But truly, I have been enjoying MMM a whole lot more this time. I think partly I’ve taken off the stress of daily photography with tripod. I relied a lot more on my iphone camera for documenting the process and my kids to get shots of me in my me-made. My four-year old has become quite the professional iphone photographer!

I am also going out a whole lot more this May.  Off course, there are a few days where the main happening of the day was me picking up the kids from school but hubby was on leave the first four days of the month and now that the kids are older, we tend to be out a lot more for enrichment classes. Without further ado, here’s my documentation for the first half of MMM2013!

Day 2

My dear hubby, whom I’ve been married to for the past 14 years, turns 41! Off course we celebrated with food:) A nice lunch at Indochine restaurant which served fabulous Asian tapas and drinks of all seasons. The mojitos were yummy:) It’s located on the tallest of the supertrees (photo above) at Singapore’s Gardens By the Bay.

Panoramic view from the top was just amazing!

I wore my 40s sweetheart dress and me-made belt, taking in the sights.

The two dome structures below are the conservatories at the Gardens and boy were we at the right place at the right time ! My fave flower has to be the tulip and Tulipmania, a colourful display of 20,000 imported tulips, was on!

Absolutely breathtaking!

Day 3

It was ThemeFriday and we were supposed to have our photo taken with water. We let our girl stay home the entire week as there were 16 kids in her school down with HFMD. 

It was a good time to hangout together with the cheeky yet charming young lady. And we went to her favorite place, Changi airport. I wore my Merry Go Round Jumpsuit and the princess is also wearing a me-made dress in matching pink:)

Day 4

My kids are avid readers and the bookstore is one of their favorite places. I wore my rainbow fish blouse that Saturday as we visited the shopping malls, bookstores and my boy attended his TKD lessons.

I couldn’t contain my excitement as my order for a Pfaff sewing machine has arrived:) With hubby’s support and encouragement, I’m now the proud owner of a Pfaff Ambition 1.5. I’m truly blessed to have gotten it at the price of a 1.0:) Lawrence, the owner of the shop, gave me an orientation to the machine and I must say it is totally amazing!  Sadly, I still have not found time to get used to the new machine but I’m gonna start using it for my next project and hopefully do a review thereafter:) After using my very basic Brother BM2600 for the last 3 years, I think it’s time to move on to something more efficient especially when sewing heavy weight fabrics. The IDT system, touch screen and overlock stitch function are huge plus points!

Day 5

It’s Sunday and my son’s TKD pattern test date! If he passes, he would be a blue belt red tip- 3 steps away from a black belt. My hubby and I were a lot more nervous than my boy. The little bookworm continued to read till just before his test!

I wore a dress I have not been wearing for sometime. The Abandoned Hangar dress. Wearing it again only reminds me of how much I adore this style and I can’t wait to make more of it!

Day 6

This was one of the “pick kids up from school” days. The UV protection hat I wore is reversible and I’ve been wearing it lots since my boy started primary school. I paired the Goldilocks bow blouse with a long pleated skirt.

Day 7

While my boy attends enrichment classes, I had to keep my girl entertained so we had 2-hour of non-stop playtime at SingKids Play-system. With all that bouncing involved, I wore the Echino print Hike and Seek outfit. I was totally exhausted after the session but my girl enjoyed herself so much, making it all worthwhile!

Day 8

Another day with enrichment classes and this time I wore the Woolloomooloo Wharf dress. I have not wore this for a while as I remembered that the linen crinkled like crazy. Somehow after a few washes, the fabric seemed to have softened and behaved much better. The color and fit were very flattering and off course I loved the 1940s seam and yoke details. I enjoyed wearing this so much that I visited Spotlight that very day, hoping to get some good linen. However, I was disappointed with the quality and range of linen there. 

Day 9

My boy’s visit to the dentist and he was perfectly well behaved! I matched his school uniform unintentionally in my eyelet Laurel blouse Day 10

It was ThemeFriday but my sewing room was a terrible mess so I decided to take a raincheck on posing in my creative area.  The fabric has spoken dress was just so comfy to wear:)
Day 11

Are you still here? Kekeke:P

It’s the weekend again and we celebrated mothers’ day! Out came the Festivity Macaron from my wardrobe and I matched the dress with fuschia bag and shoes. My best present was my boy ace-ing his pattern test and getting his new belt! My lil princess totally enjoys her ballet lessons. The special day was celebrated with a sumptuous Korean lunch with my parents.

