tutorial: victorian belt pouch

hello everybody, I am making sort of a tutorial again, this time for a victorian inspired belt pouch, which are currently trendy too, but mine will be less trendy but more costumey ^^

So I used three fabrics for the pouch:

1. A base fabric, in my case fake leather, but any stiff fabric will work

2. An outer fabric I used a very thin snake print fabric

3.  A lining fabric

And you´ll also need a sewing maschine and basic sewing supplies like sicssors, neddle, thread... binder clips are very helpful too and you can also decorate the puch with different materials. I used a fancy button, a fabric tube and some studs, which had some quality issues, so they are  not symetrical in my bag, which sucked. ( I fixed it by sewing decorations over the holes, which were left by the studs.

So first for the pattern:

I made a rectangle with the meaurements W:14 cm and L: 16 cm.

The I marked the middle and made a poiny top. with my french curve I made it a bit rounded and added seam allowances

 

After the pattern-making I could start cutting everything out, additionally I cut two small strips, so I can wear it on a belt

The same pieces with the outer and lining fabric, but for the strips I doubled the width.

And I also made a flap by using the same pattern but I made it shorter.

After that I made a tiny bag in the lining, so I can store smaller things. for decoarations I also made a small tube with black polyester fabric.



Then I could start putting all of the pieces together. frist I basted the main Body of te purse together by hand and hemmed the front piece.

And I also hemmed the flap and basted it before.

 I also finished the straps by covering it completely with the brown leather, folding them in half and sewing them closed with a straight stitch



Then I sewed the flap to the back pieces, hemmed the edges of the flap and the body of the bag together and yes I now the stitching isn´t straight...



i finished the bag by sewing the two main pieces together. I did that inside out with  2cm seam allowances, which got trimmed to ca. 1cm and weren´t  finsihed at all.

With that done I could turn the bag inside out, this was a tough work, because my bag was so stiff. but I am happy with the end result.



The two straps get sewn to the back of the purse by hand, you coud use heavy duty thread, I did not.

For fastening the bag I used a silver button, which gets punched into the fabric adn the smaller peice of the black tube, which I sewed onto the flap in a small loop.

I also did some "embroidery" by sewing the longer tube on the bag by hand.



Lastly I added the suds, which was a mistake, because as mentioned above, they fall off and are in the fabric unevenly, but I will  try to fix it by pulling the studs out of the fabric and making more of the tube and sew it on the flap.

Anyway, thanks for reading and have a good day :)

looking back at 2017 + plans for 2018

hello everybody

I thought to start the new year with a lookback at 2017 and my plans for 2018 are a good idea. So I start with some photos of the things I made in 2017. ( This isn´t by far everything I made, just the "Highlights" you can soon see everything in my portfolio)

Casual wear:

 

 

The first thing I have sewn in 2017 and also the first garment I have ever sewn was this coral chiffon top ( you probably can´t see it on the picture, but i was really badly constructed, but I want it here so you and me can see how I developed)

 



 

This was the first skirt made ( there are approx. half a year of practice in between the top above and teh skirt)

 

This was the second bag I made last year, which looks fine, however I didn´t like it that much, so I gave it to my mother

  Another skirt I made, which I am pretty proud of and love to wear:

 

I made two denim corset belts this year, so I could get familiar with boning and stuff. the light grey one is for me, the darker one for my mother as a birthday present

 

 

Another aim for 2017 was to learn a bit embroidery, first i did pimp an old blouse with some fancy dolphins.

 

 

The second embroidery project was this scarf that features a beautiful red chiffon and embroiderd flowers in  a peachy colour.

 

 

As mentioned before, I made more things this year as shown above, including lots of jewelry, but I show you the best things I made:

 

 

 

Costumes

I began this year, with something I wanted to do for a long time: fairy wings and a matching headpiece. The fabric was completly handstitched to the wire frame of the wings and it can be worn with straps or  the wire loop.

 

 

 

I also managed to make some costumes/vintage stuff. First a 50ies inspired Petticoat, which  I am not in love with, it is a bit to messy for me, the next one I´ll make will be more structured.

 



 

The next thing was an edwardian chemise, which will eventually be worn under a edwardian gown, but I am going to talk more about that in my plans for 2018.

 

 

I also made my very first hat, to be a bit more precise a pillbox (brimless) hat, also inpired by the 50ies.

 



 

Last but not least I made my very first complete fantasy costume, the christmas costume:

 

 

 

After all I was pretty productive this year, but I want to make more next year, especially complete costumes, not just different pieces. That leads me to my plans for 2018.

 

 

 

Plans for 2018

This year I want to make 7 complete costumes, one of it just if I have enough time. Some of them should be rather simple and done in a month or so, some more complicated, because I need many pieces. I also want to make some casual or vintage inspired things.

 

Lets start with those.

 

I don´t have a picture, but I am currently working on a Rockabilly pencil skirt and I already made a purse, but there´ll be  blog posts about both of them.

 

So one thing I will make in spring is a green linen blouse, the pieces were cut in school, so I just have to put it together.

This is the fabric for that, in reality it is more green, not grey

 

 

Another thing I´ll make is the silk dressing robe, which I already talked about in my fabric haul

 

 

And also the golden/ivory clutch I talked about

 

 

I also bought a dotted fabric for a dress, which I´ll probably sewing in autumn.

