A mimimalist rule to live by

“If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” - William Morris

If you've been to my house...don't laugh.

Fabric Roses

I did it!  I got married!  While I didn't accomplish all 1293847520983745 crafty projects I had set for myself, I did accomplish enough.  It was more sewing and making than I had done in a very long time and I'm SO glad I set aside enough time to work on things.  That said I will admit to sewing the lining in the dress I chose to wear in the last few minutes before we left the house to head up to the wedding site.

I don't have a lot of pictures yet, and I don't want to share *too* much of them online, but I will show you some of the things I made and of course the dress(es).

Here is my bouquet - I am 100% thrilled with the way this came out (picture by Isaac Wasuck):

I used a Clover Rose Maker in Large (using the "advanced" method where you turn it inside out to hide the seam)  and after testing out a ton of different fabrics (using mainly thrifted castaways) I settled on using fat quarters from Jo-Anns.  I thought they gave the best "rose like" appearance and the ease of picking colors was an added bonus. 

For the stems I bought a bunch of fake roses and gardenias and disassembled them, removing all the petals and plastic pollen pieces but leaving the green plastic "base" where the flower attaches to the stem.  This left me with a nice base to glue the roses onto.  I used Beacon Fabri-tac for the glue - this stuff is INCREDIBLE and I swear by it for anything you might normally use a glue gun for, plus anything not worth spending the time to hand sew.  It's a costumers best friend.

SCORE!!!!!

I stopped in at my new favorite thrift shop on my way home from work today and found what for me is the holy grail of vintage patterns.

A complete copy, with instructions, of Vogue 1610 :

I paid $.50 for it, but I did find a copy for sale on etsy (for $70!!), and eBay (bidding starts at $10).

Wedding dress in red: Vogue 1162

THE SLEEVES!

Let's have a closer look at those:

This is Vogue 1162 by Sassoon of all people!  I will be changing up the skirt to something fuller/A-line, and probably adding a waistband as well.  I have no idea what fabric I'll use for this, but the sleeves will be organza.

Wedding dress in blue: Vogue 1030

Cobalt blue was all over the Fall 2011 runways so this will be my "trendy" dress.

 

 This is Vogue 1030 by Badgley Mischka.  At this point I'm thinking a rayon blend matte jersey with georgette or chiffon or maybe go dramatic with organza for the ruffles and overlay.

Wedding dress reconstruction: McCall's 5382

My mom has given me her blessing to completely repurpose her wedding dress and after looking at 100's of dress patterns, this is the one I'm going with. 

It's McCall's 5382 and there isn't a single thing I plan to change. 

So yes the blog has been silent and that's mainly because I've been so busy with work I haven't had time to do much creating.  That ultimately takes its toll because working with my hands is really important to keeping my stress in check.

Out of necessity I went looking for a crafty project that I can do in about 30 minutes:

 

It's called nail stamping and it's by a Korean company called Konad.   I love it!  

Also in the picture are scratches from my new kittens (!!!) and my engagement ring. 

My next big sewing project is making my wedding dresses.  I'm going to do an off-white reconstruction job from my mom's dress, plus blue and red dresses just because I can. I'll have to document things in the abstract so as not to ruin any surprises but I'm sure many lessons will be learned and shared.