I want to live here,

A few weeks go my daughter wanted to visit a friend of hers' in London. So I took the opertunity to travel with her and visist a shop I have always wanted to go. S.H said to me it is not very big, you may be disapointed. WOW was he wrong I thought the place is hugh.

And I loved it. The wooden panelling and the carved animals. This place is worth a visit for the architecture alone. I wanted to take so many pictures of the inside but was not sure if I would be allowed to and was not brave enough to ask. I am sure they may not have minded, but I would have felt stupid.

Any way I did what we went there to do, fabric spending frenzy. These are my goodies.

 I see this in a floaty summer number, maybe a 1930's style.

For this I plan a full circle 50's style dress.

My choice for a Downton Abby tea dress. This is actually teal my phone camera makes it look blue.

A sparkly to adorn the above fabric.

I do not know what I am going to do with this, It is just so shiney.

And when I  got home there was more fabric. My order from Fancy Moon had arrived.

These are for more loud shirts, this time instead of an all over pattern they are to be mixed with a plain colour.

My daughter had a fab time with her friend (although she has decided she does not like London) myself and S.H. also had a fab time and ate in a cafe on carnaby street. Which  I must say is not that brill the shops there are the same you can find anywhere apart from a shoe shop that had the most amazing shoes. Yep I did purchase a pair and I will share those at a later date.

Hope you are all having a cool weekend. Sew Vala. x

Loud shirt no 6

Hello friends,

It has taken me some time but I am finally back. I have had some problems logging into blogger, but between myself and the help from my son, we figured it out. Now I will be able to read what everyone has been up to.

So before I travel around blog land I want to share what I have been doing, but only one thing at a time, muti-tasker I am not.

Onto Loud shirt no 6

This is a close up of the fabric I used, it is very 'busy' which i the following pictures makes it hard to see. I t really does looks better in the 'flesh' so to speak.

I used the same pattern as I have previously done for all other Loud shirts.

McCalls 2149

For my next few shirts I have chosen some different patterns in a similar style.

Back to the sci-fi horror B-movie shirt.
Again no changes to the pattern,

I still have not got the understanding of pattern matching, but the front images are level.

As for the back, like the batman shirt I at least was able to centralise the pattern.

And I made my usual mistake when creating buttonholes,

 While feeding the fabric through I accidently touch the buttonhole arm and so it stopped half way. Luckly this is the top buttonhole, so it will not be used. I did not unpick all the stitches because I thought it would leave too many small holes. I guess by now this should be a trade mark because I do it all the time.

S.H has not seen this shirt all all or the finished Batman one. Hopefuuly next week he will be over, see them and like them.

I now off to read what you have all been making. Now I can log in again I can show you what else I have been up to in the next few days, although really I should be doing my tax returns form.

Happy weekend to you all. Sew Vala. xx

Thinking of the next Film and Comic Con...

Tickets have been ordered tonight for our next convention. It takes place early next month.
So that does not leave me with much time prepare outs for myself and S.H.

While there the two main things I want to achieve are getting autographs from a couple of my favorite actors/actresses, from some of my favourite shows.

image source

Ben Bowder as John Circhton in Farscape

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Ben Bowder as Lt. Col Cameron Mitchell in Stargate S.G.1

And

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Jewel Staite as Dr Jennifer Keller in Stargate Atlantis.

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Jewel Staite as Kaylee Frye in Firefly (T.V. series) Serenity (Movie)

So what could I possibly 'whip up' in under 3 weeks for two people?

If I do run out of time I do have a couple of Star Trek uniforms hanging in the wardrobe one female sixties dress and a male T.N.G. top, that have not had an outing yet.

Sew Vala x

Expo May 2012 part three

Hello again dear friends,

Now that you have seen our pictures from expo I would like to share with you some of the wonderful outfits that others were wearing on this very hot day,

 There were cats crawling around the hall.

The lady wearing this beautiful dress asked for my picture, I was asked twice. S.H. did so well walking around in character that he was asked for many photo's in fact some of the facial expressions he did were actually quite scary and lots of 'why so serious?' comments .

A very dashing young gentleman who was quite happy to be asked for his photograph by a stranger.

I will not post all our pictures here but they are on my Sew Vala facebook page if you wish to see them.
And last dress of the day

Isn't she just a sport.