Day 12

My girl took this photo while she’s on a Barney & Friends kiddy ride while my son enjoys his swimming lessons. It’s Sunday so we’re off to church and Sunday school after lunch. Well, we kinda celebrated mother’s day again as hubby brought us to my fave pizzeria Osteria Mozza. He is so sweet!

Ooops, I nearly forgot the dress- it’s the Giddy with Polka Dots dress, one of my all time fave me-mades:)

Day 13

I am always exhausted on Mondays after activities filled weekends:) Here’s me, my floppy hat and Cape Tara. Yeah, another “pick kids up from school” day.

Day 14

Enrichment class day:) I have not wore this picnic macaron for at least a year or more as the zipper was faulty. The MMM has definitely motivated me to get the zipper replaced and tada! my second piece of mended dress. As good as new, yay! When I picked my boy up from school, he asked me, “Mama, is this one of the dresses you sewed yourself?”. When I answered yes, he then asked, “then why is it so pretty?” I was just speechless:) Sweetness inherited from daddy? Day 15

Flattery gets you everywhere. So, I guess I rewarded my boy with a trip to Toys R Us. He loves to check out toys:) I was going for a massage when he’s at enrichment so I wore my Gather & Go Jersey dress and me-made belt. It’s wrinkle free and makes changing a breeze.

It’s the 1st of May, start of the very exciting Me-Made-May 2013! My initial plan was to do weekly  summaries but it being a public holiday, May Day, in Singapore made it too eventful not to be documented on its own.

Just to make things easier, most of my MMM2013 photos will be taken with iphone and/ or Samsung Note 2 Cameras unless I have no one to take them for me.

Day 1: Let it Begin!

New lace with lace-ups

Do you have a favorite me-made dress that you almost never stopped wearing? This blue garden frock completed two years ago was one of such dresses. If I find it in the closet, it gets wore 99% of the time. This was quite a “surprising” favorite dress. After all, it was made out of Burdastyle’s Wiesn Dirndl sewing pattern!

If I have time to print and stick all that pattern pieces together again, I promise that I will make myself at least a dozen of these. Those piped princess seams on the front and back, the fit and lace trims are the best parts of the design.

Months ago, however, something most unfortunate happened. My new helper accidentally burnt a hole (see below)  through the dress’ lace trim.

My heart was broken.

I didn’t find a suitable trim in my stash to replace it with and so the poor dress was left in the “To be mended” pile. Mending is not something I enjoy doing at all.  MMM2013 was just the motivation I needed. I visited my favorite trims and notions stalls in Chinatown, avoided all the fabric stalls and got myself some fresh lace trim and now, the dress is back in business! Yay!

I wore the dress with “new lace” with a pair of laced up shoes from Poetic Licence. It’s the first time I’m trying out this combination and I just love how well they went together:)

My family and I visited the Singapore Flyer,  the world’s largest observation wheel. However, our objective was not the ferris wheel ride. 

What we were going for, as typical Singaporeans, was the food. I’ve heard quite a lot about the Singapore Food Trail and its good old days decor, setting and food!

And off course I had to take a photo with the vintage sewing machine:) In case you are visiting, I would recommend the Bak Kuh Teh (Pork Ribs Soup).

It’s seriously such a nostalgic experience! I have not seen this sign for Bird Nest Drink for at least 25 years. I loved this as a kid and it’s basically a concoction of syrup, water and agar agar. Not real birds nest:)

A stroll by the Flyer was lovely too, with views to the Gardens By The Bay across the reservoir.

We spent hours at Kinokuniya bookstore afterwards as my 6-year-old loves to read. And there I discovered that many of my favorite Japanese sewing books are now available in English! Great news for those who have been hesitant to try them out due to language.

Tea time comes next.

My lil princess has never really commented on the clothes I sew for myself. Well, not until last week when she saw the Scallop Yoke Laurel hanging in my room. “Mama, your new dress is SO cute”, she squealed in excitement. Her reaction surprised me and really made my day.

This 60s André Courrèges knock off is my second version of the Laurel dress. I stumbled upon this adorable André Courrèges dress on etsy earlier this year and absolutely loved it! So, after completing quite a few projects with Colette Pattern’s Laurel sewing pattern, I gathered up the courage to attempt a knock off version of the dress using the patch pocket version of Laurel.

