Category: Outfit

Froggy Hat

Frogs perching on lily pads make the best head gear.

I’ve been subscribed to Dot Pebbles a.k.a. Claire Garland’s newsletter for a few years now, and every so often I get a free pattern for a knit animal. These knits are always very life-like and look insanely complicated. I made the polar bear before and while it all worked out, I wasn’t sure it would while knitting it. So I’ve been eyeing the Frog pattern that’s been making the rounds on the internet recently. I thought I had received it a while ago in my free patterns too. Turns out that I indeed had and I really wanted to have a frog…

Since I really wasn’t sure if it was going to work, I tried to get similar yarns to the ones Claire Garland suggests. I got some drops kid-silk in my mailbox and dyed some fingering weight yarn in ‘toad-green’. The body and legs of the frog were going to be toad-green with apple-green kid-silk. It’s belly was undyed yarn with moonshine kid-silk.

Knitting the body is really fast. I only deviated from the pattern once, by skipping the mouth stitches. I couldn’t get them to work and it just looked awful. Once the body was done, I knit the legs and arms on. At that point, I decided that I need him to be posable so I found some armature wire in my stash and added that. When I make the frog again, I’m going to try to use the wire while knitting, instead of when it’s all done. That way, I can probably hide the ends without having to use so many bits of yarn. With the wire in, froggy can do push ups or sit awkwardly instead of just flop down.

So I had a completed frog when my mother sent an invite for her birthday party. The assignment was to wear ‘your best head gear’. I knew I wanted to wear my green Rita-cousin dress, so I wanted to make some sort of hat that would work with that. I also had this frog. 1+1 = 2 and I decided to make a lily-pad fascinator with the frog pinned to the top. The lily pad pattern was based on the left leaf from an image on the internet. I cut it out from the same green fabric as the dress, stretched over some foam. I then added some hair clips to the bottom. The frog was maneuvered into a normal sitting frog and safety-pinned onto the lily pad.

I love this thing. It’s adorable, it doesn’t hurt while wearing it, it’s got a frog, what’s not to like!

MMM 23

All the stuff I wore in a month

So, June has arrived and I’ve worn most of my self-made clothes. There was no aversion to anything, so I guess I’ve gotten better at editing. I tried to take a picture daily, but that didn’t always work out. In the end, I entirely forgot the last day, but I don’t think it matters too much.

May 1
May 2
May 3
May 4
May 5
May 6
May 7
May 8
May 9
May 10
May 11
May 12
May 13
May 14
May 15
May 16
May 17
May 18
May 19
May 20
May 21
May 22
May 23
May 24
May 25
May 26
May 27
May 28
May 29
May 30

The main discovery is that I have so many clothes that I can wear a different outfit just about every day for a month and still have some left over at the end. There were some pants, some pantsuits and some sweaters that remained unworn. Also a fair amount of the historical stuff, although I did wear the giant purple skirt for a home-day. The one thing that I don’t seem to have as many of anymore are t-shirts. In non-May months, I wear a lot of shop-bought simple black t-shirts which suits me just fine.

My main conclusion is that I enjoy this, mainly to get some wear out of all the clothes I own. I don’t think I’ll be repeating May 8, although my entire office floor seemed to love it, it doesn’t feel like me. I’m keeping it for a little longer to see if their opinions will sway me eventually. For now, I’m happy to be back to wearing all of my clothes but now having to suffer through way too high temperatures. I’m not built for 30 degrees. Wish me luck surviving June….

MMM 22 – Week 3&4

Still steadily working my way through trying to wear all my clothes. It’s going well, some of the combinations may be more .. atypical than others, but honestly, my sense of fashion is terrible as is anyway.

May 16
May 17
May 18
May 19
May 20
May 21
May 22
May 23
May 24
May 25
May 26
May 27
May 28
May 29
May 30
May 31 – didn’t feel like ironing.. oops.

