate in Fashion Studies at the Otago Polytech next year, but today when I enrolled I found out that the course is already full! But maybe some people will drop out.... I was going to enroll about 2 weeks ago, but had to find my birth certificate and find out my NZQA hook-on number somehow. Then, a couple of days ago I found out that I can just ASK the polytech to tell me my number, and that if it is still "active" (whatever that means, but it was) then I don't need the birth certificate either! Damn, cos if they had put on the guide to enrolment that I could just ask them for that number then I would have already known all that 2 or 3 weeks ago and I would be in or further up the waiting list at any rate. Hopefully, since I want to do it part-time, they will let me do it anyway as I will only be in two classes in the first half of next year, so if there are two classes that are not full or something.... It is only 6 months long normally, so ...