recap

Mini / Maxi dress

Future basic tank

Collars

Floral shorts

Ombre skirts

Paint pants

Metallic peplum blazer

Splatter skirt

Candy stripe dress

Velvet peplum top

I've been looking through my 'DIY history' and decided to do a recap post on my favourites. This is partly spurred on by the fact that I'm in the process of a whole new load of DIYs which I'll be putting up for sale. Sometimes I'm tempted to sell some of my designs when people tell me they'd pay for me to make them something or buy an existing piece off me, but the problem is that most of the time I've made something out of a small piece of fabric, without a pattern and fitted to my body measurements so it's extremely hard to replicate. Another issue is my emotional attachment to pieces, I may not get a whole lot of wear out of some stuff but just the thought of never seeing designs again is enough to haunt me! Sounds silly, but when I slave over a piece and end up producing something I'm seriously proud of it sits close to my heart. SO that's why I'm making pieces specifically for sale! It will be a mini collection of painted skirts and jeans, all exclusive styles. So far I've finished one skirt and started a second, hoping for them to be done and up for sale before July starts. Watch this space!

midnight velvet

 So how do I avoid working on important uni assignments? Procrastination in the form of sewing! I came home from the Ellery sale yesterday and all I could think about were peplums, so rather than forking out a few hundred dollars I'd rather keep in my pocket I thought I'd try my hand at replicating one of the tops there. I was going to do a toile, but they always seem like a waste of time and fabric... I found this beautiful midnight blue cotton velvet in my collection, it's got a very small pile and feels lush and thick, exactly what I needed to hold fairly stiff gathering.

It's a pretty basic design, two sideless bust pieces with darts running down the front and a peplum. I left the hem raw to get a good fraying effect, similar to the Ellery ones, and added an invisible zip and a couple of hook & eye clasps down the centre back.

I'm looking forward to giving this piece a work out soon, probably will be wearing it with a bra though, just in case I twist the wrong way and flash some poor unsuspecting citizen.

Wearing with: Country Road jeans, H&M cuff, vintage bracelet and watch, necklace from Vietnam