Accessories project: part 3 of 3: rose headband

Hey guys so the last part in my accessories project, this will be the final piece in the collection and the one that i hand in. all of the pieces are very personal to me and reflect my personalty (which is what the project is about) ever since i was little i mean like when i was crawling i was wearing hair accessories bows, headbands you name it i had it (and i still love wearing something in my hair now i'm more obsessed with flowers. one of my friends had shown me a really interesting way to fold fabric to make a rose or flower and i never forgot it. i hadn't seen this idea anywhere else (so i have no idea where she learnt it from) i decide to use it to make a headband, i knew i wanted to make a statement headband so he roses had to be really big so i cut the fabric quite wide and uneven to give it a bit of contrast. so to make the roses you need to have a long piece of fabric start at the middle and fold the fabric across and over each other, do this till you have a got near to the end of the fabric (you should have a 3d zig zag shape) then you need to rap the bottom of one of the ends around the other and pull the longer end through. you should be left with a rose shape just tie the two ends together and it should stay in place. i then sewed them to the headband and went over the edges with some glitter, just because i love anything that sparkles.           

dyed organdie fabric strips

Screen printing

final print

folding the fabric

fabric rose

almost finished

finished headband

Accessories project: part 2 of 3: studded bag

Hey guys so part two of my accessories project i love studs at the moment cant get enough of them i want them on everything i own. this bag is from Topshop and i have had it for a few years but couldn't bare to part with it (i refused to put it on eBay) the leather had become very worn on the back and around the sides but i though that gave it a vintage feel and added character to the bag. so i though i would customize it as i live for it (no joke i rarely buy anything without changing or adding something to it). was a bit tricky i had to unpick some of the stitching on the lining of the bag, big enough to fit my hand through so i could bend back the studs (these are the same style studs i used on my leather jacket i used the same method check it out if your not sure) was quick to do only took me like just over an hour. i was going to add some tassels but after i put the studs on i wasn't sure (maybe i will in the future) i want to do this on my jacket anyway but im not sure if it will really date it :s. but anyway love my bag even more now  

Olympic Jacket: Finished and my Thoughts

Hey guys here's my finished Olympic Jacket. i love it properly one of my most creative pieces this year, i really like how my jacket turned out was almost like my drawing. except the i couldnt get the bottom of the jacket to stay like a full circle i dont know why or how but i seemed to be just doing what ever shape it wanted. so after trying to fix it for a whole afternoon i decided to leave it how it was, and started to like it. the jacket is quite structured anyway so i really grew to like the waves in the bottom it gave it a real sense of movement (not that i was going for that look but hey i just went with it). i know the shape of my jacket is very costume like (but i don't care) the shape is loosely based on the luton carnival costumes, so its very dramatic but i wanted to catch peoples eyes (i hate designing stuff that doesn't have an impact on someone) hence why i chose red as the main colour (very bold and daring) the fabric i used was cotton organdie cost me a small fortune :( i then had to dye it red with Procyon dye (these are amazing the colours come out so beautiful) the gold represents the colour of the medals, gold is a rich colour anyway and can come across a bit cheap at times so i had to be really careful so it didnt turn out looking tacky. i couldn't find any gold fabric (well any that looked good) so my tutor gave me the idea of spray painting the fabric (perfect idea as i already had some gold spray paint) so i decided to just use calico as after i spray painted it you wouldn't see the fabric anyway. the colour came out really good apart from when i went to sew it and all the gold came off on my hands (as i said in my last blog). i heat pressed the colours on the rings as i wanted them to be really vibrant, but the red seemed to come out pink so yet again i had to spray paint them. was i nightmare to attach them on had to hand sew them on through 2 layers of fabric,2 layers of card and interfacing by the time i had finished the needle was all bent. but overall i love the way my jacket turned out best project of all.       

Olympic jacket: toile

hey guys here's what my jacket is going to look like its not what my drawing look likes at the minute but you get the general idea. i am going to chance the collar though hate it think i'm going to go for more of a Dracula type  collar muhahaha. was easy to sew didn't take me that long to put the sample together. although i did have issues with the gold pieces all the gold came off onto my hands while i was sewing it not a good look (check the photo below).      

gold hands lol

Opposites Project: Fantasy and Reality - Shirt: finished and my thoughts

Hey guys check out my finished shirt now with all the added sequins. i love this shirt cant wait to wear it out (no really i'm going to wear it out) this shirt has probably taken the longest to make out of all of my garments. i haven't made a shirt in a while so i had forgotten (and i much prefer making dresses) but was really interesting to see how far i could push myself. the print on the cape took me a while even to develop it not just to print it. it is a mix if a butterfly and dragonfly wing. my favorite part of the shirt is the collar and the cuffs they took so long to do (i mean days) it looked so good on the catwalk with all the lights hitting it the sequins really sparkled (i know i use a lot of metallic's and everything that sparkles in my designs but i really them so whatever) i did kind of mess up the front of the shirt basically i did the button fastening wrong, i did it the men's way (but hey the project title was opposites so i'm just going to say i did it intentionally like that) other than that my shirt turned out just how i wanted it now all i need to do is find the right night to wear it :). 

Olympic jacket ideas

Hey guys just another sneak peek at some designs for my Olympic jacket had a bit of designers block with this project, didn't have a lot of ideas at one point but i feel like im getting some where now :) 

Opposite Project: Finishing Touches To My Shirt

Hey guys just put some finishing touches to my shirt. have not got the time to sew all of the sequins on (like the cuffs) so i'm going to glue them on. i know it's cheating but i don't have the time. first i used this copydex glue, i have used it before with sequins but this time it made the fabric go all yellow and discolored. i was freaking out thought i had renewed my shirt so i rummaged through my tool box at home and found some UHU glue which worked even better did take hours to put all the sequins on but looked so effected after i love it!