I bought a Cook Book

This is probably not exciting to most of you, but I am pretty over the moon.

While at the post office picking up a few passport forms for my boss, I spotted a Women's Weekly cookbook in the $4.99 bargain bin. But it wasn't any Women's Weekly cookbook, it was a reprint of "The Big Book of Beautiful Biscuits" which is the exact cookbook I used throughout my childhood to make sooo many different sweet treats. My mother still uses hers, and the poor thing is falling apart from being so well loved.

Flicking through brings back a lot of memories for me. The chocolate slice mum and I always made for school lunches and when she used to cater lunches for a local group, which was also one of the first things I baked for my Husband when we first started dating. The Lebkuchen I made for our German Celebration one year at School. The Rum Truffles we used to make for Christmas. The Rum ball recipe we tried when we decided to make every single ball type recipe from the book for Christmas one year, that wouldn't set, so became the most delicious Ice Cream topping. The Ginger slice we used to make for my grandparents (grandma loves ginger) The Anzac biscuit recipe we always used.The Honey Jumbles I was determined to make all by myself and made a huge mess in doing so, The Peanut Butter Crinkles with the criss cross fork imprint on top that mum made when we had friends over and for school (before peanuts were banned from schools) The Shortbread recipe I used to bake shortbread for Grandfather. The Chocolate Crackle recipe made for nearly every birthday party.

I am pretty excited to have a copy for myself now, and I have no doubts that it will be used plenty in my kitchen, now, and when my future children are learning to cook, just as I did.

Dixie

Grease Sing-along at the Regal Cinema!

As promised, here are some photos from the Grease Sing-along at the Regal last night, all courtesy of Gillian Burgess

George at the Ticket Booth

Some of the lovely ladies who were serving the food

There was a spread of hot dogs, caramel popcorn, chips and root beer floats, as well as a choice of white or red wine.

Jo and George

All the leather heads

George doing his best "tough guy" face

George and the "Sweet Sandy's"

Me

I very almost didn't make it to the screening. My dentist appointment had gotten mixed up, so instead of being on the Wednesday, it was actually the same day as Grease. I was under general anesthetic and had my wisdom teeth, plus a few others, removed only 8 hours earlier. My dentist had said no way would I be able to go out that night, I would be in too much pain, but to my delight, and his surprise, I felt pretty good apart from a sore throat, so I went anyway, and even sung my heart out along with everyone else. I don't think my face was even that swollen. It's now the next day, and while my cheeks feel a little bit more swollen than yesterday, I'm still in no pain apart from my throat and the corners of my lips (I'm guessing from having my mouth stretched open?) Compared to the toothache I had for 3 weeks before, this is nothing!

The last few costumes on stage (pretty much anyone who
didn't come as a Danny or Sandy)

Asking if I made my costume...

All the people who dressed up on stage together

While quite a few Regal Tickets were handed out to some of the best dressed, but it was I who was chosen as the Best Dressed Grand Prize winner! So I got 2 tickets, and I will be getting something special next time I visit!

A few of the Entrants for the Dancing competition

This girl knew the hand jive actions by heart, can you guess
who won the dance comp?

Thanks again Gillian Burgess for all the great photos!

Next Month's cult classic is Animal house (which I confess I haven't seen before) So the Regal is throwing a Toga Party! Later on the same weekend, which also happens to be the October long weekend, they will be having another screening of the Grease Sing-along. As my Friend's kids couldn't make it to this one, we are going to try and make it to the next one, and hopefully I will have time to make matching Pink Ladies jackets for everyone.

Anyone else dressed up for something fun recently?

Dixie

A Quick Frenchy Costume Update

I'm really thrilled with the progress of my Pink Frenchy Shirtdress, so I just had to show you all!

I was going to try to stitch the "la Coiffure" on the pocket with my sewing machine, but then I was too lazy to re-thread my machine, so I did it by hand, and I'm so glad I did. I love the Results!

Firstly, I practiced how I wanted it to look on a piece of scrap paper (in this case an old envelope) then wrote it carefully and lightly on my fabric in pencil.

With a double strand of regular sewing thread, I went over my pencil lines with teensy weensy back stitches, doing my best to keep those curves nice and fluid looking.

I probably should have used a bit of interfacing or something to stop the wrinkling happening, but a good press fixed most of it. The pocket was then sewn right sides together, turned out, pressed, then sewn to the left side of the bodice.

A quick dorky selfie. Unfortunately the mirror makes the writing backwards

So here it is on the mannequin with a white belt (which sits higher on me) I gave the dress a nice deep hem, so it now sits at my knee-length, and I also folded up the sleeves to give a cute cuff effect. I am glad to say I am getting much better at buttonholes, although they still aren't perfect.

What do you think?

Dixie

A Vintage Inspired Travel Friendly Mini Capsule Wardrobe.

