Lost Wax Casting: Floral Bracelet (cont'd)

I ended up giving my wax model to my casting instructor from last term to cast into sterling silver.  I picked up the bracelet this week and got right down to business polishing it so I can wear it during the holiday season.  Here are pictures just after I sawed off the sprues.  My instructor said he made two of them to ensure that the molten silver would flow evenly to the rest of the bracelet and pick up all the details of the wax model.

It took about an hour to polish the bracelet using a combination of emery paper, small polishing brushes, and finally the polishing wheel at George Brown.  The bracelet looks and feels great on my wrist - I'm definitely going to show this off during the holiday celebrations!

Green Wool Skirt

Mike's grandmother Joan (who donated her Singer Featherweight to us) has been supplying me with all sorts of fantastic sewing supplies including fabric.  She started a beautiful long wool skirt for herself many many years ago but never quite finished it.  Since then she has given up sewing and passed on some of her unfinished projects to me in case I wanted to re-use the fabric for something new.

I had been holding onto her wool skirt for a number of months not knowing quite what to do with it when I finally decided to try it on recently and was amazed at how well it fit around the waist!  In fact it felt like it had been created just for me.  Instead of taking the skirt apart, which would have been a definite shame, I was inspired to update the look so that it would be, well, more modern I suppose.

I shortened the hem which originally went down to about mid-calf on me (lower on Joan) so it now sits just above my knees. I also added black binding and ribbon to create roses and some detailing around the lapels to give the skirt a more chic look.  Finally I replaced the brown buttons on the lapels with black ones to match the ribbon and detailing.

Showing off the modified skirt to Joan

I've worn this skirt a few times to work now and have gotten plenty of compliments on it.  Joan was delighted to see that I had been able to make use of her abandoned project and I'm always excited to show her what I'm working on since she was the one who inspired my sewing hobby by putting that Featherweight into my hands.

Lost Wax Casting: Floral Bracelet

Here is my second bracelet project and I am determined to make it more wearable than my previous one.  I found a neat flower stencil online and put together a design with four flowers in a row with room for filler in between.  I actually started carving most of the flower design before coming up with the pattern that connects them. My instructor had various sizes of cup burs which allowed me to create the tiny circles without too much trouble.

To help ensure this bracelet is lighter and more comfortable to wear I drilled out a number of holes in the flowers designed it so that much of the border material is cut away.

Here is my bracelet after several hours thinning out the bracelet and removing the border material.  I think the irregular shape makes this piece much more interesting than a cuff that is the same width all around.  I'm excited to see it in metal but this time around I will not be casting it myself since I no longer have access to the equipment.  I'll have to seek out some casting houses downtown or talk to my instructors about it. We'll see.

Sara's Felt Mobile

I just completed a felt mobile for some friends who are expecting their second baby at the end of the month.  I think that they are going to name the baby Sara so hopefully it is in fact a girl and I don't have to rush to change out the huge 'S' at the last minute!

I saw some really adorable felt mobiles just searching through Google images and replicated the elephant, giraffe, and owl from similar ones online.  The hippo and turtle were creations of my own and arguably less cute.  Well...ok, maybe not the turtle, that guy is pretty darn cute.

A friend at work used the machine shop to help me drill holes into the 'S' because I wasn't too confident I could keep a hand-drill steady enough to go through the centre of the letter (where the blue rod is inserted).  I should have waited until the wood pieces were all assembled before painting them but I thought I would be *smart* and paint each piece separately to keep things clean.  Instead I ended up putting on enough coats of paint that the rods couldn't fit properly into the holes anymore!  Anyway after more trouble than was necessary, I got everything assembled and managed to deliver the gift in one piece with minimal tangling!

Lost Wax Casting: Butterfly Ring

In my model-making course last year I didn't put much focus on rings aside from the mandatory projects that were aimed at teaching us the basic measuring and filing skills.  I mostly worked on pendants and my koi cuff bracelet because they don't require the level of symmetry that rings do.  This year I need to try a few rings to improve my skills though, so here is my first project - a butterfly ring.

My vision for this ring was to have a huge butterfly wrap around my middle finger and then carve lots of details into the wing.  Well it didn't quite turn out as planned.  The ring didn't start out as long of a tube as it should have so the butterfly had to be drawn much smaller than I had initially wanted.  That left little room to carve details into the wing so I kept it relatively simple.    

It didn't take much silver to cast this ring.  In fact I was able to reuse most of the sterling that was recovered from my koi cuff bracelet.  I'm debating whether or not to solder on some silver wire for antennas as the last bit of detail but I'm not in love with the ring so I haven't been inspired yet.  To be honest I already have my next bracelet project in mind and am eager to move onto it!

