Tiny Dancer's FASHIONOSOPHY

A LITTLE PIECE OF CRAFTSTER HEAVEN

This early morning of sleepiness and a bit of boredom, found me browsing the net with one thing on my mind: crafts. Ideas for personalized handmade gifts for this Christmas holidays, the perfect way to give unique, ecological and of course purse-friendly presents. So I stumbled upon the great Martha Stewart site, and even though this may not be big news to many of you, to me it felt as if I have had some sort of an epiphany. Loaded with amazing, fun and easy projects, it is any aspiring craftster´s little piece of heaven. Absolutely and truly inspiring, for the most heavenly-made gifts, for the people close to your heart or even better, for yourself.

 

 
  

BURDA STYLE: START CELEBRATING!

Around the end of each month I always check out the online preview of Burda Style Magazine, the magazine mecca of sewing patterns, published in 16 different languages and in over 89 coutries all over the world. I have myself bought a few issues over the past year but never really got down to making anything out of them. This time though, I am just so decisive to actually take advantage of the potentials that such patterns offer: produce unique items that refer to your own style, use and combine unique fabrics and make something totally one-of-a-kind, modify patterns and explore other styles of the garment, and generally have fun and enjoy the benefits of being creative. As my mum puts it, over the past years the issue has notably shrank content-wise, compared to the times when she used to make all those clothes in the 80s, but for me it is still so much worth keeping an eye on your local bookstore's magazine stand.

For the December issue, Burda Fashion magazine has composed an amazing pattern collection inspired by catwalk trends with many designer references: Party styles in satin and brocade and with lots of sequins, glamorous accessories to make yourself and several versions of the “little black dress” for larger sizes, cool outdoor looks for nature friends and feel-good lounging fashions for home. My personal favourites however and the ones that I will have my take on are the sexy leather skin-tight pants (following the latest leather trend), the nicely contrasted fuchsia 
mini-skirt with the black 
cummerbund waistband, and the beautifully made black, open jacket with the dress-uniform details. But my top top fave of the whole issue is this hignly extravagant-looking, brocade, evening blouse with large plate sleeves, which so much resembles the Dolce and Gabbana Autumn/Winter 2009 collection. The website notes that it works best for tall women - and I do not belong in this department - but still I will make my attempt.

  

FASHION SURGERY: SHOE MAKEOVER

They used to be this old odourless, tasteless and colourless cream and light blue “Mango” shoes. And while the thought of throwing them in the nearest garbage bin often passed my mind, I eventually decided to give them a little fashion surgery. But what started as a minor attempt of transformation ended up in a total makeover. I dyed them in a navy blue shoe dye, and then sewed the gems on (taken from a tacky Primark bracelet that I took apart) and used a dark brown leather thread to wrap them around my leg. Et voila! The cutest and most unique pair of ballet flats I have ever owned!

 

 

DIY TURBAN

I just had to make a post about this! Almost every blog in the entire blogsphere discussed the Prada turban at some point, the style qualities it infused to outfits and its wearability. The turban was featured practically in every magazine around and international high street shops like TopShop got their own colourful Prada knock offs. The trend even got to late-started Cyprus as our very own vintage shop Flashback got those satin colourful turbans that were also featured in local fashion magazines. Wearing the turban can be rather tricky and only the very brave have caught up with the trend. Diana from So Fash'on makes her own proposal on how to make a very wearable diy turban-style headwear out of a pair of black panties and a black sock! The result seems quite interesting really and because the head is not entirely covered I don't thik it necessarily makes you think of its designer origins and would not cause any weird looks from on-lookers, even here. It also seems quite easy to make minus the knicker-scissors interaction by making a wide headband and tying a knot with some extra piece of fabric. Thus, I would add up to the idea by proposing turbans in clolourful lace and satin.

DOING IT BURDA-STYLE

For amateurs like me who have a lot of inspiration yet zero designing and sewing experience, Burdastyle really comes in handy. With a constantly growing pattern database for several types of garments, things look very promising in this little webpage. Some of the actual clothes may look a bit outdated or conservative but they can easily be modified to suit different tastes and styles.

I have already utilized the very simple idea of making a sleep mask. It was actually supposed to be a fun gift, a frilly quite girly one made out of bright fabrics mixed together with satin details, to a male friend leaving for the UK to complete his PhD degree. Shame I did not take photos of this, it was quite funny really and made us both laugh. And now all my friends want one so I promised I would put more masks together using colour and material combinations based upon their characters and personalities. As for the rest of the suggested designs, I will probably be trying a customized edition of the Ellinor blouse and one of the pretty dresses very very soon.

SHOPPING DETOX

Strangely enough, I am trying to get a bit of a shopping-detox at the moment. So I caught myself digging for fabrics at my favourite discount shop, hoping to get into some sort of constructive DIY activity to cover my consumer needs. Still, I get the impression that for once again I have ended up with meters of fabrics that I won't be using, at least for a while, but I seem to get this thrill, the thrill of shopping - even though at a smaller, less body-shivering degree - by the idea that I will be making something to wear.

