Two-piece dress

Private Jets and whatnot

So, someone I know gave me gist of her conversation with a someone she knows, and it went thus:

My someone: I am traveling tomorrow o

Her someone: PJ ?

My someone: *blank confused stare*

Her someone: (ever so casually) Private Jet

My someone: (amused laugh) ah no, commercial

Who’d have thought that private jets would become so mainstream in certain circles, considering the harsh economic realities in Nigeria (ignore the gasp-inducing outlier that is the senators’ salaries)?.

Perhaps, it provides room for the less fortunate to be inspired and to aspire to be whatever it is that affords one the PJ life, but the wide income gap is rather disheartening.

My “must-not -blink” face

Well, I made a lovely new dress and I flew commercial with Burda Air :-D. It was my first time (more…)

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Source: Google images

I follow the Great British Sewing Bee TV series with immense interest. It’s a reality show like American Idol or Project Fame, but for sewers.

Tilly Walnes, from season one, writes a great blog that feels like a warm hug from your BFF as she welcomes you to the pearly gates of heaven *cue soft harp music*.

Chinelo Bally, from season two, learned how to sew using the “organic” freehand cutting technique (more…)

Muslin musings

On a scale of one to ten (one being the best and ten the being worst), seam ripping to correct a wonky stitch or to correct the fitting of a work-in-progress gets an off-the-scale one million rating, as per annoying things that can happen while I’m sewing. I literally gnash my teeth in agony as I unravel stitch by stitch.

Ah! my heart melted with immeasurable joy *insert delicious drips of sarcasm* the day I had to detach an invisible zip, when the zipper slider came off completely TWO minutes after I had attached said zip.

So, in instances when I have to draft a pattern from scratch and I am not entirely sure what the finished work will look like, and I have only a limited amount of the desired fabric or if I am using expensive fabric, I prefer to err on the side of caution by first sewing a muslin (calico test garment) which is also called a toile, to sort of “test drive” the pattern.

Above is the muslin and below is the final reproduction in the fashion fabric. Please excuse the creases, I wasn’t quite done with fittings.

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Knotty girl

Looks like rocket science, no?

There are 23 pattern pieces in this garment jigsaw puzzle which I drafted by myself. The knotted design on the bodice of this two-piece dress was inspired by a Japanese Pattern Magician. I don’t own any of the books, but Carolyn’s version motivated me to figure out the architecture.

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