Lost Wax Casting: Koi Cuff Bracelet (final)

Remember that koi cuff bracelet I finished back at the beginning of the year?  Well I had cast it in silver after finishing my final wax model-making course with Pawel so he never got to see the final product.  This month I started the level two course for model-making and brought this bracelet in to show him.  He was pretty impressed with the final product and said it would look even better if I brought out the details using Liver of Sulphur.  It's a strong liquid chemical that coats on clear but turns the silver black in a matter of seconds.  You can then put the bracelet through the polishing wheel once more to remove the black patina from the high points on the surface.  The blackspace and grooves are left dark and definitely highlights all the details from my carving.  I love it!

Crochet Headband

Check out my new head gear!  Brigitte crocheted this awesome headband and gave it to me today, a tad bit [fashionably] late for my birthday, but no matter...I wouldn't have had much use for it in July anyways :)  Several years ago we were at the One of a Kind show at the Ex and I saw a cute stand where they were selling just this sort of thing.  I thought they were so fabulous and really convenient because I often keep my hair in a ponytail and then have trouble stuffing it into a hat.  I didn't end up getting one mainly because I had a bunch of other winter headware at the time but I guess Brigitte always kept it in mind.  Well I'm glad she did and definitely plan on wearing it this winter.  Thank-you!

Teardrop Leaves

Here's another top that I ended up doing some surgery on because the striped cotton was starting to look pretty worn out. I wanted to preserve the white embroidery detailing so I replaced the torso using scrap fabrics I had on hand.

Original Top

The leaves are actually the final remnants of the fabric I used for the cloth book and elephant projects that I posted about below.  The top turned out nicely but if I were to do it all again I would have bought nicer fabric for the cream torso. Instead the scrap cotton I used is on the thin side and wrinkles too easily which is no good for dress-length tops!  

Pinning on the pattern

En Francais!

This is a cloth book that I made for my friend's son Caleb who recently celebrated his first birthday. It's the same little boy who I made Elouise & Elmore for, and as you can see I used the same fabric here that I used for the two stuffed elephants.

A little info about the inspiration behind this book:

While sorting through some of my husband's boxes of old treasures we came across this short story he wrote en francais back in the fourth grade (shown above behind the cloth book). It's really quite adorable, typewritten carefully with the French accents added in pencil by hand. Although the pencil-crayon elephant and crocodile drawings are very cute I decided to re-illustrate the story for the reproduction of the book. I can't take full credit for the drawings since they were based on doodles I liked from the internet, however I did draw everything myself using just my index finger and the touchpad of my laptop! Yes...yes...there are easier ways (I've been meaning to get a tablet for years).



It worked out perfectly that I had enough material left over for all of the pages. Too bad I was about an inch short of brown ribbon but I filled in the gap along the border by sewing in a white button! It was a lot of fun putting together this project.


Anyway I think my friend will get a real kick out of this sewing project because of the added personal touch, and hopefully there aren't any glaring grammar mistakes in there! We wouldn't want her son picking up bad habits before he starts attending his French daycare this winter.

Green Ribbons

Here's my latest creation. I saw a neat bit of detailing on someone's shirt recently and was inspired to try something similar.

 I used green binding and zig-zag ribbon to create this abstract design on a simple floral shirt. Instead of hand-stitching the sides of the binding down so that it lay flat against the shirt (as I did with the zig-zag ribbon), I sewed the binding to the bodice along the centreline fold. That allowed the edges of the binding to stand up out of the shirt creating a sort of ruffle. The end result isn't exactly like what I had envisioned when I set out to do this project but it's still kind of interesting.

Dress Form

I've been looking around for an adjustable dress form for the past few months and came across very few options. The ones I found locally were either over-priced or not in my size. I found a decent one from eBay but the shipping cost from the U.S. to Canada would have been equivalent to the price for the actual product! On principle I just couldn't do it.

Then yesterday I was picking up some trim for my next sewing project when I came across this beautiful vintage Acme dress form outside an antique store along Queen St. It was made in the 1950's and uses key screws inside the bodice to tighten and loosen tracks to adjust the panels.

It's not as straight-forward to use as the new sleek forms with dials but that's fine, this one has character and I don't expect to readjust the sizing too often. It goes well with the Singer Featherweight.  It took me all of 5 minutes to inspect the dress form before I made the purchase and carried it home. Luckily it's pretty light and the store is just a ten minute walk from my place.

