Return of the JacieKakes (now in 3D!)

Hi all,

It's been a busy few months for me. Mainly because I started picking up theatre work, and have had to juggle that with uni and the night job. What began with making a few things here and there turned into me turning in a LOT of sewing hours for two productions. I even got my first mention in a review. You can see it here (hey, you gotta start somewhere lol, but there I am in print: Jacinta Grando as assistant designer). And I ended up getting my first paid gig after only 6 months in the biz.

Unfortunately, my first paid job was to make and fix curtains that were torn down... EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. I felt like Sisyphus, rolling that stone up the hill only to have it tumbling down again. For three weeks I cringed everytime I saw it ripped, then took it home to get it all done again. Nevertheless, it was my first job, and I'm sure I'll look back and remember it as my first big break.... I think. 

I feel I should emphasize...Every. Night.

So now here I am - I have my first designing and creating job (a post apocalyptic version of the Tempest, like you do...) and by some miracle I've got some time up my sleeve to do some blogging on here. I've kind of made it my pre-New Years'- resolution to put some more time into this and my etsy store (which, by the grace of God, should be up soon. It's been like the Odyssey of Etsy store building, with Ithaca being some mythical stage where I'm selling pretty things on the interwebs). Hours of perusing on Regretsy has at least shown me what to avoid doing, and with me making up some new patterns I should be on the move once more before January is over.

I have been vintage sewing a lot in the time since, and I've actually managed to make a teensy amount of money off it too. I seem to be having more questions about whether I can make historical costuming more than anything else, but hey, anything is good at this point.

Some of the things that I've been working on have been quite 40's and 50's inspired at the moment. I shall be getting some pics up in the new few days (and this time I will do so), and to attract some new blog readers, I've been thinking about adding a few tips and tricks that I've learnt over the last few months, so that there's something to come here for other than my blathering on about what I'm doing/ gushing over fantastic patterns. Goods shall be delivered, I promise.

Have a fantastic and safe New Year. I myself will probably be spending the first few days of it researching burns patterns and prosthetics for Caliban (which shall be thoroughly nightmare inducing) and working on creating a bodice pattern with a neckline like this;




So wish me luck :)

Fare thee well.

I'm Baaaaack...

Hi everyone!
No, I'm not dead. Or on a secret mission. Or enjoying a secret overseas adventure holiday with Johnny Depp (I wish).
During the past 6 weeks I've been settling into the new house and planning for the CSFC (I've been upgraded to Events planner and Sponsorship Coordinator) and so busy stuff abounds for that. So between a massive plaaning for stuff for that (we're having a medieval feast as a fundraiser in August. Guess who's in charge of the cooking... Yep. Lucky old me) and work I've been trying to sew as much as possible.

SO,  dear reader, I hear you ask "What have you been making, Jacinta? Show us photos."
Weeellllll, unfortunately I seem to have lost my camera, so for the moment I'm stuck taking pictures on my phone (not the most fabulous of devices) and so, I hope that you will forgive the resolution for the photos I'm able to put up here until I can get a new one.

Meet Pandora.
And then quake in fear at her powers of destruction, for she is the Harbinger of Doom for my sewing area. She let me get this green dress finished though (mainly because she was waiting to pounce on it and claim it as her own). Its quite cute - note the lace details. I was trying to combat the winter blues when I made this, so it turned out quite girly (though the long sleeves are a practical necessity for this freezing cold.)
Dora apparently likes it as well.
As well as this I"m almost finished - *FINALLY* with the 50s pin up bra I've been trying to do. The short waist one only has straps waiting for it (I'm off to Textile Traders or Spotlight for loops tomorrow.) That one has a matching pair of tap pants to go with it.
The other one I have nearly ready is the long waist version, which I did in peacock satin (I think I mentioned it in an earlier post). It s got 8mm boning and hook and eye tape - a million and one challenges that means when I'm finally finished my achievements will be documented in a ten paragraph blog of how fantastic my boss skills are... swaggin' a plenty coming up lol (jokes).