Photo from smallearthvintage

The front and back yokes were self drafted using my Laurel pattern pieces as reference (I called them my cos these are the post adjustment versions) and the scallop facings were drafted using the yoke pieces as reference. I also used much shorter sleeves (again without gathers) for this version. For the patch pockets, I cut 4 instead of 2, sew them together right sides facing and turn them around. After sewing Laurels with woven fabrics, I was also tempted to experiment with knit and made this scallop yoke Laurel using a very stable ponte knit in navy blue and orange from fabric.com. I do not think normal jersey which have a lot more stretch will work with this pattern though.

Yes, another dress to match these shoes:)

Conceptually, the idea of adding a yoke sounded simple but this version took me quite a white to complete as it involved multiple unpicking of stitches as I wanted the yoke to lie flat without pulling the fabric below. The yokes are topstitched onto the shift before the sleeves are attached.

I tried my best to make the back yoke meet and after a couple of unpicking sessions, it eventually worked out. Thank goodness.

The Floral Laurel Dress

The digital floral print and the scallop lace fabric were from the Dongdaemum fabric market in Seoul, Korea. Part of my fabric buy from our family vacation at the end of last year. After looking at so many fabrics at the Dongdaemum market, the digital print stood out and I wanted 3 yards of it. *boohoo* There was only around 2 yards left but I still went ahead and bought it.

Initially, it was meant to be the lining of my WIP jacket but when I discovered the main fabric of the jacket runs a teal blue hue, I decided to finish the jacket with bias tape rather than lining and kept this digital print for another project, so here it is.  The fabric is from stall A3091 (Yes, I can still remember:)), the stall I bought the most fabrics from, all digital prints.  This one is a poly/ silk blend.  I loved many of the prints at the stall and regretted not buying more. When I re-visited the Dongdaemum market on a Saturday afternoon, I realized most of the fabric stalls were closed! Most information I found on the web stated that they close at 6pm on Saturday but that is not the case. I chatted with one of the stall owners and he told me that 95% of stalls close around 2pm on Saturdays. So, if you are visiting Seoul and the fabric market, please go on a weekday and spend the whole day there. And if you see something you like, grab it. The place is so big that chance are you won’t be able to find the same stall again. Oh, and please bring cash.

This floral Laurel was my wearable Muslin. I don’t usually make a Muslin but I had to make quite a lot of changes to the side seams (from size 6 to size 0) and armhole to get this to work. It was only after all my “learnings” from this version that I was able to make changes to the paper pattern for the Laurel blouses and the “Cute” Scallop Yoke dress. And thank goodness the softness of the lace made the gathered sleeves look acceptable. It’s my only version with gathered sleeves. I wore this dress for an Easter gathering with friends and they were surprised that it’s a dress I sewed, not bought:)

Oops, sorry didn’t realize my sleeves were rolled up

Both dresses were finished without zippers as I didn’t find installing one necessary at all given that the dresses have a substantial amount of ease, both fabrics have some poly in them and don’t crinkle much. So, both versions are slip on shift dresses. However, if cotton or linen is your choice of fabric, I would highly recommend installing a zipper or the garment might be all wrinkly when put on.

I’m now busy with trench coat sewing, gosh it’s progressing so slowly!!!!! I hope to get it done in time for our family vacation in June. We will be spending two weeks in the beautiful country of Denmark, temperature is expected to be between 10 to 20 degrees Celsius. I can’t wait! I do not know where to start when it comes to fabric shopping in Denmark- I’ll be staying in Copenhagen, Odense and Legoland, Billund, so all recommendations are welcomed!

And in the meantime, I’m also happy to be back doing ‘So,Zo…’s' Made Me May 2013! I took part in Made-Me-March 2011 and Made-Me-June 2011 but wasn’t able to participate in the last couple of MMM and SSS due to prior commitments. It’s so good to be back! So, here goes:

‘I, Adey of The Sew Convert, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May ’13. I endeavour to wear a minimum of one handmade or refashioned garment each day for the duration of May 2013, with no repeats.’

My wearable muslin is a dress which I will share in my dress post later. While I made very little changes to other sewing patterns from Colette such as the macaron and parfait, I had to make quite a lot of changes to the Laurel. So, I would highly recommend making a muslin if you are keen to sew the Laurel.

White eyelet Laurel blouse

My white eyelet Laurel blouse is made with a cotton stripe eyelet fabric from fabrics and trimmings a few years ago. This fabric has a sweet, understated scallop edge but was never used as I was concerned that all that white and stripes were going to make me took wider than I was. The trick I eventually figured out was to wear a matching white camisole on the inside because the stripes over the camisole ‘disappears’, creating an optical illusion which fought effectively against the horizontal stripes. I must say the Laurel pattern really helped me stash bust my “less than 3 yards” fabric stash which had not been moving for a long time.

