Journeys Are My Diary

Life, Adventures, Entertainment and more - A little bit of everything blog!

#ThatsSewGeorge – Crafty Project

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As you know I’ve been busy sewing all sort of things recently but one of my most fun project was given to me by Asda. George – who make a wide range of clothes, bedding etc. for Asda, offered bloggers the chance to make something from some of their bedding. They have a beautiful range which you can find on their website. It was hard to pick to be honest, but it was especially hard knowing I was going to chop it up!

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As you can see, there are some lovely choices and at really great prices too. I have plans for bunting, cushions and more clothes. However today I wanted to share one of my projects with you, and that was the Foxy dress I made for Megan yesterday.

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Since I knew I was making a dress, I picked a king size cover, to make sure there was plenty of material. I used the main design as my outside print, but the back of the cover (which was a paw print design) as my lining. I also used the paw print pattern as a contrasting material. Both the sleeves and the waist band of made from this.

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I was really pleased with how it turned out, though due to the large print I think I could have been more careful where I placed my front pattern piece – just to make the design look a bit more balanced. However that’s maybe just me as I’m a bit of a perfectionist!

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Megan seems really pleased with the dress and that’s the main thing as far as I’m concerned. I also have more than enough fabric to make another dress from, so perhaps Lily will get one too. Or maybe I’ll make an adult skirt from it! Either way I’m looking forward to trying out some projects with my other duvet covers too!

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Just Sew Geeky

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As you probably know from my previous posts, I love to sew. My mum and dad bought me my first sewing machine at the age of 18 and I used it for a good year or so before it got stowed away and barely used. Since having kids I’ve used it every now and again, but it has never had more use than in the last 12 months. Last summer a group of us decided we would go to London Film and Comic Con and that we would cosplay. This was my first ever experience of cosplaying and I wanted to make my own costume. I was pretty pleased with how it turned out, especially since I hadn’t used my sewing machine in a long time.

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Sadly now when I look at the photos, all I see is how much weight I had on at that time. I was beginning to lose weight at that point but since then I’ve lost about 1- 1 and 1/2 stone and feel so much better for it. Anyway, when I try to focus on the costume itself I’m pleased but I know I’ve done so much better since. In the following months I made young Anna and Elsa dresses for my two daughters, I made a Snow White costume for my best friend Amy and I made a whole stack of Disney inspired dressed for our holiday to Florida.

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Since getting back from Florida I’ve flipped flopped back and forth about starting my own business – sewing clothes. I have had an online store on Etsy selling jewellery for some time now and I’d love to combine everything geeky that I like to do and make a little business from it. Anyway… the title of this post was one of the names I toyed with – Just Sew Geeky. However I felt it was too sewing orientated (and I want to do more than sewing) and in the end went for Closet Geek. The sewing section of my site will probably be the largest – for the most part I’ll be offering inspired dresses and clothes for children. In the future I hope to be able to offer custom cosplay too, not just for kids but for adults. I’ll also add my Jewellery Ever After stock (and add to it), along with the inspired hair bows that Megan and I were making a few months ago. On top of all that I hope to add murder mysteries to the categories, but that’s a little way off right now. It’s a lot of work and I’ve really only just started. I have the bare bones of a site in progress, social media platforms set up and business cards ordered.

businesscard2At the weekend (just gone) I sat down to get some sewing done and discovered the foot from my sewing machine was gone. I’m absolutely certain I’ve put it somewhere “safe” but after two hours of searching, I still couldn’t find it. In the end I ordered a new one, costing a total of £8.79 (only £3.80 for the foot but £4.99 postage!). To be honest I toyed with buying a new sewing machine all together. I checked out sewing machines online and I found a really good range at Tesco Direct but as yet I haven’t made a decision. There is nothing actually wrong with my sewing machine at the moment but I have to admit I can tell it’s definitely on it’s way out. As I said, it was bought for my 18th birthday – and I literally just had my 36th last week. It’s old… though not as old as I am… and it’s going to need replacing soon, especially if I expect to be sewing on it even more often than I have been recently.

