Those of us who sews, know those days when making a straight seam takes fore times the length it should take. I am having one of those days. Putting the waist band. It took closer to two hours. A simple straight seam right? Wrong. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. Any way after taking seams apart few times hoping that the fabric will hold even though I used fray check. In the long run I finally finished the machine sewing and now for hand stitching the finishing touc

A new outfit in the making. I have seen variations of this design and I made some myself but this time having the fan pleater I chose to go all out in order to achieve the look. Using the skirt pattern from Annabelle but his time I made it a full circle. I lined the silk with silk organza in light red and folded in the fan pleater. It took few attempts. I have double the fabric and when I tried to tie the board it folded on itself. After few times I gave up and steamed it as

In previous blog I covered the making of the skirt. The jacket seemed at first to be a lot easier. Well it wasn't. I put the jacket together using red silk dupioni for both top and lining. I tried it on the doll and the sleeves were too tight at the forearms. I used the last of the fabric, I ordered more red silk but who knows when it will get here. So I decided to throw it away and wait for the silk to arrive. I took a break and then decide to open the seams where it was too

It looks just like I wanted so I am pleased and ready to make the rest of the outfit. I am also very excited to gain the new knowledge on how to tackle a semi circle pleated skirt. The next one will be a lot easier to make. The underskirt was done using silk dupioni for the top and a trim that I got on etsy. The trim has a wire at the hem which curls and creates the fullness that I needed plus it really looks like the original Dior skirt. Now the top. Till later Ayal

It's always great when something works out. It did take few trials but at the end I achieved the results I was after. So this is how it went. After pressing the fabric into one mold of the paper, It was clear to me that I needed another mold. Luckily I found the paper on Amazon and it was delivered faster then I anticipated. It too me less time to make the second mold, since at this point I knew exactly what I am doing, and once it was all done I placed the two molds together

Well, it did not go as well as I planned, but it was not bad. I opened the paper mold and it looks great. Next I lay the red fabric I use for testing on it and started to fold it. In the tutorial video they use two paper molds and sandwich the fabric in between. Since I don't have more of the paper, I thought I can try using only one as the mold and fold the fabric in between the creases. I do that with my straight folds board and it worked. Well, it did not work as well as

So as I told you I set up to make my own fan pleater. I used a heavy paper that I use for patterns, semicircle the paper, marked the sections, used a tool to scratch the lines for easy folding. Then I decided to glue fabric on the back inn order to give it extra sturdiness. BIG MISTAKE. The whole thing got damp, limp and started to disintegrate. Note to self. DO NOT USE PATTERN PAPER. So I went back to the beginning. I saw a while ago YouTube on how to make a pleater. They us