Picture of a wolf

Before I made the bunny picture, I started another picture at school. It remained unfinished for a long time as we had other, scheduled projects (this was an extra project). It is also based on a picture from a coloring book. I started with the background and by cutting an outline of the head from black fabric.

Then I cut parts of the picture from various scraps of fabric and arranged them on the black outline. I had no glue while making this, so I had to be careful to keep the pieces in their correct places.

When the picture was finished, I covered it with black tulle and stitched straight lines on top of it in 0.5 cm intervals. This was a lot easier than going along the outlines as I did with the bunny. The tulle fabric on top of the picture changes the colors, and the result isn't quite as colorful as before adding it.

A lot of skirts

The task that determined our grades for the 30 skill point course from January to mid-April was to make several skirts in 1930's style for a theatrical production. We had to make the patterns based on a basic pattern and cut and sew the skirts.

We had to make at least two skirts each, but I ended up making four. The first two were basic bell-shaped skirts, one made of 8 pieces, the other of 6 pieces.

With the 8-piece skirt, the two half-patterns had to be cut into half to get four pieces. Then those were cut in half and the halves angled as shown below. So you add wedges in the middle of each of the four pieces. Finally, you cut two pieces of fabric per pattern piece to get 8 parts.

Below is the finished skirt made this way.

The 6-piece skirt is made using the same principle, except you cut the pattern pieces to 1/3 and 2/3 of the original width and place the 1/3 piece on fold.

The resulting skirt isn't that much different from the 8-piece skirt, just has two vertical seams less.

As I was watching a video about 1930's fashion in Finland, I saw some interesting ones, and the third skirt I made was different from the first two. In this case, the bell-shaped part starts about 1/3 down the skirt. Otherwise, it's an 8-piece skirt.

The video also showed a lot of pleated skirts. The common theme with those was that the pleats started fairly low, around mid-thigh. There were different variations of this, but I wanted to make a yoke skirt. So the fourth skirt had a yoke and wide pleats. The picture below shows the bottom part after stitching the pleats.

The skirt was size 44, so it was a bit too big for me, but I still decided to try it on. I just put it on over my jeans to get an idea of how it looks. As I was doing this, I mentioned to the teacher that "I'd wear a skirt like this," so she said "next you can make one for yourself."

I didn't have the fabric for that, so I started with the pattern as I needed size 42. After a visit to a fabric store, I was ready to make a skirt for myself. The main difference with it was the smaller size and shorter length. With legs like mine, the length in the above picture is about the worst possible, so I made a knee-length skirt for myself. All my other skirts are in fairly subdued colors (various shades of blue with a bit of white), so I chose something a bit more colorful for this one.

The weather hasn't been very nice lately, so I haven't had a chance to wear this yet, but I will as soon as it gets warmer. And the grade? I'm happy to tell that I got 5 on a scale of 1-5. I'm not that set on getting great grades, but of course it's always nice to get a good one. It's just not as important for me as it is for the young students who need good grades for applying to wherever it is they want to go later.

Back from a break

Just as I was getting back to speed with blogging, life happened. Or rather, death. So I took an almost total break from my online activities.

I've still been studying, actually even longer hours that before, because it's one of the things that keeps my mind occupied and away from all that's happened. But now I think I'm ready to continue, and first, I'll be doing some updates on what I've been doing during the break.

The vest got finished. It's maybe a bit big for me, but then again, it is meant to be worn over a hoodie as seen in the photo below.

After finishing it, I thought I could do another one that's a bit smaller (goes on top of a shirt). I didn't have enough of one fabric, so I decided to use smaller pieces. First I sewed 15x15 cm squares together to make a rectangular piece, which I then cut using the pattern I had modified a bit (shorter shoulder seam and 2 cm off from the sides seams).

Here's the same piece seen from the reverse side. The order in which I sewed the pieces was first sewing four pieces together in vertical direction, then sewing the four resulting pieces together.

Then I made the front pieces the same way and sewed all three pieces together. Next, I made a narrow strip for the hem. I liked the elephant pattern, so decided to use it.

The lining is made of an old duvet cover. It was the only fabric I had in big enough pieces. Also, the colors weren't too off as the vest has all of them. This time I decided to only make inside pockets, because I didn't want to cover any of the pictures I had in front.

Finally, here is the finished vest. It's smaller and weighs a bit less than the first one. The idea is that it's for summer use. I prefer large pockets instead of a handbag, so this should do the job fine.