Summary:

23 sweaters: harry potter, green, blue snow, plaid DNA, white, black and grey, black ears, black tweed, blue, pizza, black bolero, white bolero, brown tweed, eighties, flamingo, partial flamingo, greys, grey leather, racoon, yellow, cut-out, mushroom, red.
13 tops: letters, dinosaur beach, bicycles, embroidery dino, grey dragons, blue plaid, red stripes, white and blue dots, owls, net back, spider, colour stripes, blue stripes.
11 dresses: floral, red & leather, touch of plaid, white & blue, brown with cats, ivy wrap, keyhole, back cut-out, Mondriaan, rainbow zip, blues.
10 pants: green plaid, pinstripe, jogging pinstripe, red plaid, tweed, grey plaid, jeans, blues, mushrooms, grey.
7 skirts: petticoat, short walking skirt, red plaid, Christmas, bicycle, ducks, party blue.
5 scarves: feather plaid, green and stripes, birds in blue, lace knit, red and sunflower.
4 bras: red, grey, lemon, blue lace.
3 skorts: narrow black, regular black, blue and yellow.
3 pantsuits: plaid, flower stripes, black and white.
1 coats: yellow.
1 jacket: plaid.
1 shorts: striped.

I also donated some of my old clothes because I just wasn’t willing to wear them anymore.

From left to right: too brown, too big, not comfortable, too small, not comfortable and bad finish, I don’t feel comfortable when I wear it and not practical, .. has frogs.

All in all, it was a pretty decent month. I didn’t manage to wear many shorts because the weather just didn’t cooperate that way. I do own a lot of sweaters, but I also wear them because I’m always cold. I do need some more sweaters that open in the front to wear over other things. As this gap was previously identified, I have been knitting one since February that I finished this weekend. I do think it’s good practice to try to wear the items I don’t normally gravitate towards all that much. So I’ll probably continue to participate in MMM in the future too.

MMM 22 – Week 1&2

First few weeks of May have ended and I’ve so far managed to hold on to the pledge fairly well.

May 1
May 2
May 3
May 4
May 5
May 6
May 7
May 8
May 9
May 10
May 11
May 12
May 13
May 14
May 15

Summary:

8 sweaters: harry potter, green, blue snow, plaid DNA, white, black and grey, black ears, black tweed
8 dresses: floral, red & leather, touch of plaid, white & blue, brown with cats, ivy wrap, keyhole, back cut-out
6 tops: letters, dinosaur beach, bicycles, embroidery dino, grey dragons, blue plaid
4 bras: red, grey, lemon, blue lace
3 skorts: narrow black, regular black, blue and yellow
3 scarves: feather plaid, green and stripes, birds in blue
3 pants: green plaid, pinstripe, jogging pinstripe
3 skirts: petticoat, short walking skirt, red plaid
1 pantsuits: plaid
1 coats: yellow
1 jacket: plaid
1 shorts: striped

I lost some 30-35 cm of hair on May 3rd, which has been sent off to be turned into wigs. It’s a big change but it feels very good.

Norah Waugh’s 1901 Corset

The first steps towards a 1902 Wedding Dress in the collection of the V&A. The Corsets and Crinolines 1901 corset pattern.

Sometimes I find an image and just think: I want to have it. That was the case with a 1902 Wedding Dress by Houghton & Dalton that I found in the collections of the V&A. Of course owning the original isn’t truly something I would want, but I have started thinking about how to replicate it based on the seven images from the V&A.

1902 Wedding dress by Houghton & Dalton, at the V&A.

The first steps included finding fabric and starting work on the underpinnings. Those underpinnings are the topic of today. I decided that I wanted another early Edwardian corset because the Black Snail one doesn’t really feel like it allows enough room for the displaced fleshy bits to go. I’d looked at Norah Waugh’s Corsets and Crinolines before, and the 1901 corset in there seemed like it would provide more space. Then I remembered that Ralph Pink had a free hip curve corset available that looked an awful lot like the Norah Waugh one, so I used their pattern pieces.

Norah Waugh 1901 corset pattern
On the antique mannequin
She has more boobs…

I’ve made a mock-up before and decided to lengthen the top by 2 cm and shorten the bottom by 2 cm, but those were the only changes I made. For the first attempt, I used a curtain fabric that was the later also used for the pouf. This stuff did not iron down well at all and with the ridiculous amount of seams going on in the corset, it made some weird bumps. So I tried again, cut out all the white coutil, and then found some off-white silk in the local fabric shop that I decided to splurge on. Having never used silk before, I was happily surprised by how much flatter it got than the original fabric I tried.

