DIY Floral Circle Skirt

Recognize this fabric? Well if you do it is from this summery tutorial I did way back in August of last year, DIY floral printed shorts. Boy, did that year just whiz by. As the new year arrives I am busy clearing out last years things, when my friend and I bought this fabric I clearly remember the shop keeper desperately trying to sell us the entire roll, 3m extra than we needed. We stood there for about 20 minutes trying to say no thank you, we don't have enough money! We barely had any pocket money left. Luckily in the end he gave the rest of it to us for free, I am sooo happy for that. Linen is the perfect circle skirt material, and I still don't have enough pocket money to go out and buy more of it. Oh the problems with being a teenager. For this DIY adventure I was inspired my a present that my mum bought me for christmas, this gorgeous Topshop dress. It is so simple, but the circleness of skirt  is incredibly flattering on any body type. I've seen many people wear circle skirts around town, it usually looks stunning.

Stuff you need:
Zipper
2m of floral linen
Sewing machine

1. Measure you waist and calculate the radius of that (correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that is your waist length/2pi). Fold your fabric in half horizontally and then again vertically as can be seen below. The quarter-circle labeled w needs to have the radius of your waist. L should be length you would like your skirt to be + seam allowance. Cut along these 2 lines, once you open it all up it should look like a large donut.

2. Next cut a slit to open up the donut. Seam both the outer and inner circles.

3. Fold over the open edges and seam them up.

4. Bring the 2 edges together place the zipper face down on top, mark where it ends. Making sure both edges are touching and fronts of either side are facing each other sew from the bottom of the skirt up till the mark. Then attach the zipper. I found this tutorial really helpful.

 Spin and twirl around in this new artwork. Until next time!

Photo Diary: Italy Part 2

I'm back! With a treat of course, a tour through the beautiful Roma. Spelt backwards it's amor, Italian for love. This city definitely lives up to its name. On the left side of the river lies a whole other country within in Rome itself, behold Vatican City. From Trevi Fountain to the Colosseum, enjoy!

Photo Diary: Italy - Part 1

Just a few days ago I got back from an AMAZING holiday in Italy with my family. The food, the fashion, the everything was spectacular. After landing in Milan (the fashion capital) we took a suupppeer fast train east to Venice (a dreamy fantasy, if you ask me). Next we took an even faster train down to Rome (without question my favorite city EVER), then up through a small hill town known as Montepulciano (a cozy paradise) on the way to Florence (I don’t have any words to describe how amazing the art in this city was…just too beautiful). During the trip I overdosed on photography, taking 800+ photos. It was practically impossible to condense it down to just one post. Instead I have decided to split it up into 3 sections: Milan+Venice, Rome (Definitely deserving of its own post and I took majority of the photos here) and Montepulciano+Florence.

Milan

The perfect mix of history, fashion and food is Italy, and a great example of this is in Milan, probably the best example too.

Venice
I thought I was in a dream when I entered the city. The charming canals, mazed backstreets, truly extraordinary. The scenes from movies such as the Tourist (how I love Johnny Depp here) came to life, without out all the action though, which suited me just fine.

DIY Fabric Scrap Chain Bracelet

I have to admit that I am one of those freaks who cannot stand throwing fabric away, especially when it's either a funky print or lace. Those are my two major weaknesses. There is absolutely no way for me to use up all the scraps but I try my best to squeeze in a couple of projects here and there that let me save them. Chain bracelets are incredibly chic and elegant, often accompanied by embroidery thread and beads. Fabric scraps almost never look neat but juxtaposed to chain I just melt. The ruggedness just disappears, I love it.

Stuff you need:

Chain

Fabric scraps

Needle and thread

1. Use a pair of pliers to cut enough chain to fit around your wrist.

2. Cut several fabric scraps, each one should be around 1cm wide. Play with the different types of fabric. I used printed cotton, t-shirt material and lace.

3. Skip the first chain and then put the fabric through the second one.

4. Weave it through the next 5 to 6 chains. Then sew another strip of fabric to the first one.

5. Continue to weave and add the fabric to the bracelet.

6. Don't go right to the end, leave 4 to 5 chains before that. Trim and knot the excess fabric.

7. Use your pliers to secure the first chain to the last one.

Now all you fashionistas go and add this to your bracelet collection!

Inspiration: Sharpie Prints

September, the most confusing month of the year. For me this is an ambiguous time, I'm not sure whether it is Summer or Fall. So I think that September should be its own season, a season dedicated to prints. I absolutely love prints, especially when they are not perfect but a little crooked in a charming way.

These photos will hopefully make you want go search for those heavenly sharpies you have hidden somewhere around you and scribble out a beautiful print on that incredibly boring dress that you don't know what to do with. Have fun!

DIY Floral Printed Shorts

This season I have been drawn to prints, especially floral prints. There are tons and tons of varieties of prints to choose from but to me summer just shouts FLOWERS. After searching for an hour my friend and I finally found the perfect fabric.

Stuff you need:

A pair of shorts that fit you well (Just for measurement)

Floral fabric

Sewing Machine

Newspaper

Elastic

1. Fold your shorts in half and place them on the newspaper. Trace it using a pencil or chalk.

2. Leave a 2cm gap between the outline of the shorts and where you cut the newspaper. This is for seaming the shorts. You may or may not want to reduce the gap on the far straight side of your stencil depending on how snug you want the shorts to be.

3. Fold the fabric in half making sure the far straight side is on the edge. Pin it down and cut around it. Repeat this step twice, making sure the second time the you cut around the edge of the opposite side of the stencil.

4. Lay both pieces back to back like this.

5. Pin and sew down the curve of one side. Not all the way down.

6. Now fold over the top and bottom of the shorts and iron in place then sew. The top seam should be 1.5cm wider than your elastic.

7. Use a safety pin to thread the elastic through.

8. Pin and sew the other curves together.

9. Fold the shorts (still inside out) so that the two sewn seams are facing each other. Pin the unsewn straight edges together so that the edges facing each other are sewn together.

 Have fun showing off your new florals!