And finally some Retail therapy!

This may sound borderline crazy to some but my retail therapy is quite different from an average person.I am absolutely crazy about finding gadgets to help me in my work. I get a thrill from each new gadget that I discover. I have wrist magnets,antenna magnets (picks up pins from floor) ,lipstick chalks and the most amazing sewing bag! My gadgets are my pearls and diamonds :) !

I could go on and on about them but these are a few favourites for the time being

A dream come true bag that keep everything organised when I work in the shops

My faithful hedgehogs : my wrist magnets!

This makes hem marking and leveling a doddle !

Lets celebrate :) !

I just feel compelled to write about this on my blog  :I cannot understand why women old and young are so hard on themselves about their bodies.. Ladies please give yourself a break  :) .Our bodies go through a lot in our lifetime..so lets celebrate it rather than complain about it. As long as we are alive healthy and kicking nothing is worth fretting over .

I do blame certain magazines and media which projects this image of the perfect woman..which makes most of us feel rather inadequate about ourselves. I keep on telling all my clients that these pictures have been photo-shopped and air-brushed to the last bits of their existence... absolutely no scars and blemishes allowed ......and why cant we all have a few wrinkles?!! ...

Lets promise ourselves today that we will start to enjoy being in our body from today; embrace our curves and bulges ! there is plenty in life that will test us so lets chill and be happy within ourselves for who we are :) ..

Polka Pox!!

Here we go ! My polka dotted fever has finally erupted into my Polka Pox Dress!:) (I may have gone a bit mad in the last 24 hours )

Its taken two full days and its nearly all finished . Its a double full circle skirt front and back with the hem lovingly done with a corded bias tape piping all done from scratch! o and all of it hand hemmed too ! My humble homage to Polka dots ! Enjoy ! :) 

Here is the skirt waist being gathered with a double row of stitching

The skirt all put together

The hem done with a corded piping all along after leveling the skirt when the dress was nearly all done.

The finished dress for a lovely client :)

Lady Anna Marie Brocklebank enjoying her new dress :) !

The Queen of Bustles!

Its finally arrived in full swing !! this year a little late (in my opinion) but the wedding season is finally here ! woo hoo!.. I have almost been working non stop on wedding dresses, mother of brides, mother of grooms and bridesmaid outfits, oh and a few flower girls too!.(definitely not complaining!..thrilled to be busy!)

I recently did a few new bridal dress styles this season, that I discovered how to bustle and I have been named as the "Queen of Bustles" ( by a dear work colleague)  as I always find a way to do even the most challenging ones :) (I am told) .( I hope I don't sound too full of myself! Its a lovely warm feeling to be appreciated ;) )

Here are a few examples of single bustles ,double bustles, inner and outer separate bustles and hem bustles to dresses done this season! enjoy :) !.....(but I think I will soon be back with my bespoke POLKA POX PROJECT!)

Polka dotted fever!

I nearly did an emergency stop a few days ago, when I saw someone wearing a polka dotted dress waiting to cross the road ! I really wanted to make a dress with polka dots. A big one with a full circle skirt that would pay a homage to the polka dots!

 I went to the fabric shop straight away (after the near episode on the road) and bought a fabric with bold polka dots, keeping my fingers crossed that the client I had in mind would fall in love with the delightful polka dots just like me.

Well ! The gamble has paid off! and I may be soon working on a Polka dotted dress! Its a dress you have seen in my bespoke portfolio many a time as its my client's favourite pattern.... but this time its going to have a slight twist to how I usually finish the hem.. I am not saying a word.......

All I have to do now is to find time in my diary.......Impossible is nearly nothing ...eh..??!!

What a feeling!

I absolutely love love love doing bespoke projects. The best outcome for all the hard work and late nights is the response of my clients. Its really gives me a buzz! I recently started asking the clients for pictures of them on the occasion they wore the dress to . Its really brought me great joy to see how happy they all look and I will be updating this on my Facebook page for sure when I get the pictures . Here are the ones I have collected so far.