You may or may not have read somewhere along the way in my blog that my day job is being a Travel Agent. I really enjoy my work, as I can honestly say I learn new things every day, and I don't think I will ever know everything there is to know about every destination, so there will always be more to learn, which keeps the days interesting. Part of my Job is to travel and experience destinations for myself, and to that end, I often get educational trips offered to me at heavily discounted rates.

The few trips I did last year really made me realise the need for comfortable, lightweight, wrinkle resistant clothing, that still looked somewhat professional. As most of my current me-made wardrobe does not fall into this category (being mostly full skirts and easy to wrinkle cottons) I have decided to make my own Vintage Inspired Mini Capsule Wardrobe. Before my trips overseas, I researched capsule wardrobes and tried my best using existing store bought clothing, This time I have tried to find capsule wardrobes a little bit closer to what I am hoping to produce for myself.

Like this Nautical one from Polyvore

Or this Retro one from Polyvore

A more detailed Capsule Wardrobe

This one is a bit closer to the size capsule I will be making,
but with a bit more versatility in seperates
(only one pair of pants, really?)

Here's one pretty close to what I'm going for.

A lot of you will have no doubt heard about Lucky Lucille's VIFPMCW challenge, and I will hopefully be sewing something along those lines for my everyday wardrobe, but it has also been my main inspiration behind this idea. However, as most of my Travel Agent trips are around a week or so, I feel 4 pieces just aren't enough, so I'm going to aim for either a 6 piece or 8 piece mini capsule wardrobe. If you haven't already checked out the flickr group for the challenge, you so should! Some of the lovely capsule wardrobe's that are being made are to die for!

For my Travel Wardrobe I will be sewing with mostly (if not all) knit fabrics and trying to stick within a certain colour scheme. I am thinking Black, Red and Leopard print. As for the pieces, for the bottoms I want 1 pencil skirt, 1 half circle skirt and a pair of pants and for the tops I'm thinking a long sleeve scoop neck top, a sweetheart halter neck and a short sleeved collared shirt. To extend this into a true full capsule wardrobe I may add in a jacket and bathing suit (yes I need a bathing suit for work trips as they usually involve beaches and/or pools)

A quick scribble while at work gave me this plan, but I'm not completely decided on the colours yet.

I really love the sweetheart halter style, but can't decide whether I want it in black or red, so perhaps I'll make it reversible? That would add extra options to my capsule wardrobe.....

Actually I think I've already changed my mind....... Argh! This is so hard!

I already have a few patterns I know I will use, and some will just be self-drafted (like the half circle skirt and long sleeve scoop neck tee) I will keep you all updated on the progress of my Travel Capsule wardrobe

Here a some of the fabrics I have so far. The leopard print is a bit lighter in colour than I would like, but I have a few meters of it, so that is what I will use. The black is only a remnant, so will only be enough for either a skirt or top and I will have to buy/find some other black for the other item. The red is a lightweight jersey that is probably only suitable for a shirt, not a skirt, So I will either have to find a matching red in a heavier fabric or buy a completely different fabric for both skirt and top.

Has anyone else tried sewing a Travel Friendly Capsule wardrobe, or any type of Capsule Wardrobe for that matter?

Dixie 

A Pink Lady for a Grease Sing-a-long!

September's Regal Cinema Cult Classic Friday is Grease! 

And not only is it Grease, but its a Grease Sing-a-long!!!!!!

So Naturally I have to go, and naturally I have to make a new outfit/costume to wear!

Being a 50's era movie, I figured it would be best to make an outfit that I could then incorporate into my regular wardrobe afterwards. Also, my Husband said he won't go to a sing-a-long with me (party pooper!) So I don't want to go as Sandy without a Danny. As cool as Rizzo is, I don't think I could pull of her style (or hair) so I thought, hey, why not dye my hair Pink again and go as everyone's favourite beauty school dropout?

So as a base, I pulled out this oh-so-very-90's pattern from my stash

While at first glance it may seem a bit hideous, If I change the skirt to a pencil skirt and add darts to the bodice pieces, I will have pretty close to what I need! I will also add a bit more fullness to the sleeve heads for some cute gathering like Frenchy's dress.

While I would've ideally liked a slightly stretchy fabric (like bengaline or stretch cotton sateen) to make this a very fitted dress, Running around spotlight with my husband, my brother and his fiancé all looking for a slightly stretchy light Pink fabric, did not yield any results. So I settled for 3m of cheap cotton poplin, which was on sale for less than $4 per meter.

I shortened the Bodice pieces by approximately 1.5 inches, and cut a size 20 in the bodice, nipped in to an 18 at the waist, which was the size 22 of the skirt pieces (borrowed from Butterick B6094 which I have made twice before in Red/Black and in Green/Purple) and then graded out about 1 inch further at the hip line on each piece. Instead of cutting the back on the fold I cut it as 2 pieces to make it easy to put a split at the bottom of the skirt. I used the skirt darts and continued them up to make darts in the bodice pieces.