I bought the digital version of the pattern but only printed the dress pattern to save paper. So, my blouses are essentially shorter versions of the dress. I chose a size 4 for shoulders and bust and tapered down to size 0 for the rest. Besides cutting wider armholes (these were tight!), I also lengthened the sleeves which I thought had an awkward length which didn’t flatter my big arms. The length of the blouses were also lengthen as I liked to have the option of wearing them tucked in or out.

Another advantage of using a stripe eyelet fabric. This has to be the easiest stripe matching EVER! The hem and sleeves edges were cut on the scallops. This way, no hemming was necessary so a couple of hours was all I needed to get this version done. Near instant gratification!

I wore this outfit to pick my son up from school last Friday and received compliments. Sure beat the tees hands down:) The cotton and the eyelets definitely helped cool me down in this heat!

Pink Petal Mesh Laurel blouse

This pretty hot pink petal mesh fabric was from Gorgeous Fabrics some time back. I underlined the bodice with a fuschia silky lining. The lining was so silky that it was a pain to cut! Thank goodness there were only 3 pieces! The sleeves were cut on the selvedge so I didn’t have to hem them.

Oh! There’s something else I did differently. I didn’t fancy the puffy sleeves so I made adjustments to the top of the sleeves and did without gathers. I find that more flattering for this style.

All seams on both blouses were finished with french seams since they were light weight fabrics.

I wore this blouse to the mall and church yesterday and LOVED it!  Unbeknown to me, hubby was snapping away with his phone camera behind me while I was checking shop windows for inspiration so thank you dear for these back and side back shots:)

And he caught me red handed checking out this amazing pleated dress with what looked like smocking on pleats on the border. 

It looks simple yet amazing! Can anyone tell me what kind of smocking this is? Or how I can recreate this look? I would love to sew this lovely skirt.

When Princess Grace of Monaco visited Gucci’s Via Monte Napolene store with Prince Rainer in 1966, Rodolfo Gucci commissioned artist Vittorio Accornero to create a special floral pattern on an original silk scarf just for her. And the rest you could say is history.

The result was a gorgeous illustration featuring 43 varieties of flowers, plants and insects that has since undergone multiple interpretations and has been featured on several accessories and ready-to-wear items. Today, it is one of Gucci’s most timeless and storied motifs.

The two-day only exhibition at the ArtScience Museum displayed a curated selection of archival pieces from Florence’s Gucci Museo, including original flora scarves, drawings from Accornero dating back to the late 1960s, women’s ready-to-wear pieces including dresses, blouses and gowns, handbags, and unique porcelain items, all carrying the iconic flora print.

To be frank, I only expected flora prints but what greeted us upon entry to the exhibition was a few couture gowns wore by celebrities on the red carpet. What a nice surprise!  This is a very small exhibition compared to Valentino Retrospective which I attended a few years back but I’m really thankful that photos are allowed this time.

This champagne charmeause column gown with cut out sleeves is truly spectacular. It was wore by French actress Lea Seydoux at Cannes Film Festival premiere of “Il Gattopardo”.

Photo source (www.zimbio.com)

The gown’s bodice is encrusted with silver and gold metallic beading. 

From this photo, I believe the individual embellishments were hand stitched onto the completed outfit.

Next up, a simple and elegant navy blue gown which was wore by Argentinian/French actress Bérénice Bejo at Golden Globes 2012. This is a masterpiece and my favorite piece on display at the couture section.

Photo source (www.justjared.com)

Look at all that details at the waist! I am totally in awe at this point but wait…

just how magnificent are those pleats and godets?

Salma Hayek wore this embellished champagne gown at the opening of Cannes Film Festival two years ago.

The gown is breath-taking…

with the beaded section merging seamlessly with the pleats. My jaw dropped.

This sexy purple pleated gown is gorgeous! Aishwarya Rai walked down the Cannes Film Festival red carpet in this beauty in 2010. I adore the low back but unfortunately didn’t get to see the back of the gown at the exhibition.

Photo source (www.styleguru.com)

The iconic flora came in full bloom at the second section of the exhibition.

The colors of spring in full display on the white background of this fabric. Very pretty.

What a beautiful vintage housecoat this makes!

And I couldn’t take my eyes off this pleated cape blouse.

Here’s a dress in the black colorway. Very elegant.

I am so in love with this porcelain like combination of blue and white. I heart this flora trench!!!

I’ve always loved border print and this is no exception. The design is so 40s too. And where can I get a dress form wrapped in that beautiful fabric?