Saturday, June 21, 2008

The Last of the "Springtime Pink and Green" Fabric

I really loved this combo, so I was sad to use the last of it, but I made sure to use every little scrap!





Sunday, June 15, 2008

Friday, June 13, 2008

New Header and Etsy

As you can see, I have a new header! I realized I never officially announced on my blog that I've opened up an Etsy Shop, also called aux belles choses. The redesigned header now matches my Etsy shop.

Most of my items will now be sold through the Etsy shop, so check it out when you can!

Friday, June 6, 2008

A Wedding Gift

I made this for my cousin who is getting married tomorrow. Her husband-to-be is into martial arts and they recently visited Japan. They seem to like the Japanese culture and decor, their invitations even had cherry blossoms (or sakura) on them and so I wanted to incorporate that into her apron.

I searched Etsy and found a great imported sakura fabric, then I bragged about it to my sister and that's when we discovered that, once again, we'd come up with a similar idea, lol! She had bought the exact same fabric in a different color and was planning on making an apron for our cousin too. (A couple years ago, we both gave each other toile aprons for Christmas, so this is not the first time we've been on the same brain wavelength!) But hey, a gal can't have too many aprons, right? And they're totally different styles.

The other day I was at my sister's house and saw the scraps of her fabric, and asked if I could have them! So the red in the apron is the fabric she ordered, and the black is the fabric I ordered.

It's just a simple bistro style apron with a long skinny tie that ties in front, which seems to be quite a popular look lately:



Then, I decided to add a loop for a dishtowel to hang from. I really love that part! I mean, who isn't always searching for a towel to wipe your hands on in the kitchen? I like it so much I'm thinking I might make one for me with this feature..hmmm...



There are also 3 handy pockets for kitcheny stuff galore!



I used some of the decorative paper from her invitations to make a card:



I got some (red) oven mits to go along off of her gift registry, and she gets the red towel in the pic too. Hope she likes it!

Monday, June 2, 2008

Regency Dress Modernized

As I said before, the first Regency dress was basically my test run, and I'm glad I did it because I ended up making several alterations to the pattern for the real thing!

For the modernized version, I made it shorter (though I kept the difference in length from front to back), and just used some cleaner lines by replacing the puffy sleeve with a cap sleeve, used darts on the bust instead of gathers, and used some double box pleats on the back rather than gathers. I also didn't add a drawstring around the waist like the other one had, since I figured it should be pretty fitted already. I used a lovely blue cotton sateen and lined it with a camel colored broadcloth.

And here is the result! (Sorry about the uber serious look on my face, lol, I'm told I seem to look quite somber when I'm thinking or concentrating, but it was the best pic of the dress.)









I'm so excited, I really love how it turned out!