Sewing Updates: Seeing Blue

Hello fashionistas,

I trust you all are superb.

I have been busy doing the usual...

My friend was getting married and requested I make her Bridesmaids dresses as her wedding present. It was a bit of a short notice so I got to work immediately and took a trip to purchase the fabric.

She wanted royal blue and after trekking for hours I finally found a suitable fabric that was just barely enough for the number of girls.

And two days later, I was done with the dresses.

Here are a few pictures

And a close up of the rhinestone belt detail 

The bride was happy, the bridesmaids were happy and so I was happy too. Lol

I did manage to make an outfit for myself to wear at the ceremony as well. And surprisingly not at the last minute X_X

Here's a picture

And a fun shot with DH

Oh yeah, my hair was styled by my lovely sister...she has inspired me to 'want' to style my natural hair more. I tend to do just two things with my hair; The Bun and The Puff.

Until next time, God bless you.

Love,

Preye.

Sewing Updates...Lots of Sewing Updates

Before I started blogging I was (and still am) an ardent "blog reader", and I remember visiting my favorite blogs and the disappointment I'd feel when there were no new updates. I'd be like; One month and no post? (with one eyebrow raised)  ONE MONTH???

The height of irresponsibility (Nose turned up), don't they know they have faithful readers eagerly waiting to read their posts? What could keep them so busy that they'll do the unthinkable? And I'd continue in my vexing until a new post goes up, then and only then would I forgive them. Lols.

Well today I am in those same shoes, and I have learnt the reason why blogs sometimes go "un-updated" for weeks on end.

Life!

Yes life, you sometimes get so caught up in the activities of your day to day life (I know I did/do) that blogging takes the back burner.

So to my hundreds of readers ( Only about five readers actually contacted me but I am prophesying hundreds and indeed thousands of readers "unto" this blog)...where was I?/ Ah yes, to my hundreds of readers who have missed my posts, I say a big, "I am Sorry" I shall try to do better going forward.

And to show how sorry I am, I'll be posting lots and lots of pictures today and less of words (Lol, the ones above don't count)

And in addition to that, the first person to comment on this post gets a FREE LACE PEPLUM TOP. Yippee. This is technically my first give away so I guess I should put a disclaimer and more deets.

• The top will be made to fit
• Winner will make arrangements for pick-up
• What else? Yeah my favorite, "Terms and Conditions Apply" (Just don't ask me what the terms and conditions are. Lol)

Without further ado, here are the pictures of about a quarter of the clothes I have made since my last post.

Apologies for the quality of some of the pictures...they are a "mismash" of pictures from my phone, Ipod Touch and Camera, some taken in the dead of night! 

Lace top: I made this to attend a wedding...one of those 20minutes rushed sewing that end up turning out great.

Tunic: made this for date night cos I felt like wearing a new dress.

Close up. 

Bridesmaids outfits. Also made my own dress the morning of the wedding...as usual (becoming a bad habit I say!) 

The Maid of Honor dress: This is a two piece dress as the flared part is detachable and can be used as a maxi skirt while the main dress can be worn as a simple straight "less weddingy" dress 

BM 1

BM 2

BM 3

And BM 4

This dress was inspired by the half yard of stripe fabric I had left over from making a jumper for DH. And was made on a Sunday morning before church (I know...chronic). Here's a close up pic taken before service. 

Bright sunlight.

Next up velvet dresses. My sister and her friend wanted to "wow" at the wedding they were attending. And I was given the near impossible task of creating these extra long dresses out of one and a half yards of fabrics each. Whew! Many a sleepless night later, I was able to meet their expectations (I actually cried at one point during the construction of this dress...velvet is a pain to make)

Back view

Full view

Tunic: This was a RTW order so I made several pieces and colors. P.s the back is green like the sash

And the babies weren't left out

Jumpsuit 

Skirt...with a matching top which I didn't get to photograph clearly

But here goes all the same

Tunic...ignore my tired face...I woke up early to make the dress in time for service

Dress with button details

Fooling around with instacollage

Lace top (And yes, the lace top to be given away will be similar to this)

Lace peplum top

Another lace peplum

Beaded jacket

Ankara and lace combo top

Close up of details

Exposed zipper 

Another exposed zipper dress 

Pencil skirt 

Pleated peplum dress with a belt

And finally, random RTW dresses made for a client.