Other projects are waiting for my undivided attention - I also have a costume to make for a uni friends production - a fantastic floral 50s full skirted sweetheart neckline dress - with a petticoat with fabric petals sewn into the layer at the hem

I love theatre :D

Look forward to the next post. You may be surprised to find out that I haz been experimenting with scanning patterns into the computer and trying to make them PDFs. I've managed a simple one that may be coming up in future :D Thank you, Burdastyle!

Anyway, enjoy the rest of your week, and as always, feel free to comment or whatever :P

On track to Freedom

Hey all!

nearly finished up with the semester stuff: thought I should post the photos of my finished design 100 project!

For those that have read my older posts, I'm sure you remember the long and arduous road to this point. I'm looking forward to putting this far, far behind me :)


Hence:





and here is a copy of the Alice dress (my personal fave :D)





    














DONE!! yay!

Now, back to my other projects haha... Unfortunately, that wont be happening until I finish moving on Sunday :) looking forward it! However, I think dads going to miss me a bit, however, so I made these for him last night, in a fit of pique :D






Anyway, I'm off for the next two days, and I'll be back on the weekend :)

Bye all!

Lack of writing time

Hello all!

So, as you have probly noticed, sweet FA has been done on this blog in the past two weeks, (I know, I know, I am a bad person.) Its coming up to the last weeks of semester and trying to do everything is making me want to rip out my hair from stress lol... however, I think that there is light on the horizon (It should hit in about 12 days lol) so look out for a deluge of blog posts on what I've done lol... (And I have done some stuff, believe me.)


Until we next meet, enjoy this picture. In honour of Pandora, the kitten who lives in mah new sharehouse :)
(and who I hope will not go too close to my sewing machine :S)
Cya!

Inspirations

Ok, fellow sewing afficionados and bloggers alike, since I'm bored (i.e. in the abacus lab at Curtin, procrastinating from writing this 2400 word essay about The Bard) I thought I might share some of my weekly inspirations for those future projects that I am heartily looking forward to.

Hence, INSPIRATIONS







Because this einstein felt brooch is soo cute... I had to add it :)
























I love the ruffles and details on this...                                       






















This was basically the dress I found, if you added a peter pan collar to it  and it was cotton instead of wool blend :*(


Ok, that definitely enough procrastination for me, I'm off :) wish me luck getting this essay done!

Retro Vintage fairs ftw!

Hey guys! Busy week as it has been, I still have reserved fifteen minutes to show you a couple of awesome things I found while at an awesome retro and vintage fair at Claremont showgrounds on Saturday.
And the best bit is that they were all so cheap, which is great for poor struggling uni students like me :)

SO....

After I walked into the place, hyperventilated for a few short seconds from joy, I scoured all of the places for patterns (like you do...) and I found these awesome peices for just $1 each...

Yup. One dollar each.

And then I hit the racks and racks and RACKS of awesome vintage finds. There was this gorgeous peter pan collar sheath dress in this gorgeous green I had to tear myself away from, mainly due to the $60 that the person wanted for it. But, after I had run around gathering as much inspiration for new dresses and thingts I found this piece of remnant (about 1x1.5m) of 8mm houndstooth knit for $5.

I think its going to be a good fabric for the peter pan collared sheath I plan to make myself to make up for the one I couldn"t buy. Which I'll be putting in the massive pile labelled "Stuff I Have To Make When I have Time During The Semester Break." I also grabbed some spotted material for the first pattern (not in red and white, hopefully it will be just as cute though.) which will also be going into the aforementioned pile.

It's nice to have something so great to look forward to, though. Looking longingly at all of the projects I'm going to do after these two dresses I'm making atm for Design 100 is keeping me going like the clappers to get everything done :) Its more tempting than a packet of Tim- Tams and a bottle of red wine (or a date like the one I'm going on tomorrow. Maybe the colourful dress can finally get some usage lol).

Anyway, have a great week. Comment me with any interesting thoughts on alterations on the two dress patterns, or if you've made anything similar :) or even if you were at the same fair and found yourself unable to leave without a snazzy new purchase. Have a good week, everybody.

Photos! News! Superlatives! Exclamation Marks!!

Hi everybody...
This is it... the moment you have all been waiting for. Lots of photos, lots of catching up on past projects. Lots of other stuff..

