Monday, May 29, 2017

Why My Mummy's Blouse Cost £999 999 999.99

Who made me upgrade my sewing skill to another level? That person is mi madre. Mi madre likes classical fashion that will never go off season. That will be a front-button blouse with collar~! Dang~! I have no idea how to do that. I have not even learn up to that level because almost every week I went for my lesson, forgetting what I just learnt the previous week. 

I have no choice but to just do it. So, mummy has to be my model. 
I put that price on because it's all my hardwork and my eyes were spinning in circles because of the cloth. I was literally in tears because the eyes hurt so much. I thought I could finish in one day but the hard labour stretched to 5 days long.

Day 1:
Trying to figure out how to draw the design. After it was cut out from the brown paper, 6 hours have flew by. Yeah... 6 hours. I think I was a real slow poke. Then, I spent a couple more hours just cutting the cloth, I was scared of making mistakes. Cloth cutting means there was no point of return. Then, made a few fusible for the collar, collar band and both sides of the button bands. The eyes refused to cooperate already.

Day 2: 
Fixing the yoke to the back portion with pleats and then fixing the yoke to the front. This was where I just saw my mistakes but the blouse was already done now with me improvising. I'm a novice who is always improvising like I'm a professional. I changed almost all paper patterns because mummy wants it this way and that. My teacher always tell me I can do as I wish because I'm the one holding the scissors. So, day 2 was just sewing two pieces here and there together

Day 3: 
I have many hours of free time and I could not even finish anything. It was my first time sewing until all seams were hidden. So, mummy can turn the blouse inside out and not be horrified with my handiwork. I was actually really proud of my sewing skill by now. Most of the straight lines were sewn straight. It's not easy to sew straight. Try drawing a straight line without using a ruler. 

Day 4:
The collar band was finally connected to the collar. This one mi madre helped out. Mi madre has no idea how to sew but mi madre has more common sense. I have no cow sense when it comes to sewing. I could even sew until everything turned out wrong.

Day 5: 
The button holes~! It looked so easy on YouTube until I realized that it wouldn't work. Then, I wise up and searched for my sewing machine model on YouTube to see how the button holes were being sewn. It was a completely different method. I spent so many hours doing the wrong way. This was my first time sewing buttons~! Yeah... yeah.... you will say it's easy but I did it wrong also. I had to remove a few times I thought the buttons would die in my hands. The cloth suffered bruises in many areas.
At last... it was done~! Mummy looks awesome in the blouse. It was cheap cloth but my teacher says that even with cheap cloth we could create something really beautiful and make it expensive. Oh, £999 999 999.99 is too expensive? Nah... it's not for sale. I will not simply make clothes for anyone. It has to remain exclusive.

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Mummy's Double Front Blouse...

This was done real quick. No interfacing or whatsoever. Just cut out two pieces from two different cloth and make two front pieces, no back piece. 
Mummy suppose to flip to the other side halfway through dinner but not that crazy enough to change. If I'm wearing that, I would have changed up then it's like you get to wear two different blouse at one go. 
My mummy is still more chio than yours ☝

Sunday, May 14, 2017

Why My Mummy is More 'Chio' than Yours~!

This is my mummy's Mother's Day OOTD. Don't you think my mummy is chio? While others choose to wear monotone such as the usual black, white and blue, my mummy is wearing a different tone of blue with roses. Fresh roses will not last long, printed roses last longer. If it fades after washing, then throw~! I'll make a new one. 
So what's my mummy wearing? She's wearing a design that just pops out from my head one Tuesday morning. I started drawing on the brown paper, cut them out and then cut the cloth and got confused along the way. I do not have enough cloth for the sleeves. Don't even have enough Italian ice wash cloth for other parts of the body hence the use of the leftover lace from the second piece.
There's not enough lace for two sleeves. In the end I cut one sleeve from each piece and was left with almost nothing. Mummy loves it and my mummy is chio with the back lace and I did the patchwork on the back so as not to waste the leftover. There's no more of such cloth in Kamdar. I happened to step on it while looking for other cloth and persuaded the staff to sell me the half meter cloth. They have no use keeping the half meter in their inventory. It's better to sell to a desperate buyer.

PS. I've finally mastered the art of drawing and fixing sleeves~!

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

My Simple Dress...

It took me only a few hours to have my dress done. All the mistakes were done earlier and I managed a zero-mistake dress for myself. I just hope that I don't forget when to add and when to reduce the measurement. 
Starting on another project soon...

The Story Behind The Four Blouses...

This is the most beautiful piece I've ever done and it looks perfect and it is perfect~! It came with a heavy price money can't buy. Before I started making this, I destroyed a piece of gold Shanghai brocade and killed my own maroon velvet. My drawing on the brown paper was imperfect and my calculation went awry. It has all to do with Maths and accuracy.
This was perfected with the help of mi madre. Many parts of the stitches were removed and re-sewn. It was tedious but worth all the hard work. I felt that I've achieved something and I learned better through mistakes. It was a rushed piece. Something in me just wouldn't change, I just can't bring myself to start anything early. We had a wedding dinner to attend and I have all the time in the world but I just had to start a project at the eleventh hour. The cloth was a perfect Italian print. 
I became really bold after making that red piece. I started on another project immediately. The orange chiffon was harder to handle compared to making a chiffon cake. I needed roughly an hour just to straighten the cloth. It was so soft but once the tedious part of consoling the cloth to stay quiet was over and combining the front and back pieces together completed, it was really nice to wear. I roughly figured out how much centimetres to add so that a hidden zipper would not be needed. I have mastered the sewing of hidden zippers but I just preferred blouses without any zippers. 
Before these two pieces, I made this satin red with white lace. Mummy likes lace. I have totally no idea how to make this but well... it's not a perfect piece coz I don't even like it. I just like the red but the lace was too compact that it stifled the red underneath. 
The first piece for mummy was for Chinese New Year. It was Korean satin and it was kinda scary making for someone else to wear. I have not even perfected my sewing skills. Well, I have to start somewhere right. My mummy is now my guinea pig model...