I thought I would do a post on my work space, what I use, where I store stuff etc. My 'work space' is basically a small corner of my room that has just been completely taken over by all sewing bits and bobs, fabrics, books, patterns and of course my mannequin and sewing machine! Sewing can often get pretty stressful, especially when your resources aren't doing what you would like! So, this sounds silly, but I named my mannequin and sewing machine, to kind of keep me sane, and I have actually heard of a few other people doing this, I'm not gonna get in to how I chose the names as i'd be typing all night, but I named my mannequin 'Trini' and my sewing machine 'Penelope'. 

1. My rail purposely for finished garments I have made or altered, or pieces that are soon to be used. This keeps everything together and I just need to look at the rail to know what needs to be done and where I am.

2. My pins used to literally grow legs and walk, and I could never find any anywhere, then for my birthday I got two of the Cath Kidston Book pin tins, they came with pins and I managed to fill them both up, I use my Vintage ginger snaps tin for needles. I recently went in to Cath Kidston a bought the house Pin tin as I thought it was so cute!

3. I have such an extensive button collection, every time I go in to a charity shop I normally walk out with millions of buttons! I don't really use buttons with my work I like to just have them.

4. I own sooo many scissors. Fabric/Craft/Embroidery/Paper Scissors and pinking Shears! 

5. This box of patterns was kindly given to me by one of my close friends, and looking through it was like christmas, So many different era's, styles, shapes and sizes.

6. I keep all my spare sewing bits in my Vivienne Westwood shoe Box, i didn't want to chuck it and it was perfect for storage. It has all my embroidery hoops, tailors chalks, tape measures, thimbles, and oh look! Another pair of scissors!

50's playsuit

The more clear digital photo of my playsuit!

Very first post!

These pictures were taken for one of my projects at college. I chose to look at the 50's and did different themes that resembled the 50's. The first theme I chose was 'Nautical', when i think of the 50's the first thing that pops in to my head is Sailors and nautical prints. My 50's nautical playsuit was the first creation for my project. I used a modern pattern and modern fabric for this piece, I changed the pattern to make it more personal by having a button up back with button loops rather than a zip, and i also changed the neckline in to a V neck rather than stick with the original pattern that had a rounded collar. I chose the V neck neck line as I felt the rounded collar was a bit to feminine and peter pan like for a nautical theme. I also chose to use detachable straps to make the garment more versatile, by having the option of a strapless piece as opposed to a piece with straps fully attached. My second piece was a leopard print bustier that was heavily influenced by Jayne Mansfield and Bettie Page on the Pin up scene. I used the same pattern for this as I used for the bodice of the playsuit. I inserted the zip on the front of the garment as I thought it fitted the theme for pin up by making it a bit more flirty. Throughout the project I did extensive research in to the themes I was doing by looking at both past and current trends. When looking at current trends I found that a lot of high street stores had bustiers which has zips at the front which heavily influenced my decision to move my zip to the front. My 2 final dresses were influenced by 50's housewives, however they were not made from scratch, but from 2 vintage dresses I had specially bought. The Top Right Picture shows the first dress, which was taken up and taken in. The centre right picture was an 80's pastel pink, blue and yellow striped dress that i took up. The fabric cut off from the bottom of the dress was then used to make the belt with the bow on the front, The belt was influenced by Burberry AW12. But of course the pictures wouldn't have been possible without my amazing model Ella Sansome, who was so easy to work with and wasn't afraid to get stuck in, and a dear friend of mine Ryan Conduit who photographed everything and then developed the pictures in the dark room, and made everything perfect!