Fraken-patterning

Progress so far

This is coming together quite easily (although I am yet to get to the buttonholes) However I still have not found fabric to make myself a Pink Ladies jacket. Instead of going screen accurate for it, I really want to make a leather/vinyl bomber style jacket, but I just cannot seem to find pink leather or vinyl in my price range. Sad Face. Oh well, I will keep looking and hopefully something will turn up.

I'd love to make something like this!

Seriously, if you live anywhere near Newcastle, you should really book tickets to come along, its only $7! and usually there is a complimentary drink and some nibbles. Plus I will be there! Yay!

Anyway, completed costume photos from the night will follow as usual.

Dixie O'Dare

P.S. I will hopefully be getting my teeth all fixed up next week sometime, so hopefully will be feeling much better and be getting lots more sewing, etc done!

Completed Cosplay, May the Forks be with you!

We went to see the final showing of Stirworz on Saturday night, but unfortunately weren't allowed to take any photos. Luckily a few were posted to the Facebook page for me to steal and show you here.

So here it is, the whole costume together on stage!

Talking with the Padewans (and androids)

I think we can all agree, that even if you haven't seen the animated series "Star Wars the Clone Wars" you would still look at that costume and think she was a Star Wars Character. I loved how the wig/headdress looked on stage. From a distance you couldn't really tell it was fabric, and much to the delight of my friend, you couldn't see where she smudged the paint.

Wiping Ventress's memory

Unfortunately, we didn't know she would have to wear that cheap brown robe over her costume, if we did we could have left out a lot of details that didn't get seen. Also I probably would've made her a better quality robe, as these ones were quite sheer when the stage lights were on them, and still had the crease marks from being in the packet (even after 5 performances and many dress rehearsals) oh well. At least she will have a nicely detailed costume if she ever wants to dress up as Ahsoka again.

I think this was right before a big fight scene...

As you can see, the sets were really effective, as were most of the costumes (that R2D2 was handmade!) The script was reasonably well written, with a lot of jokes that seemed beyond kids that age (due to parodying movies and characters much older than the kids) but were appreciated by the adult members of the audience. Probably a few too many song and dance numbers that had nothing to do with the story line (and made the production run for over 3 hours) and too many extra's on stage during scenes that didn't need them, which just made the stage look messy. But that's nitpicking. It was a huge production to be undertaken by middle school students.

A Snap from Back stage

I think this is easily the craziest thing I have sewn for a while, time for me to go back to concentrating my efforts on Vintage style frocks and skirts I think.

Dixie

Works in Progress

Sorry for not posting much lately guys! I've been busy with work and family, and to top it all off, I got a tooth infection so I've been struck down with horrible tooth pain.

Even so, I have been working on a few things....

The first is my next Vintage Pattern Pledge sew, a Vintage Australian Home Journal pattern, which I think is mid to late 40's. I graded up the pattern some weeks ago, and have almost finished making it up in some cheap panne velvet from Lincraft, in a beautiful forest green, which should look great with my slightly ginger hair (which may be going brighter ginger soon)

The waist seam is pinned, one side seam is
open and it is unhemmed.

When this dress is finished I will be posting a full blog post about it for you all to read about it.

Last weekend we spent some time up at my mum's place so that my Husband could help my brother work on one of his cars, so I brought along my overlocker and backup sewing machine, along with a few fabric, patterns and notions. Despite having severe tooth pain, I made a second version of Butterick B6094 with another Tartan from my stash, this time a lovely green and purple/pink colour, using plain green cotton as the lining/contrast. As I had already made it not long before it went together easily, as I already knew the alterations I had to make to the pattern, and got it very nearly done in just a few hours. At that point I just didn't have the patience for hand sewing the lining or self-covered buttons. I also left the hem until I got home the next day so I could use my invisible hem foot.

I then began on my next dress Butterick B5605 in the morning, however I didn't get very far into the cutting before deciding I was too tired and too sick, so I just packed up my things and went home and tried to get some more sleep (which is not easy with a toothache) Hopefully I will get back to this dress as the weather warms up, as it will be a perfect Spring dress.

During the week I quickly ducked into one of my local op-shops during my lunch break and scored possibly the cutest fabric ever in the form of a $1 Single sheet. It is well loved and the labels have faded to nothing, but while the fabric is a little on the thin side, it has no holes or very worn spots, and the colour is even all over, so it must have been a good quality sheet. I'm not sure what pattern I will use yet, but I can see this made into a lovely lightweight summer dress.

I also snagged a $4 bag of assorted elastics, which are always handy to have

And a $2 bag of fastenings, which I like to grab whenever I see them in op-shops

It had several cards of snap fastenings, hooks and eyes as well as self-cover buttons (which I have been loving lately) so great value for $2!

Anyway, so now you know I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth, and I am still working on a few more sewing projects and scoring great op-shop bargains

Dixie

P.S. I will be seeing "Stirworz" this Saturday evening, a Star Wars Parody that I have made a costume for my friends' Daughter to wear on stage. Complete Costume Outfit photos to come soon!

P.P.S I just bought a different brand of ginger hair dye, and its looking good so far!