We don't really go to buy things, it's more about getting the chance to dress up for us, unless there is a certain actress / actor autograph there signing.

The one thing that got me most excited on this day was a young lady sitting at a workshop table with a book and sewing patterns in front of her. As the whole event is about sharing and meeting people I could not resist walking up to her to ask to have a look at what she had.
I am really not the sort of person who talks to strangers, but on occasions like this well everyone is there to enjoy the spirit of things.

It's a Japanese sewing pattern book, along the lines of Burda (whith a pull out pattern sheet). It's called Gosu Rori which is a gothic / lolita genre.

I took pictures of the book and did an internet search once home. And now I am eagerly awaiting for my copy in the post.

So that was our day, if you went too I hope you had as much fun as we all did.

If you were to attend a convention, would you dress up ? And who or what would be your character of choice.

Sew Vala x   

Expo May 2012 part two

Hello friends,

I hope you like yesterdays pictures from our day at Expo, today I will share some more.

Firstly here is what my daughter wore

She is a character from an internet comic 'HomeStuck' , I must apologize she did inform me of the name but it escapes me.

 She let me take a few pictures when we got there, then off she went to the HomeStuck meet-up. Apart from coming across them during one of their photo-shoots (she is far right) we didn't see her all day.
Wow was she hot when we met up at the end of the day. A hot day and a black morph suit makes for one very tired and black dye stained very very happy teenager.

As for me

 Any guesses, nope thought not. No-body seemed to know who I was. It seems you cross two genres and people get confused. Here was my inspirational picture

Can you see it yet,

How about this

Still no. Steampunk Princess Leia.

I am sorry to say only two pieces of this outfit we made the rest was bought.

Using this pattern I made the chemise Simpicity 2163

I decided not to add the sleeves, I satin bound the edge instead. And I also did not do the large colar and used lace and beading to add extra detail.

The other make, was the Leia buns, using a hair do-nut sponge and false hair headbands,

 Even S.H. had a go at sewing the plaits onto the sponge.

 And with plenty of bobby pins they actually stayed in place all day, they were not heavy in fact I forgot I was wearing them.

We were expecting a cold may so the coat only got worn for this shot, such a shame it is lovely. But I am sure I will get lots of use of of it. As for the corset that is definitely going to be worn alot. How gorgeous is this,

As promised tomorrow I will let you about our day.
Now there are at least five more conventions we would love to go to this year if the buget allows, so best get started on thinking up new costumes for everyone.

Have a good weekend. Sew Vala x

Expo May 2012 part1.

The Joker and Catwoman. I am very pleased with how his costume turned out.

As we live over a hundred miles apart I do not often get the chance to do fittings. I think the jacket is brill. S.H. wanted his costume to be more like the graphic novel character than the film versions. However I should have made the waist coat longer, hence the yellow t-shirt.

(image from comicsandmediawiki.com)

This was the pattern I used McCalls 6143. We found the trousers in a charity shop and could not believe our luck. I have not tried to make trousers yet and so was a tad nervous on that part. Next we had to try and find some fabric that matched, as you see we again were very lucky and found the perfect match. I made the jacket and dicki which made the whole outfit come together. I was expecting to make the waistcoat and dye a shirt. But overall I think it works.

And lastly,

from a very hot Expo in London, Cheers. Thank you for joining me on my journey. Have a good weekend. Tomorrow I will show you my daughters and my outfits and later tell you more about the day itself.

Sew Vala. x 

 

Tempus Fugit... and Batman.

And it really does.

I had not realized I had been away for so long. Excuses aplenty but I will not bore you with them.

What I will do is share what I have been up to and here is Loud Shirt number 5.

Yeah, this is the loudest one yet.

I have still not mastered the art of pattern matching but I am rather pleased with how the pattern is symmetrical on the front.

 
A slight blurry back view, and again I was able to centre the design so Batman is central.

A close up of Batman.

A close up of the Joker. I had to import this fabric from America, from fabric.com. It seems it is impossible to buy Batman fabric in the UK. This fabric is called The Joker's Back and Joker is S.H.'s favourite character. He has seen this shirt in preparation stages but as not he has not seen the finished item. I hope he likes it.

A short post for now but over the next couple of days I would like to share with you our outfits for the comic con expo this weekend so next week I will be sharing with you our time there.

In the while happy sewing everyone.

Sew Vala. x