Monday 30 July 2012

Guest Post: Sara from Road to the Heart...

Hello readers of Beebee's Vintage Dress!  I'm Sara of Road to the Heart. While I love sewing things from scratch, sometimes it's just as much fun to buy something from the thrift store and alter it to be wearable.  Here's my most recent project!

I found this dress at Goodwill, and it was huge.  I felt like a child when I put it on for this before photo:

Swimming in pink!
But I thought it had potential because of the pretty peach color and the pleated texture.  So I cut the skirt part off, folded over the top, and added a drawstring waist.  And suddenly, it was the perfect beach outfit!



Thanks Stevie for letting me guest post!  If you want to see more upcycled fashions or vintage musings, feel free to hop over to my blog to say hi.  Happy sewing!

Monday 23 July 2012

No Sewing... Just Life Changing

Morning lovely people. I know its been ages since I showed you something new, but my sewing has been taken over recently. After posting a similar post to this one, Things went wrong and I had to take it down. But now hopefully the danger is passed and we can announce that we are in the process of buying our first home!

I'm so exited about it all. We put in an offer that was accepted, but then someone else put in a silly much higher bid therefore knocking us out. However they seemed to just be timewasters so it then passed back to us.
All the paperwork is being done now and we should be able to move in, in around 6 weeks!
Only problem with this? We managed to rent our little house much quicker than planned and they can only wait a month max to move in.
So very quickly our lives are full of frantic packing and getting ourselves ready. The house were moving to needs a LOT of work, the old lady who lived there still had original 1930/40s furniture. However this means there is some fab original features!
It doesn't look like much but the potential is great!
Sorry again for the scarceness of posts, I have been knitting a lot recently as its a good portable craft. I've nearly got something finished to show you.
In the mean time I was thinking of getting some guest posters together, if your interested please email me on beebeesvintagedress@hotmail.co.uk I'm off to fill more boxes!

Thursday 19 July 2012

Seamless Pledge: Nearly two months in...


Wow I'm surprised at how quickly time is going its just over 2 months since I took the Seamless Pledge!
I have stayed true to my word and have bought no newly produced clothing.
In fact I have only bought three pieces of clothing at all! First was lovely 60's blazer in a neutral tone, I think it will be useful as it fills the gap my disaster jacket was supposed to fill. £7 for that!
One top that cost £2 and some Jaeger sailor shorts in a navy linen that cost me £5
I know I've not been particularly productive recently, I feel a bit like i'm growing out of my current life at the moment. (if that makes sense to anybody!)
Were anxious to move into our own place and so my mind has been elsewhere, (mostly looking at house stuff on Pinterest :P)
I have to say we aren't going through an easy time at the moment. I'm back to looking for jobs and life is a bit unsteady. I just haven't felt like sewing (although I seem to be getting more into my knitting!)

Although I haven't really been sewing solidly, I actually haven't found seamless too difficult.
 I think I had kidded myself into thinking I bought a lot of clothing but I have a real issue with quality and so that usually won over buying things at H&M or Topshop.
The next stage is to ebay everything I don't need which is quite a lot and to de-clutter.
I'm sorry about the intermittent posts but that is definitely the word to describe life at the moment!




Sunday 1 July 2012

What I'm Up To... Plus Calling all London Based Sewists!

I'm getting more and more frustrated by my lack of productivity at the moment. So I am putting plans down in writing so I am obligated to finish them.
I spent a lot of yesterday trying to tidy my sewing room but to no avail. It needs more storage which at the moment is not in the budget. I had a go at making my own bolts from cardboard and that seems to work pretty well but there is nowhere to put said bolts.

Nevermind on to what I am currently working on!


I have started Amy Butler's Cabo Halter. I have to say i'm not keen on the way Amy Butler patterns are printed and I feel that they scrimping on their product a little.
When you open the pattern pieces they have made the front and back interchangable by making one piece that for the front you fold down certain parts of the pattern to cut.
This would be fine if it was the only thing. The instructions are on the pattern sheet and not seperate, not only that there is nowhere to store any of it once you cut out the pattern. Unlike Colette where you have a neat little instruction booklet and a little folder on the back.

Nevertheless the top is pretty and popular too it seems. I have started to sew it in Liberty's My Little Star lawn.
Its looking good but in a bid to finish it fast I messed up so now a big chunk has to be unpicked.
Second on the Agenda is Victory Patterns Madeleine Skirt.

I love the overall look of the skirt and I love how it looks with a pussybow blouse. I'm unsure what colour to make though. The denim looks very classic but it might look nice in a lightweight wool? I have some blue garbadine which could look good.
Finally although we haven't had much of a british summer, i'm looking at shorts!
I've started a muslin for Kwik Sew 3854 view B. Hopefully if I can crack the shorts I can just lengthen them into trousers.
So thats what i'm up to! In other news I am leaving Clothkits, sad as it is I need the time to do my Masters in the Autumn and they really wanted a totally full time employee, which is fair enough. 
However I get to do some awesome Volunteering at the Fashion and Textile museum this week on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday.
So any London based sewists who fancy a few cocktails on any of those nights email me and we can have a little mini meetup! 
Email me at beebeesvintagedress@hotmail.com if you're interested in coming.
x