Though I’m bubbling over with ideas of Disney inspired dresses to make, my first project is actually a cosplay one. For now I’m going to keep it a secret but I’ve ordered vintage Simplicity pattern 9825 and turquoise jacquard material that I could really only find in the US. I’m excited to crack on with it so my sewing machine foot better turn up soon! In the mean time I’m going to head for Pinterest and start pinning some more ideas and also work on my online store! I’ll let you know as soon as I have an update.

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Making my Vanessa (Ursula) Costume

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This week I have focused on all my time at London Film and Comic Con last weekend. I did a day by day breakdown, along with the costumes and cosplays by both my group and several other people who attended. However the one thing I haven’t focused on yet is how I made my own costume.
Once I’d finally decided on a person to be (the clothes being part of that decision), I decided immediately that instead of wanting to make a dress, I would make a corset and skirt. Recently I have been wearing a lot of corsets, largely because I’m unhappy with my size and shape. With that in mind, I ordered these two patterns from Ebay.
Once the two patterns arrived, I proceeded to order all the bits I would need for making the two items. There was boning, zips, eyelets etc.
After much consideration I picked Iris and Purple as my material colours, along with a black lining material. It was then time to begin!
As the skirt seemed the easiest to take, I did that one first. It was a really simple pattern, just 6 main panels to make the skirt and another two for the waistband. I managed majority of the sewing myself, though I have to admit I called in to see my mum when it came to adding the zip. Not because I couldn’t… just because I figured she’d do it better.
Next I moved onto the corset. I’ll admit I was sort of dreading it a little but the beginning seemed fairly straight forward at least so I cracked on with that. There were lots of pieces to cut out, not just from the purple but also from the black lining and also from interface. It took quite some time just to get it all cut out.

Next it was a case of ironing on the interfacing and sewing all the purple pieces together. Then doing the same for the black lining. After that the boning had to be attached to the lining pieces. Finally it was starting to take on a corset type shape.

Before officially sewing it all together, my mum pinned it all together. The part at the front was actually my mum’s idea too – a fake opening instead of an actual lace-up front. Once I was sure it all looked okay and was going to fit (we actually took it in about an inch on each side), we sewed it all up properly. I then had to edge it all, which I chose to do by hand to make it look neater.

When it was all finished, I was really pleased with the result. I added eyelets and ribbon, the corset was made and the outfit was complete. Well almost anyway… I’d ordered a necklace from Etsy, the perfect thing.

Finally, all that was left to do, was get rid of my blonde tips in my hair. I bought a cheap brown hair dye and within 30 or so minutes, my hair was all brown again. Not just that, but it was in great shiny condition!

And that was that. My outfit was complete and I wrote it to LFCC last weekend. I was really pleased with how it turned out and while I expect I won’t wear it again, I was really happy with the choice to be Vanessa.

Comic Con and Cosplay

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Last weekend, I attended my first ever convention – LFCC (London Film and Comic Con). I’m not going to lie – it was a whole big geek fest and I loved every moment of it! More importantly, I decided to participate in all the geekery, cosplaying on the Saturday.

Regular readers of my blog will know that I really struggled to decide what to dress as for LFCC. I had several ideas, none of which really panned out, until I finally settled on Vanessa (Ursula in disguise, from The Little Mermaid animation by Disney). Not just that, but I decided to make my own costume, so that not only was it homemade, it would be sure to fit.

That said, many people who dress up for these type of things, don’t have the time or skill to do that. This leads to them making costumes in different ways, buying them from proper cosplay shops, or even getting them from standard fancy dress shops. The really nice thing, that I found at least, is that no one really judges the quality of what you’re wearing, more that you’re just participating. Not only that, but no one cares what you’re actually dressed as either – everything is acceptable.