Still my first real design project, that was actually a customizing one, did not go so well. I got this old white linen top of mine and thought I would change the bust and sew some satin fabric in a different design to make it longer and looser for that oversized look. Apparently, linen and satin do not work so well together and the project was marked a failure. So now I have got all these bags overflowing with fabrics yet no sewing projects on the pipeline. Fanny, my teacher says that's how she started, collecting fabrics, and that I should do loads of designing practice before I actually cut up things so this is quite encouraging. Hm..maybe on second thoughts I should sew back the linen top and add a satin flower detail right in the middle..Let the weekend come for more DIY activity.

A HARD DAY'S NIGHT

What people normally do at weekends is rest and recharge for the working days to come, yet I always appear to be the exception to the rule. It seems like new things are constantly emerging, new ventures and new projects that leave me with zero free time, and fewer calories from trying to respond to them properly (good for me!). This Sunday was a very busy day once again, meaning I had to work really hard to keep up with my designing classes. So for about seven hours I got designing and trying to make head and tail of the messy jumble of letters in my notebook and figure out how to design skirt patterns. Granny, who is actually a tailor, gave a big helping hand but we still had our disagreements as our concepts of fashion appear to be at a totally different wavelength. Still, her contribution is highly appreciated and without her I would have probably done nothing more than mumble in despair!

Actually this is quite new, I have been taking design classes along with two teenagers who will be taking it further at a more professional level. I am taught by the very sweet Fanny, a fashionable italian who was landed on the island for love (apparently, love is contributing to fashion) and now runs her own very successful workshop/boutique. So what am I doing among proper fashion students? Maybe satisfying another caprice of mine or just being impulsive as I normally am, but I truly and honestly can't wait to wear something that will be totally created by me. Ever since I started these classes, daydreams of myself wearing my can't-find-in-the-mere-mortal-shops beautiful garments have increased dramatically, justified I must say as I will finally be able to make images reality, I hope!

"FABRIC-ATING"

I 've been doing extensive shopping lately and even though I made tons of new purchases I could feel there was a piece in the puzzle missing. Personally, I love colour and as the summer is coming I 'd like to give my wardrobe a twist by adding colourful and unique garments to it. Unfortunately major highstreet brands don't seem to share the same taste with me and the colour palette for spring / summer 2007 doesn't really trigger my senses. There's a lot of black and white, and cheap-looking jersey garments in bold colours like green and yellow, nothing that works for me really.

Quite often, when browsing magazines or looking at pictures on the web, I get some kind of flashes of a slightly different version of a designer or even highstreet garment that I think would look good on me. But as these images only exist in my head, a bit of DIY would help me to make all those things I want but can't find. So this morning I took a walk around the old alleys of the town and managed to get these colourful cotton fabrics as well as a beautiful chiffon white one. I am actually quite proud of my clearance-shop purchases as they only cost me the very small bank balance-reduction of 5 CY pounds.

Right now, I am looking for inspiration, and the first (in quite a while) DIY project I've got in my mind is to use the purple linen fabric to make a top based on the idea proposed by designer Doo-Ri Chung for TeenVogue in the February 2007 issue. Doo-Ri gave a fresh spin to a plain tank by adding a bunch of handmade rosettes, only I will be doing a "primitive" beginning and make the tank as well. So I was thinking of using the purple fabric for the main garment and add the flowery bits in purple and the white chiffon. I 'll be asking the advice of sewing-expert grannie though, just to make sure the fabric will work for the effect I want, so watch this space for more updates. For those that would like to give the TeenVogue project a go, I am posting the magazine bit to take a look at.

GETTING CRAFTY

I have already talked a bit over the mysterious powers of the universe, or should I say fate, or whatever mystic activity is going on out there. Whatever you wanna call it, it sort of stroke again, in the least expected place: an old unkept fabric store, right in an alley in the old city of Nicosia.

Without meaning to sound so very dramatic, the story is quite simple. Walking by the shop's window I spotted a lovely roll of striped fabric that i had to check out. The very polite indian guy was particularly helpful, and I was pleased to find out that it was a clearance shop fabric was extra cheap, only 2 pounds per meter. So I got two meters that will probably be enough for me to make a dress and maybe a top or customize some older garments of mine. I was looking for some time a sort of silky-cotton fabric, something more durable to build up volume that wouldnt be so clingy on the body (no need for all the lumps and bumps to get out to the whole world), with an ingest of colour, as the winter collections had been to my dismay rather "colour-less". Now that spring is slowly stepping in, it's time for something more lively and colourful.

About two month ago I also bought a silky silvery-blue fabric. I think these two fabrics could work well together and give out something different especially as metallics are so hot at the moment. Now I 'm on the lookout for inspiration and ideas on how to transform this raw material. I am thinking of a dress, a stripy dress with the silky detail rather than the other way round but you never really know what may come up. Some volume is certainly going to be there, as for the type of the fabric. So I have been making scetches and riffling several magazines and my fashion files to get ideas flowing.