Hi Everyone

I have a girlfriend who will NOT fit a standard corset, and wants to purchase a custom from an aussie maker.. simply for ease of communication, as she is fairly new to all of this.

She's after an underbust in a deep deep blood red silk, she's long in the body (too long for timeless trends, we tried that) but short from the waist to the hip *sigh*

If anyone can help out, please contact me offlist at carol@outbackpampering.com.au and I will put you in touch with her

Seek peace

Carol

Chief Alchemist
www.outbackpampering.com.au
 

In honor of Veteran's Day and for all the soldiers across the ages and throughout the world who have been willing to die to protect their country and their loved ones, here is a red poppy pattern. Wear your poppy proudly!



The pattern is available for free from my website.

The word I was going for to describe the coutil wasn't thick. It was dense or stiff. *hangs head in shame...again.*

( Please read on... )

Hello! I looked through the user info links and tried a journal search and didn't find anything, so here's hoping my journal search-fu isn't failing. I searched 'stitch computer program' 'stitch computer software' 'cross stitch computer' and the names of a few programs I'm thinking of buying, and it found nothing for any of them.

I'm currently making my own cross stitch patterns via photoshop, but it's rather time-consuming to make a really useable pattern. I've been looking into a good automatic cross stitch pattern making program. Unfortunately, most of the ones I find the free trial download either flat out doesn't work, or when I get it, it's not particularly good. I've noticed a real problem translating black in most programs I've tried- they try to make it dark green, or dark blue, so if you've already got that color in your image you can't tell what is supposed to be black and what isn't. Or else they make it far too pixelly, and there's no way you could tell what the original image was supposed to be.

So I'd like to know what people are using, how happy they are with it, and what some of the shortcomings are. I'm hoping not to spend more than 60, unless the best-best-everyone-loves program is more than that. I don't do machine embroidery, so I don't need a program that is capable of converting to machine embroidery patterns.

I've running on 32bit Windows Vista, but I'm upgrading to Windows 7 relatively soon. I'm finding most cross stitch making programs were last updated for XP, and then abandoned by their creators.

Thanks! I'm going to cross-post this to stitchers as well.

My latest commissioned corset is a fully reversible waist cincher, with red satin on one side and black satin on the other. The core is two layers of coutil, boned with 1/2" flats except for either side of the grommets, which is 1/4" flats. Piecing is seven panels per side, for greater stability despite the hourglass figure. When drafting, I try not to create panels that are more than 2.5" inches wider than the hip than waistline, because that creates too much bias and makes the pattern more prone to turning out larger at the hip than intended.

I have found satin to be unforgiving when added as a cover layer at the end, so I treated each cover panel and its corresponding core panel as a single layer when assembling the panels. The stitches are made with buttonhole thread from the red side, on the assumption that if the black side is not precisely lined up with the red side, any slight variations in stitch position relative to seam will be hidden by black-on-black.





( More Views of the Corset )

X-Posted

I was about to floss the back of the corset when I thought the distance from the edge of the corset looked odd. I measured, no, it's fine. Then realized that the front was measured wrong.
Sigh...

( ... )

New amigurumi dragon:



( Pegasus too... )

An amigurumi dragon and pegasus that I made

i am thinking of learning to make soap so i can make something other than knitted christmas presents this year. i have no idea where to start and many of the websites i have googled used so many scientific words, i just got confused. could anyone point me in the direction of a good beginner's soap making website? or give any tips/advice on soapmaking?

thanks!

This is...a bit odd, but humor me.

I have a stack of recepies. Old ones. Yellowed paper covered in (usually) pencil cursive. A food stamp application, with a peanut brittle recipie on the back, dates from November of 1976. This collection came with a rack of spice jars I wanted, but now I can't help but think these old, yellowed pages might be a neat art project. They might even be good recipies!

Every time I go to toss them in the recycle, I hesitate. I Just. Can't.

So... does anyone want them?

EDIT: TAKEN!

A silly name, but apt, as there's a story behind the ribbon I used.  Oprah was my commencement speaker a couple of years ago, and she handed out books tied up in ribbons to each graduate.  I kept the ribbons because they were pretty (didn't find the books particularly fascinating), and decided to use one of them for this rose.



It looks like it's attached to the headband, but actually, it's attached to a no-slip alligator clip, and I just layered the headband on top of that for effect.

( Closeup of rose behind the cut )

my friend asked me to make a felt version of her pug mix, wasabi. wasabi is the littermate of my dog, vinci, so i made both. i'm brand new to sewing and it's really fun.

Something new

( +5 full size images )

High-waisted wiggle skirt I made for myself. It's thick jersey and quite simple, two darts in the front, 4 in the back.

Do you lovely folks have any tips on picking fabric that you're sure will have minimal bobbling? I particularly have this problem with jerseys which sometimes bobble just from light handling, even before the first wash! I don't know much about fabric properties so what should I look out for?

{x-posted to sew_hip}

 Well, hello everyone *waves*, I'm pretty new to this community lurking wise, first time posting.

I was wondering what kind of thread you use and where do you get it. I live in country that is practically illiterate when it comes to true sewing notions, especially threads. There's mostly cheap polyester crap, a few heavy duty cottons (in, like, a five color range, cause they're only used for jeans) and two stores (yep, in the whole country) that sell Gutterman's silk thread for its weight in gold (on second thought, I'm not sure gold costs that much). So I'm desperate.
On top of the no-stock issue, there's no one to ask which thread is used where. I've read somewhere that the thread should match the fiber content of the fabric, and that there are different weights, but that's all I know.

So - what do you use, and which online/mail order place do you get it from (If you get it by mail order/online)?
Oh, and I'm not talking about flossing thread, I'm talking the regular get-two-fabrics-together thread. If you do top-stitching with another thread, I would love to know it, also.

*EDIT: Meh, I'm illiterate. Edited all the typos.*

We lost netball but we had a good dinner out, with good conversation and I was given a salad bowl and servers for my very belated birthday.

Its still quite warm, and my unit is very warm at the moment. Tomorrow is supposedly cooler, so hopefully that will be the case :D

brass,
all made by jamaika_

From photos