The red dress with the stole worn by Lady Anna Marie Brocklebank 

The floral summer dress worn by Lady Anna Marie Brocklebank

The wedding dress worn by Elsa on her wedding day

 little Leah's flower girl's dress

Angel's short lilac dress with swarovski crystals as worn on the wedding 

Its Lady Anna Marie Brocklebank again in one of my creations :) !

Anna wearing another one of my creations!

Where do I begin ....The Reversible Dress

The Reversible dress took quite a while as I had  to rethink quite a few aspects of the pattern to make it work. Not only did  I have to match all the checks (which used up a lot of my brain's grey matter) as much as I possibly could, in the plaid material I had to make the collar reversible as well...I did meet with quite a few challenges on the way .

I won't go on an on about it but here are the three things I had to work on the most:

• I  had to add a hidden hook and bar to adapt the collar into being reversible.(bar sandwiched in the collar tip and hook sewn under the top button) 
• The sleeve was a set in sleeve. It was hard  to make the patterns meet at the shoulders keeping true to the ease given to curve in  the sleeve head.
• The hem was mostly in bias so bagging it out take hours. First you have to let the hem drop atleast overnight in order to level the hem , then cutting  it all around to the new level and stitching it together.

The dress was nearly finished at this stage needed the hem bagged out and just a button left to sew on each side 

The end result is a dress (with a reversible zip ) that the client wanted to wear to a party or a funeral ....or from a funeral to a party ;)..(please excuse the pun)!

Doing alterations with a choice of price...not quality

 If something needs to be altered it needs to be done properly. There are more than one way this can be achieved. Regardless of the amount a client has spent on an outfit, one has to follow proper procedures to alter it.

I come across so many outfits that have been unsympathetically altered before. I am sure that given a choice, one would rather have it done a sympathetic way rather than the most cheap and cheerful way. One can still do a cheaper job, with care to the actual outfit. It does not mean that doing things cheaper will make it a bad quality of finish.

Added centre back seam: this was a budget alteration

When I fit clients I give them more than one option for certain alterations: for example of a dress in need of grading down a size, you can take  in the dress by introducing a centre back seam rather than taking it in on both the side seams and shoulder. Its a cheaper option and It does change the fit of the outfit to a degree when we take a compromise like this, but its the clients choice and the overall effect is not too far of. It has actually made clients save things that they loved and thought not worth it, to have altered.

took in on side seams,shoulder and sleeves.

 The quality is something that should never be compromised on.Simpler alterations can be done without making a mess of the overall finish quality of the outfit.

The zip was redone and an amount was taken in all along the centre back for a better fit. 

The Project ..so Far

A work in progress

 It took a whole day but I managed to cut both sides of the dress. I had to add a cut-line at the centre front and centre back as the fabric was not wide enough to have a double circle skirt . Each plaid piece was cut once on fabric each time in order to have a complete mirror image on the other side. I also had to match the sleeve heads as best as I could so that the plaid went uninterrupted .All four seams are matched according to the pattern of the fabric in the skirt.

Added a seam in the plaid material in accordance with the print

Now I am working on the bodice panels. They need to be mounted on self fabric or fused or both otherwise the weight of the skirt will pull the seam apart . As each dress is like a first sample  it takes longer as one discovers how the fabric behaves as the project unfolds. This is a plaid taffeta pure silk dress with the reverse in pure black silk dupion.

It will take a few days to get to a stage where it will start to come together..

A New Project ! Yippeee

Finally! after all the crazy big alterations this week, that seemed never ending, I have decided to work on a new project.( I need my sanity after all the unpicking !:) and restitching madness.. ;)

I have never use ready-made patterns . I always make my own patterns. Each pattern is like a new baby. I never quite know what I would achieve with the toile or with a flat master pattern which I would alter after draping.(I also copy exisiting dresses by taking out the pattern, there are quite a few ways to achieve this.This project is a pattern taken out from an existing dress)

The  project is a dress and I will put up pictures to show how hard making a dress really is. Its not a very difficult pattern but it needs a lot of TLC at certain stages. With the pret a porter market growing and everything becoming less expensive, I fear that people do not really appreciate how hard it is to make a dress to a high quality of finish.

For now there are a few sneak peeks of the project ...

 O and just to keep you wondering its a reversible dress with a collar and cuffs and a double full circle skirt front and back!!