I have a lot more pictures to post but I am already beginning to doubt if MTN will  even "agree" to upload these many pictures

Let me leave you with one final shot of my journey through "Internet Modems"

I searched all over...from MTN to Starcomms to Etisalat, even Airtel (not pictured) and finally realized that they are all the same! So I am back to MTN (far left) at least they give free data. Lol.

Until next time, remain blessed.

Love, Preye

Sewing Update: Checkered

Happy New Year!

And welcome to 2014...Our year of unusual strength.

I am not much into resolutions but as far as targets go, I have loads of them and I'll get into them in a bit.

But before that; a proper wrap up of 2013. I have quite a line up of projects I haven't posted from last year so I'll get right into them.

First off, The checkered dress!

I made this dress the week of Christmas..the Saturday before Christmas I think. I actually started out the day with a project for myself but the client (who was very persistent) wanted her dress and wanted it NOW. Since she was a first time customer I decided to oblige and leave the twenty-something other pending projects originally scheduled before hers. 

She is pretty conservative so the target for this project was to create a style out of the two fabrics she provided that would still stay true to her tastes. We had the basics down as she wanted pleats...so I decided to play around a bit and eventually ended up with the checkered details...and I knew I had struck gold :D

I started out with the belt detail then had a little glitch with the original sleeve I inserted which resulted in my having to redo the sleeves. So I figured the patchwork could make it to the sleeves as well. At the last minute, I decided on the Tulip variation for some added pizzazz.

I also piped the bottom of the dress with the black fabric...all in the little details people.

Here is a close up of the belt.

This project took a lot longer than expected but turned out great. And save a slight issue with depth of the back neckline; the client loved the dress.

Sadly, my dress which I had planned on making that faithful Saturday lies there unfinished and awaiting the day I'll have a break from sewing for others :D

Until next time, God bless you.

Love, Preye.

Sewing Updates

Hi Everyone,

Its been a bit...and I am glad to say I have been able to catch up on my much needed rest...though I was somewhat forced into it (I was ill).

Despite my "rest" period, I have been able to get in a bit of work (sewing) and play (cooking).

Oh yeah, the wedding has come and gone, and the bride looked lovely. I was/am so proud of myself. I am waiting for the pictures from the bride to do a full post as I was unable to attend. But here are some table-top pictures of the dresses I made for the wedding party (A dressform is on my wishlist if you're wondering what to get me for Christmas :P).

First, the Maid of Honor's dress...AKA Chief Bridesmaid

Its a long flowing gown with a band detail.

This was one of the fastest dresses I have made. I used a metallic fabric for the underlining and lined with a single face raw silk in a matching color.

For the skirt part, I skipped the lining and used just the underlay to reduce bulk so I had to finish the joining at the waist with a bias tape cut out from the Raw Silk

Construction Picture

 For the band I used the raw silk and interfaced with a stiff interfacing for structure. I also used my usual metallic zip.

And my usual metallic Zipper

I love this color and will def be making something for myself with this fabric

Next up, the bridesmaid dresses.

The dress isn't sized to the model in the picture so it doesn't show the true fit.

Peplum detail with a button. 

I made four of these dresses and it was a learning process for me. The lace was a stretchy lace and just when I'd think I'd got everything figured out the fabric would head out to a different direction.

In the end, the all turned out well and I conquered my fear of stretch lace!

For the zipper I skipped my usual metallic zip and opted for plastic zippers as this lace was quite soft and I didn't want it to catch in the zipper.

All in all the dresses were successful and lovely on the ladies and I have one more feather to add to my hat :D

Until next time, God bless you and complements of the season.

P.S I typed up this post a couple of weeks back and forgot to post it...Merry Christmas.

Love, Preye.