Transformation Challenge

I made this top recently by re-using material from a dress which never fit me quite right. I was reluctant to sacrifice the pretty dress but since I no longer enjoyed wearing it I figured there wasn't much to lose.  Fortunately I was able to reuse most of the material including the stretchy empire waist. All was not lost. Actually, I thought it was a pretty neat challenge to transform the dress into a new top and I felt a real sense of accomplishment after it was completed.

Crimson Summer Dress

I did it! I finally managed to motivate myself to alter the red dress that I made last summer in my intermediate sewing class. Last year after I finished the dress I had been very disappointed about it being too big in the  bust and torso. It had taken so much effort to make that I couldn't bring myself to start taking it apart again right away. I wore it once to the office to see if I could get away with not making it any smaller. A co-worker asked me whether I was pregnant which seemed to be a pretty good indication that it wasn't a flattering fit! I decided to shove the dress in the back of my closet to rest there indefinitely.

Well months later I bumped into the same co-worker and she mentioned that in the spring she had found out there were five pregnant women at our workplace but only knew of four. Since we don't have that many women at our engineering firm she naturally thought to ask me since I was recently married. Apparently she never even noticed my dress. Funny. 

Anyway here is the dress now after my alterations and trust me, it looks much much better. I took in the sides and added a ruffle to the neckline by transforming what used to be the tie around the waist. Then at the last minute I decided to add some cap sleeves. Ta-dah! I will definitely wear this dress again now.

Oversized Shrug

Check out my oversized grey shrug that I finished recently. I tried making this without any patterns at all, just a go-with-the-flow project.

I figured since it was going to be big and loose that measurements weren't so important and I could probably wing it. At one point when it was too wide for me and the sleeves were still full-length and loose, I was quite discouraged with how much it looked like a judge's robe! Not sexy. But then I made a few adjustments and the shape came out much better; I cut the sleeves shorter, put in cuffs, added three long pleats in the back to bring the shoulders closer together, and rounded off the bottom edge.








I also put in binding along the entire opening edge to help it hang nicely in the front. Finally I added some detailing with ribbon, just like with my cushions and Boxing Day shirt. I was ambitious enough to use the zigzagger to sew in the floral ribbon pattern in the back of the shrug. That was pretty tedious and not necessarily easier than hand-stitching but it was good practice!

Floral Flounces

Flounces, flounces, and more flounces! I made this shirt for my mom just in time for Mother's Day today. The fabric and zipper came from an old skirt that my mom had made years ago and no longer ever wore. She still loves the fabric pattern so she never got rid of the skirt. Now she can finally wear the fabric again but in a totally different form.

My original design included only the five flounces along the front portion of the shirt with just a simple, plain neckline. Unfortunately I didn't do a great job lining up the flounces evenly along the neckline and the lack of symmetry really irritated me. In the end I had to mask the error by adding a ruffle for some more detail. I think it turned out pretty well overall and more importantly, the fit was just right. My mom tried it on just before we headed out to High Park to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom and it was a very good fit.

Pocket Dress

I love pockets! I once saw a wedding dress on television with hidden side pockets and wished I had seen something like that in time for my own wedding. I think it's because I never know quite what to do with my hands and they always tend gravitate towards pockets (my own, of course). I'm quite proud of this dress which was created by only loosely following the guidelines for the cotton tunic.

I added pockets, long sleeves, darts, and a zipper in the back which weren't in the original instructions. I bought the fabric at a 40% discount sale during Fabricland's 43rd birthday celebration and promptly got started on the dress right after I finished my cotton one. The fabric was more difficult to work with than I had expected because there was absolutely no stretch to it. Consequently I had to put in the darts and invisible zipper so I could easily get into and out of the dress without needing to call for help (which I did the first time!).

Cotton Tunic

At the end of March I developed some crazy allergic reaction and my hands flared up so horribly I missed more than a week of work. It was very upsetting being unable to do anything for myself because both my hands were blistered and swollen over. I only got relief two weeks later when we headed to the emergency room at Toronto Western and they prescribed me with Prednisone. It's been a slow recovery so far, and unfortunately I had to drop my jewellery course at George Brown midway through the term, just as I was about to finish my silver box project (grr).

So, as my hands continue to slowly improve I've decided to temporarily set aside my jewellery tools and bring out the ol' Singer again. Sewing is much kinder on the hands than jewellery-making. Plus I have a few projects lined up already, starting with this cotton tunic/dress. Originally I had longer sleeves and a longer hem line but I started wondering if it was looking to 'granny-style conservative' so I snipped off a few inches. It instantly made the outfit look better.