Something Blue

A personal project:

A very good friend of mine is getting married next week and I wanted to make her, her 'something blue', which would also count for her 'something new'. Although I wanted to do a garter, I didn't want to do a really lacey traditional one... so I found this great tutorial by the purl bee on how to make a garter from liberty fabric. Well I didnt use the same fabric, but something very similar:

I found the step by step guide really easy to follow, although I wasn't convinced my fabric was going to gather as much as the one in the tutorial after I completed my first line of stitching. But if you stick with it, it turns out right in the end : ) Plus it was really fun to make.

1940s inspired apron

So I finally got some pictures done of my next apron, this one is more 1940s inspired. It fastens under the bust rather than at the waist. The top part is cross over, with a cute rosette on the strap. And at the hem, there's frills! I got more lovely fabrics on saturday, so keep your eyes peeled for more vintagey aprons!

These aren't up for sale yet on my site or etsy, but if you're interested in purchasing any of my vintage aprons or are thinking of having one custom made, please drop me a mail at whimsicalwardrobe@googlemail.com
See my 1950s one here!

My 1950s style skirts

Time for another 'product info' blog : )

I love 1950s style full skirts, I love how they spin out as you move, but still look full when you're still.They can be so elegant and glamourous.

Although it's a bit more wasteful on fabric, one of the most simple patterns you can use is a full circle, which is what I use to create these 50s style skirts .

This pink one has no waistband, and has a petticoat of white net underneath.

This next one is made of some fun fabric - white with black numbers on it, I liked the idea of combining something a little unusual with a vintage style pattern. This one has a big waistband, with four buttons on the darts, it also has a net underskirt, helping it hold it's full shape, and it's just visable at the bottom of the skirt.

This next one is the same style as the 'numbers' skirt, but it's in some gorgeous strawberry and polka dot fabric, much more vintage looking : ) This was a requested custom version of the 'numbers' skirt. I like the buttons I ended up with for this, as I intended to use the same ones as on the 'numbers' skirt, but they just didn't look right. The ones I chose in the end were much better, the red fades into white, which goes well with the strawberry fabric.

All these skirts work very well when teamed with a lovely 1950s apron : )

Twitter competition prize

So I promised whoever picked the chosen name for my twitter id would get a prize, a newly made corsage brooch. Here is said Corsage brooch, made fresh today for the winning entry of @whimsywardrobe. It'll be on the way to miss.cox soon : )

New 1950s inspired Apron

I finished this yesterday and it was too dark to take good photos, so I got some done today. It's part of my new 1950s inspired range. I'm starting with a few aprons, and will then move on to tablewares and possibly some peg bags, we'll see!

I'm being featured!

Just a quickie to say I'm being featured on Heart handmade today : ) Here's the link

Will be back later to post up photos of my new 50s apron.

Just one more thing, I found this yesterday, it's a project for february, where you aim to make one thing a day, every day in february, kind of like nano for crafters, although baking, writing and all sorts of things are included! I wish I'd found out about it sooner, then I might have taken part, although things are very busy at the moment, perhaps next year, I'd be keen to doing a vast baking project and do all those yummy cake recipes I've kept, but have never got round to making. To anyone who's interested in taking part, you can find details here.

The Story of the 'Critter' Bag

One of the first products I came up with was the 'critter' bags. So I thought this might be as good a place as any to introduce my creations to whoever would like to read about them ;)


A good friend of mine has this yahoo group, called melted fabrics, where she sets textiles projects for anyone who'd like to join in. Well this is how the critter bags started, for one project I was making a bag, I can't even remember what project it was for... but I had this new sewing book which talked about finding interesting ways to do pockets. I had this idea that I'd like to have this big pocket, dominating the front of the bag. Now another project was on doll making... I wasn't too sure whether I'd take part in this... dolls aren't really my thing, but I looked around on the internet at sympathy dolls and other quirky doll creations and thought I'd have a go at doing a little monstery type creature.


Then looking at the two projects I got the bright idea that I could put them together, slip the critter into that pocket, let him poke out and wave, let him protect whatever might be carried in the bag. I loved the idea so much that I embarked on making several other critter bags.


I found that using cute little prints for the critters worked that best. And I also had a small stash of vitage printed fabric that I could use for the bags or critters. The rosebud bag and the two other flowery prints are vintage.



This was the first critter bag I made. I loved the rose print fabric and the contrast between that and 'star' the first critter.

And here's a line up of the critters, I actually did a post on live journal on the secret life of a pocket critter, if you're interested it's here.

And here are some of the other critter bags:

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I then went on to make critter notebooks, but I'll do another post sometime on notebooks and gifts... But what developed after that, after many people asking if I did the critter bags in a child's size, were the mini - critter bags : )

To see more detailed pictues of the bags, inside and out, please feel free to visit my site.