One of the most fascinating things about LFCC for me, was actually looking at everyone’s costumes and how they were dressed. There was such a huge array of characters, styles and fandoms. Our group was made up of myself as Vanessa, Amy as Ariel (Little Mermaid), my brother Chris and his girlfriend Erika as Han Solo and Princess Leia (Star Wars) and my partner Chris was Greed (Fullmetal Alchemist).

Obviously Amy and I made sort of a pair. We were at least from the same movie – a Princess and the Villain (though without being a fat, purple, octopus lady). I knew that very few people would actually understand my costume, but it didn’t matter to me as I liked having quite an unknown character to dress as.

My brother and his girlfriend, went as something a little more mainstream and well known. We knew there would be plenty of characters there from Star Wars but Han and Leia were also easy costumes for them to throw together. We jokingly set them the challenge of finding as many different characters to have their picture taken with and they definitely rose to the challenge.

Finally, my partner Chris went as probably the most niché of all our costumes – Greed from Fullmetal Alchemist. It was actually very late through the Saturday before we even saw someone from the same show as him.

The best thing really… is that anything goes. Whether you want to dress as someone from Disney, My Little Pony, Lego or Barbie. If you prefer Horror, Action, Thriller or Anime. If you’re a girl who wants to dress as a boy or a boy that wants to dress as a girl. If you want to be an animal like the Beast, an object like the Tardis, or even a Steampunk twist on a regular character – its really just fine to do whatever.

Though I didn’t take many pictures myself, between our group we did seem to capture quite a lot of costumes. Here are some of them:

I can’t wait to attend another convention, whether its LFCC or something else. I really enjoyed dressing up and given enough time, I’m sure I can think up another idea that I’ll be happy with!

Stay tuned for my next post… how I made my own cosplay costume!

*A big thank you to Chris, Chris, Amy and Erika whose pictures I pinched for this post!

My costume for Comic Con – the final cut!

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So I’ve posted several times about my costume ideas for Comic Con and I then even picked a definite costume. However life was not to be that simple and I had to start all over again! This time though, I’m really hoping to have made an actual final decision. I’ve started to order bits and pieces here and there – I plan to make my own costume.

It will come as no surprise to you, that I wanted my costume to be Disney themed. When my original choice of Rapunzel was a bust, I went straight for my favourite princess (Belle) and my favourite villain (Ursula). I’ve always had a huge spot for Ursula from The Little Mermaid and as Amy is going to Comic Con as Ariel, Ursula seemed a great pick. However, despite the fact I’m overweight, I didn’t especially fancy going as a full blown octopus version of my favourite villain. Instead it occurred to me that I could go as Vanessa – her human version.

Now I’ve kept all this planning pretty secret, especially because my last idea was a disaster (and no I still don’t want to talk about it!). However at some point I had to make a final decision and now that I have, and the purchases are being made, I feel like I can share it all with you.

A few weeks back, I purchased a corset pattern and a skirt pattern. Both of which I hope to use (and adapt) in order to make my costume).

As soon as it arrived, I looked to see what I would need – purchasing little things like interfacing, a zip etc. I even scoured Etsy to find myself the perfect necklace. However it wasn’t until today that I actually purchased my material, taking plenty of time to make sure I was happy with the colours.

So this is it! The final decision has been made. When the material arrives I’ll have about 3 weeks to make my costume. I’m excited but also nervous – I’m really hoping to get help from my mum and maybe even Nat. I’m sure I’ll get it done but at the same time I just hope it looks good! Please keep your fingers crossed for me!

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Sew Sew

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A few weeks ago I posted about making a dress, for a Hamlet Murder Mystery party. You can read both my dress post and my murder mystery post, at those links! However until the actual Murder Mystery took place (last Saturday), I couldn’t post about my completed dress. This was for two reasons. One – I didn’t want to spoil anything in advance of the Murder Mystery. I like to post about everyone altogether. Two – The dress wasn’t finished until two hours before the event itself!