Curtain versus Silk
Lumpy and thick in real life (curtain)
Flat and smooth in real life (silk)

The boning channels were guessed at (that diagram in C&C makes very little sense.. there are some bones that are differently placed on the front vs the back view) and then created by sewing the two layers together. Next, I had a hell of a time putting the bones through because there were so many seamlines crossed. Some real curses were thrown out. Lastly some vaguely matching bias tape was sewn to the inside and whipped to the outside. From the last corset I learned that hand sewing through coutil is a real pain in the butt, so I did it in reverse.

This part, the corset stage, is now mostly finished. Couple of things that are still bugging me a bit. Should I have added the garter things to the front? Is the busk not stiff enough? It is a bit bendy now. And lastly, did I make it too big, it almost closes in the back, which I did not expect. It does definitely require some more wearing before it’s truly comfortable, I think. For now, I’m going to gather the courage to actually start making the pattern for that V&A wedding dress. Hopefully that’ll manifest soon!

MMM 21 – Week 3 – 4

The weather didn’t let up at all. It was pretty much miserable all throughout May. Apart from that, I did manage to wear only me-made clothes for the entire month, with barely any repeats. Because it was so cold, I did often have to resort to putting a bought sweater on over whatever I was wearing, but I’m deciding that it didn’t count. I also cannot find a picture for May 28, but so be it. Pretty much a succes and only one item banished from the cupboard that is just too uncomfortable, a yellow plaid top.

  • May 16
  • May 17
  • May 18
  • May 19
  • May 20
  • May 21
  • May 22
  • May 23
  • May 24
  • May 25
  • May 26
  • May 27
  • May 29
  • May 30
  • May 31

Me-Made-Tally

Sweaters: 24 (black vest, cut out top, gray vest, green knit, toad, white, snow, full flamingo, teal, red/black bolero, plaid sweater, grey holes, plaid jacket, red eyelets, pin striped jacket, riding jacket, mixed flamingoes, black cables, Harry Potter, black bolero, yellow, eighties, variegated browns* red long vest, triple gray)
Tops: 16 (black with letters, white spotted, blue bicycles, black with fun stripes, forest, white dino, beach dinosaurs, gray crossover, origami waterfall, grey dragons, Edwardian blouse, pin striped vest, red and white stripes, grey shortsleeve, grey crossover, blue spider, a shirt*)
Dresses: 12 (brown coveralls, black longsleeve, tropical longsleeve, red with leather, black and plaid, leaf wrap, Mondriaan, double duty, big leaves, blue white vintage, asymmetrical, double blue)
Pants: 11 (green plaid, toad, pinstripe, long bloomers, red/black plaid, flower pantsuit, pin stripe pants, yellow plaid, non-stretch jeans, grey pants*, squares pantsuit)
Skirts: 8 (red plaid, Middelburg, Christmas, Sheldon, plaid skorts, bicycle skirt, purple skirt, blue and silver)
Slippers: 1 (bunny)
Bras: 1 (blue lace)
Belts: 1 (black and plaid)
Coat: 1 (dinosaur coat)
Corsets: 1 (green corset)
Scarves: lots but not pictured
*May 28, I think.

MMM 21 – Week 1 – 2

It all went perfectly fine so far. Lots of clothes that generally don’t see the light have now been brought out. Unfortunately the weather is less than ideal so I’ve been sticking to my long sleeved dresses or skirts with a sweater.

May 1
May 2
May 3
May 4
May 5
May 6
May 7
May 8
May 9
May 10
May 11
May 12
May 13
May 14
May 15

Me-Made-Tally

Sweaters: 11 (black vest, cut out top, grey vest, green knit, toad, white, snow, full flamingo, teal, red/black bolero, plaid sweater)
Tops: 8 (black with letters, white spotted, blue bicycles, black with fun stripes, forest, white dino, beach dinos, grey crossover)
Dresses: 7 (brown coveralls, black longsleeve, tropical longsleeve, red with leather, black and plaid, leaf wrap, Mondriaan)
Skirts: 5 (red plaid, Middelburg, Christmas, Sheldon, plaid skorts)
Pants: 3 (green plaid, toad, pinstripe)
Slippers: 1 (bunny)
Bras: 1 (blue lace)
Belts: 1 (black and plaid)
Coat: 1 (dinosaur coat)
Scarves: lots but not pictured