So, I'll start with the dresses I finally took photos of lol. They have, after all, been long overdue...

 This is one of the first dresses I made this year. Its suiting cotton, I think...

Technically, it needs buttons, and I'm sure that you guys can see the BIG boo-boo I made on the front of the skirt panel (which I'm still trying to find time to fix...) But I like it. Its one of the first patterns I tried to cobble together on my own, and I hadn't really tried to adapt anything until that point.

                                                                                                                      



And THIS one is my favourite dress I've made so far. I found the fabric for $6/m (which is just over a yard for you crazy imperial measurementists :P) at Spotlight and fell in LOVE. Unfortunately, I haven't worn it yet, as I'm looking for a special occasion which merits something this bright being worn in public. I made this one before I made the Elenore dress, and this was the one where my patterning skills actually strated to develop :)

And this is the teddy I made a couple of weeks ago from an Anna Depew pattern :) Of course with a slight twist...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
























Basically the same pattern, but I had a problem with the length of the thing vs. the length of my torso and I had to take out about 5 cm around the hips. I put a frill on the front because I could, though :P


And pearls, and pretty ribbon lol. I may be a sci fi nerd, but a do have a perchant for frills and lace and pretty things...





Unfortunately, it being on my mannequin doesnt do it justice, so I'll have to don it and take photos sometime :) In the meantime, I have heaps of projects that are finished to photograph. Or to finish...



Like the ones that are actually coursework lol   






Anyway, I'm back to it but I hope you'll leave feedback on what I've dont so far. Have a great weekend and hopefully I'll be back on here next week :)


Bye!!

Normality levels set to sane again :)

Hello all :)

And I do say all, because I came back to this today and realised that people were actually reading this now lol. Thank you for taking an interest :) I'm writing you all a very, very long one to compesate for my lack of new posts.

Ok, so I'm finally back, which is the biggest news of all. Relay for Life was fun: I dressed up as a Weeping Angel (foolishly spending three hours hastily painting a set of cardboard wings and experimenting with talcum powder and pomander instead of getting much needed rest the night before). I rocked up, freshly face painted and eager to make some money for cancer research :) then I realised one massive fault in my plan for walking laps around an oval for hours at a time.
Mainly the wire that I had sewn into the hem at the bottom to weigh it down.... which kept catching at my ankles and feet as I walked. ^_^ My lack of forward thinking amazed me, I can tell you. We won first prize on the day though for theme and most amount of money raised by a Curtin Guild club (hence the attachment of this rather fetching shot of my cleavage)

Immortalized in grey poplin...

Regardless, I made it. I am alive, kicking and sewing... Plus I won a digital camera for most funds raised in chocolate selling so more pics will be up soon :) and with my new sewing machine (Igor was on his last legs and finally carked it, rest in peace my friend, the last 5 years have been wonderful) I plan to kick back into it.

Thats all for now, but the next post won't be too far away :)

Le awesome Anna Depew

I seriously love her patterns and have a growing stash of projects with v. pretty fabrics. Im mentioning her today because;
A: she has a pattern  in a  competiiton...
B: she's epic :)

thanks again to her :)

My Attempts at Pattern designing from scratch...

Hi all,


So, two weeks have passed and I'm finally back on :) Uni has been so hectic that my poor little sewing machine been lookin' lonelier and lonelier.... UNTIL.... lol

My post about my design 100 project has come to fruition and I've finished the two major dress designs for it.

Yeah, I gave up after 3 attempts to draw legs on MS Paint lol

More coming on actual CONSTRUCTION next week...

Being a Busy, Busy Bee

Ohaiyo! Haven"t been on here for over a week, as am v. busy atm. Having to organise a screenplay and costumes is very time consuming - but it is, admittedly, rather fun. Looking forward to having some free time this weekend so that I'm not falling too far behind on all my side projects. I'll add some pics of the bloomers and teddy from a few weeks ago that I finished this week :D hopefully you'll have some feedback or something.