On 9th September I bought my pattern from Ebay. It cost me £8.75. It arrived within a couple of days and so on the Friday night, my best friend Nat (who was also making her dress) came around so we could try and decipher the instructions. The pattern I picked looked like this:

That night we drank wine, chatted, measured and tried to figure out what dress size we should make. At first we were flabbergasted by the thought of making size 20 dresses (we’re both about size 16) but we realised that its a dress pattern size you make, not exactly a dress size. Eventually we decided we had it figured out and planned the shopping trip for the very next day.

Though I had originally planned to get different coloured material from that in the pattern picture, in the end I did actually buy red and gold. Both were crushed velvet, though I imagine for the price I paid it was probably only velveteen.

We started work on the dresses about a week later. However it took us so long to cut out Nat’s dress (and we knew we would only have one or two days together each week to work on it) so I ended up cutting out my own by myself the following night. We met again a few days later to actually start sewing, but it was a long process and we were glad to have two sewing machines to work with.

In the end we decided it might be best to work on them alone, to make sure we had more time. Nat took my mum’s sewing machine home with her and obviously I kept my own. I spent one evening working on the dress by myself and was pretty pleased to have most of the components completed separately, even if they weren’t actually all attached together.

I posted the above picture to Instagram on September 25th. My dress pieces were all attached and my sleeves were all attached too, though I still had to attach the sleeves to the dress itself. Nat came around again that night and we worked together to motivate each other. By this point there was only three days left until the Murder Mystery and it was beginning to feel a bit of a rush.

That night I learned how to do eyelets – or at least how to cheat whilst doing eyelets. I didn’t feel like I got on very far with my dress and as I was working the following day and again that evening, I was beginning to think I might actually run out of time altogether. However by the 27th my dress was actually complete enough to wear, pretty much finished except for the trim. I sent this picture to my best friend, Amy:

My biggest struggle was definitely pinning the dress in at the sides, adding the sleeves and hemming the dress. This is largely because I only had hopeless guys in the house and unfortunately Nat and I didn’t have to meet up again to help each other do this. Lucky for Nat she had someone else nearby to help… but I just sort of made it up and hoped for the best!

Saturday arrived and I had a lot to do. Food to prepare, decorations to put up, a house to clean and tidy – yet still I had my dress to complete. I started with the trim for the waist, deciding it was the most important. Next I did the sleeves, so that I would have time to actually get both finished. By 5pm, just as Amy was arriving on her train, I was just completing the second arm. Finally I moved onto the neckline and although I was a little disappointed with how it came out, the dress was at least finished.

After some mad dashing around to get the place ready, I eventually headed upstairs to get changed around 8pm. This was actually my first proper fitting of the dress, in its complete state. Luckily it all fit and didn’t look too bad – though I unfortunately felt quite fat in it!

So here is the completed dress…

It’s not a great picture against the red background, but its really the only decent one I have. As you can see it didn’t turn out too bad in the end but I can honestly say I won’t be putting myself through that stress again any time soon – not with everything else I already end up doing for these parties.

And one more pic to show you the sleeves and the back! That is pretty much everything I can show you. It was definitely a sort of fun experience and perhaps if I had less of a time limit and also a less complicated pattern, I would consider making something again. However for the next murder mystery we do the most I’m going to be making is food…

For all the Murder Mystery pictures, feel free to browse here. There are literally hundreds though so you have been warned!

To Sew or Not to Sew, that is the Question!

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As I’ve mentioned before, I have a ton of posts I want to get written, yet somehow the most interesting are always the ones you haven’t planned and just come to you – like something you have to share.

Anyone who reads my blog regularly will know that I am an avid doer of Murder Mystery parties. They are something I have been participating in (and hosting) since I was about 16. As of last year, a fairly set group of us, started doing Murder Mysteries regularly. The first was a Gangster one, the next set in Space, one after that was Pirate and so on and so on. We have bought proper (and the original) board game style boxed sets, we have downloaded some for free and we have paid between £3-£20 for downloaded ones too. Some have been a lot of ad-libbing, others have been mostly scripted – there have been good and there have been bad.