 

 

And I also want learn silk painting, for what i have bought this book on a flea market. I thing I´ll try a scarf first and  there are some beautiful ideas in there.

 

 

And there are some other things I want to make, where I don´t have material or photos of.

for exmaple differnt kinds of jewelry, a bohemian belt, a blazer or jacket, a jumpsuit, 2 blouses....

 

 

Now to the costumes, the most exciting part ( at least for me):

 

 

The first costume I want to make this year is a dress that complements the fairy wings. I want to start that one in February so I can hopefully make some lovley spring photos. You have seen the wings and headdress above so here are two of the fabrics I´ll use.

 

 

 The purple one was a curtain, but I just loved the subtle sprakling texture and the stripes.

For this dress I also need to buy some ivory satin and light pink chiffon. I´ll also make some more accesoires: a necklace, a bracelet and some jewelry for my feet.

 

 

 

For spring I want to make something set in 50s. I came up with this idea, because I got a sewing maschine from te 50s for Christmas and really liked the idea to sew something from this decade on it.

So I bought this soft yellow cotton and matching flower buttons.

This will be for some high waisted trousers.

 

 

To go with that I´ll also make blouse, but I haven´t deciced on one yet. Here are some that I like. comment down below, which one you like best

 

 

 

The next costume is probably the one I am most excitied about. It´ll be an late edwardian evening gown. based on a dress I saw in a museum in Barcelona.

 

 

I already made the chemise, but I also have to make a Petticoat and corset, which will be an adventure, but I am making the corset with this great tutorial

 

 

For my next costume I´ll be diving into the 40s. I bought a lovely pattern for vintage aprons, when I was in England and I also bought a striped cotton for the apron (D)

 

 

But of course I am also making a dress to go with it , maybe in blue or white or grey, I don´t know yet

 

 

Probably in autumn I will be making a costume from the medival time a bliaut to be more precise.

In the book "chronicle of western costume" was this drawing:

 

 

This will be the base for it, but I´ll change it a bit, make it more flattering by adding a belt.

In every case I want to make this golden circlet and I already have chain fo that. The main fabric for this dress might be purple linen.

 

 

The next costume will be reality just if I have enough time and it would be a cosplay.

I really like the fashion of the 18th century so I decided a remake of the dress Eliza Hamilton wore in my favorite musical "Hamilton", Since I probably don´t have too much time, I won´t make any fancy underpinnings, just a bumpad and a heavily boned dress.

 

 

And the last Costume I´´ve planned is another christmas costume, maybe something cute and less glamourous, a Christmas elf for example ^^

 

 

 

 

 

 

So this was a pretty long post, but well I have a lot ideas.

I hope you enjoyed it, is there something you ar eypecially excicded about?

 

 

 

Sewing a floral sweetheart dress - Part 2

hello everybody,

so this is the second part of making the sweetheart dress. and I´ll talking about making the skirt and finishing the dress.

First, like always, I needed to calculate the pieces of fabric.

Since the bodice as two seams down the center I wanted them go over into the skirt ( if you would cut the whole skirt out of one piece of fabric, this isn´t necessary, but since I had a pattern with a direction, I needed to look at the seams)

So I measured at my bodice from seam to seam, then I had 4 numbers and mulitplied each by 2,5

These are the widths of each piece, the length was in my case 60 cm, but I shortened it later on

 

 

Here are all the 4 pieces:

 

 

Then I finished all the raw edges vertically with a zic-zac stitch, since I don´t have a serger, you could also do this later, but I like to finsh the edges first.

 

 

 In the next step I connected all the pieces together so I had this long strip of fabric with 3 seams.
altogether I had two thin pieces, one wider front piece and one, which was rather long for the back ( the zipper will be on  the side)

 

Then it was time ruffling the top ofthe skirt, this is a process I enyod normally, but since this fabric is so stiff I couldn´t gather it with normal thread, so I had to redo the complete stiching and I also had to go with larger ruffles, which were more or less cartridge pleats.

In the end I used heavy duty thread and stitches that were 1 cm apart from each other.

 

 

Then I gathered it down, by making a knot on one side of the thread, and pulling on the side, till it fitted to the bodice.

 

 I evenly distributed the pleats so that each seam of the bodice goes over into the seam of the skirt, I took a lot of time for is, because I am a perfectionist

 

Sewing the pleats was a tough task for me and my maschine, because like I said before, the fabric is really thick.

 

I finished the wiastline as usual with some bias tape, which I made out of the lining fabric. First I cut three strips, so that they match my waist circumference.

 

 The strips get sewn toegther so I have one long strip, with my bias tape maker i ironed the strips

 The last step was to sew in the zipper, I would have used an invisible one, but my local fabric store didn´t had one.

 

  I hate sewing in the zipper and I am pretty miserable at it too, but with my new sewing maschine the task was bit easier, so it isn´t as bad as some others I made.

with the Zipper done, all that  is left to do is hemming the skirt, but I was a bit in a rush so I didn´t  photograph it.

And here are two photos of me wearing the finished dress

 

 

thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it :)