On a different note, looking forward to getting onto three new projects - a corselet and garter belt and pin-up bra from Anna Depew's Etsy store. the corselet is going to have a bra attached as well. it should be a bit of a fun challenge to integrate two patterns into one garment XD. Garter belt and bra will be in peacock blue satin and the corselet in peach satin XD. So wish me luck on those, and like I said, pics of other stuff to date should be up here on monday XD. Have a good weekend everybody

Loving Uni

I love university - I should have been there years ago...

I have a unit called The Design Experience 100. Our main focus this semester is to create a design for something  and them realise it... guess what media I'm going to use lolol.
I get to do a project on a designer who inspires me and my work.I chose... Colleen Atwood.

Say hello to my hero...

This amazing lady has been up for 9 academy awards, won 3 of those nominations, and is responsible for some of the films that inspired me to get into Costume Design. And so, my project is a dress and suit ensemble, and then a short 30 seconds of film displaying them.
 More soon about that. in the meantime, I'm just sewing up a cool Collette design for mini bloomers.

More later.

Oooooooh... pretty...

Its 6 am and just getting light outside. a quick perusal of Fb  has shown me my next project (again haha)

Look at this :D saw it on a corset site in Perth. I've always loved the Pin up style of skirts and dresses, it's nice to wear something that you pull off a lot better when you have a nipped waist and big hips like myself. the one thing I don't like is the top. I might play around with that.

Note: I don't have copyright of this image. I'm just using this as a base for my own pattern.

 Needless to say, if I get this into some sort of PDF format I'd happy to share. I'll show you the finished product first however. Now, enough procrastination- time for uni lol. Jace out.

Party Plans

Party people! Busy as the Brain (loved that cartoon), pondering plans on taking this thing on full force. Will be stocking up on candles and jars atm... you"ll see why next week.

Sewing beads onto the bodice for my dress like crazy. Pics should be up on Sunday. In the meantime, I'm putting up a pic of the finished panel of beads :)

Also, I'm putting up my weekly inspirations - the 1st of many I hope... Enjoy! (please note images below are not mine, and are copyrighted to previous owners XD)

Hopefully my new teddy project will end up looking something like this!!

I'll be making a cardigan this month to go with my Norwegian Wood skirt...

Words cannot describe how much I want a pattern for this dress!!!

Yellow Maryjanes that i want from Etsy. Unfortunately, being a poor student is hindering this purchase :(

Open Days

I am completely aware of the fact that no one reads this yet, however I have been too busy over the last few days at Curtin. Enjoying O day implicitly. Maybe thinking of starting up a club to do with vintage things as there is not one there.

Regardless of these moot points.... onto the point. I'm currently unable to get to the bulk of my projects - which are at my dads house ATM. Rather, I'll be finishing my cape for my bday party and print out this gorgeous pattern from Anna Depew's Etsy store. I'm going to try it with floral silk crepe and satin to start, and I'll add pics of the process.What with uni and all my other stuff, however, it may take a few weeks before this is finished XD

Cheers, and I'm out.

The Dresses

Ok, time to show my stuff... to soften the blow rather than overloading everyone (and to give myself time to photograph eveything) I'll do it day by day.

Under this post you'll see the Elenore dress I wore to 'The Magic Flute' at the Octagon last night. We were meant to be heading out the door to go but I pleaded for two quick photos.
I used my own pattern, based on an old shift dress pattern I copied off of a friends' pattern in early January. The fabric was from Spotlight - I adored the geometric pattern and bought a few metres.

Last night was grand - outside of Analakshmi a small boy stared at me for a few minutes and then tugged at his mums hand and pointed at me. Partially embarrassing, but flattering none the less.

I'm signing out now... may the force be with you :D

In the beginning...

I'm going to start off by blatantly admitting that I will whoring out this page out to my creative sides. Mainly sewing. Maybe knitting or painting, who knows? I dabble... if dabbling meant smacking my new hobby into my schedule with a sledgehammer.

Spent three hours perusing the internet for finds today. Mainly because I felt that despite the fact I have three projects on the go atm, and I'm starting uni week after next that I obviously had loads of time to do things.

So maybe I'll start uploading photos of my creations tomorrow, or something equally interesting... who knows? My long suffering bf is waiting for something other than a disinterested "hyup", so I'm signing out