Recently I was given the wonderful opportunity to choose a Murder Mystery from a site, free of charge, in order to blog about it. After checking with the usual suspects as to who was interested, we settled on a group of 8. This gave us only one option from this particular site (its fairly new, up and coming) – a Hamlet Murder Mystery.

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The Murder Mystery is so far unlike any we have done before. However once we’ve done it, I’ll blog all about it. This post however is actually about the costumes we’ll wear, or more specifically – the one I will be wearing.

My part is Queen Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother and Queen of Denmark. I’ve done some research and while Hamlet is pretty much a time period free play, many costumes have medieval undertones. We’ve settled on a Medieval/Renaissance feel of clothing and of course that means I have spent literally hours trawling through Ebay to see what type of thing I might buy/wear.

The problem with any costume you buy, is the consideration as to how much wear you’ll get from it again. Realistically you hardly ever get wear from a costume again (let’s face it, we all like a new outfit every time there is an event to go to) but even still, you have to take this into consideration when deciding how much to spend. On top of that of course is quality, size, location etc.

Since the Murder Mystery is a little under 3 weeks away, I have limited myself to UK Ebay only and location of UK items only. This is limiting in itself. After that I have to consider my dress size – somewhere between a 14 and 16 – which according to many fancy dress companies is XL or even XXL(!!) The most stunning and beautiful dresses – the ones you fall in love with at first sight – are definitely in the region of £40 and upwards. The bottom end (and definitely lower quality) are more like £20. Therefore do you pick quality over price, or be sensible and go for the cheaper but less likeable options.

All these dresses can be found on Ebay. I searched “medieval dress” along with size XL (as majority of other dresses only seem to come in smaller sizes). These pictured above, range from £16-£20 and as you can see, aren’t the greatest selection. The only one I actually liked (which is the second from left) only came in 20-22, nothing smaller (at that price at least).

Next up are the mid-range options. These are from around £20 to £30 and actually aren’t much better. In fact, depending on which seller you’re buying from, even the lower range dresses can be found in this mid-range, just charged a bit higher.

Though the shapes of these dresses are a little nicer, the actual materials aren’t much better than the cheap ones. For the extra money, they’re definitely not worth any more than the other lower range ones.

If money was no object, your choices of course are limitless. The top line of these dresses range from £30 to £40 and are actually quite nice. However the bottom line dresses are all around £70 and you can tell the difference between the two qualities and prices.

Finally, this dress above is one of the highest prices for listed medieval dresses. Though clearly beautiful and well made, this dress with set you back well over £500.

Anyway, the my point is really – you can spend an awful lot of money on a costume and still be left with something not all that great anyway. Where do you draw the line between what is affordable, how you’d like to look (and lets face it, feel) on the night and also what you can justify spending for a few hours of dressing up.

Having weighed up my options and spent several days doing so, I have decided that I am actually going to make my own dress. At first you might think that this is a cheaper option, but ultimately I don’t think it will be. At patterns ranging from £5-£10, you’re already half way to one of the cheaper dress options. However my decision is based on the fact I think I can make a nicer looking dress, for less in comparison. It might still come out around £20-£30 and for sure it will take me a hell of a lot more time (and probably stress) than ordering on Ebay, but at least I’ll know (fingers crossed) that it will a) fit, b) look nice and c) be exactly the colours and material I want it to be.

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The dress I have picked is the one above (its the same dress pattern in both pictures) and I aim to stick to similar colours – the red and gold. I only ordered it yesterday but hopefully it should be here in a few days time. My friend and I are then going to go shopping for material (she has chosen to make her dress too and we’re going to shop for them and sew them together) and make them within the next couple of weeks.

Hopefully I’ll be able to document the progress and show you how my completed costume looks. I’m actually pretty excited for this project, as its been a long time since I sewed anything.

What would your preference be? To sew or not to sew… that is the question!