Red Leaf Hair comb French Beading

My middle daughter went to a dance with a Star Wars Theme so you could dress up or go casual she choose casual.  She asked for a hair comb with any of these colors in it : red, black, silver, and or gold.  I choose the first three colors to make her item.    She has been working hard on her school work and I thought even though she did not go to her school dance she should still have something nice for the night.  Plus she was ill and I wanted to bring a smile to her face.

As of late when I do projects I like to use up all of a supply if I can I figure it is better they are used and in an item than sitting in my bead box doing nothing.  Several items got used up on this project.

First I mixed up three shades of red bugle beads to use for leaves for the background of the comb.  Nothing too fancy  but these beads actually cast a real pretty sparkle.
I also used some Swarovski crystals in this on three metal finding rods.  With silver beads between.

As you can see the wire build up pretty fast so for the main section I wanted to have it not be flower heavy but have something.

So I used some silvher beads for petals and white jasper for the center of the flowers and I use some Milli-Flori glass beads to go around the center of the jasper bead.

 Once again the back of the piece for those who like that type of thing.

Girls Choice Dance "A starry Night"

The above Photo is what my kitchen table looked like this morning from 5 am till about 3 in the afternoon when I finished making a lot of  beaded items.  Yes I had out way too many supplies but I like choice as I am working so that is how it goes.  Get out more than you need so you know you have what you want out.

It was dance day and I had yet to make the boutonnière for my oldest daughter or her hair pieces.  My middle daughter is not old enough to date yet and had friends going to another dance that was not a date dance so she went there instead.  I also  made her a special hair piece since she had choosen not to go to the school dance.  She could have gone stag but thought it more fun to be with a group of people not all paired off.

So this was one of two girls choice dances this year at my kids school had the theme " A Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh".  So when I went to make the young mans boutonnière I wanted the colors of the painting to show in the bout.  So I used black , blues. whites, purples and yellows and silver to sparkle like stars.  Yes as always I made a French Beaded Boutonnière.




The main flower on the young mans bout was made from black cut bugle beads.  I use a bead spinner to get the beads onto the wire faster.

 Here are some close up of the details of the boutonnière encase you are interested in that type of thing.

I know there it not really in silver in the painting.  But I wanted some shine and sparkle in the item.  Also my daughters jewelry was silver so it would match her too.

The painting has sort of purple landscape in some spots so I added little purple flowers to the piece too.

The center of the main flower I made yellow like the moon and stars in the painting.  The black of course is like the large formation in the left of the painting.  Below people are always curious about the back of my work.  So here is  a photo of the back to make those people happy.

Little touches of blue in the leaves and little bits of white and lavender in the accents.  What would normally be something like wax flower or baby's breath in a real fresh flower boutonnière.

My daughter got ready at a friends house so I was never able to get photos of her or her date all dressed up.

So here it is pinned on my dress form not the same I know but the best I could do in the situation.  I hope I get some photos form the other mom's so I can have some.

So it has bugle beads, size 11 seed beads, size 6 seed beads, Swarovski crystals, mother of pearl and some silver like beads and of course lots of wire.


I also made two hair picks for my oldest daughter to wear in her hair.

I made hers similar in style but not the exact same as the guys.

I added little bits of silver and white as accent flowers.  her main flower on one of her hair picks was made from multiple shades of blue and white bugle beads.  The center of the flower is made with white jasper beads The little silver accents are some beads I found one strand of once at Michael's they are my favorite beads to give  a little shake and shimmer to a piece sad that is the last of them.  I have not been able to find something like them since.

I also made her a black flower hair stick to sorta  match the guys flowers.

This is all the pieces that went to the preference dance.    The hair picks I had to make my daughters hair curly and fluffy to hold them we said it looked like she had mini dread locks for the night not exactly true but fun to say.  But what she actually had was what was like a spiral perm in the 80's minus the perm.  You twist a very small amount of hair first the roll that hair in a sponge curler and sleep on it the hair should be mildly damp (very slight) when doing this.  The curls will last all day and into the night even after she was snowed on she still have some wave and curl left in her hair.  Which is absolutely amazing for my family as we all have straight spaghetti like hair. 

 If you look closely in the two photos below you might see what we mean by mini dreads.

As this post is super photo heavy I will post the hair comb in its own post.

The Lavendar Hush Chemise

This pattern (by Amanda Williams called "the Hush Chemise" was another gift from a blog reader.  Just warms my heart to know that people who follow my blog love it enough to send me little gifts of thanks.  I decided to use the thread/ yarn lace weight that I got from the lavender crochet frogged skirt my friend Jodee gave me.  I  have about 1.25 pounds of lace weight from that skirt the pattern claims to take about 12 ounces so I should have more than enough and then a lot left over.  I re-spun the yarn the other day to make it a more  correct weight for this project ie not cobweb weight but more a lace/sock weight.

 

I noticed in all the samples of other peoples work it always looks a little big or loose fitted since I want this to work under corsets my kids wear I am purposefully going to go down a size or two so we have negative ease. Hopefully that will work but I am expecting it to come out too large still.
 
As you can see I still have lots of this yarn even after doing about a third of the pattern.   Because I have so much I may continue on with the knitting and make it more gown like to either use as a slip or as a nightgown for one of my girls.

re-spun purple thread

 

So remember that crocheted skirt I frogged with my daughter from the purple skirt.  Well I tried using it today but it was like a cobweb weight which is fine except my project called for  a little thicker lace-weight.  So I frogged the project and re-spun it with a Navajo ply now it is about a heavy lace to a light sock weight and I will try the project again see if it looks more opaque this go round.  When I knit with it this last go round it  was too lacy/see through to say the least too see through for a  camisole I want to add to a corset.  The thread went from 4 balls to 2 balls so now it is also less tails to weave in.  Usually after I spin up things I have to get it wet and let it hang for some reason this time that did not happen.

Elm Leaves Knitted cuffs

I started on these a few times but none of the yarns I picked I liked the way they looked.  One was a variegated gray black sock yarn, another was size 10 cotton thread then this last one was a lace weight  Patons lace (2) bought on clearance 80% acrylic 10% mohair and 10 % wool.  I like it just fine machine wash lay flat to dry.  Makes it simple to take care of too.  It is I just never really like working with  fuzzy yarn as it is so hard to frog if you make a mistake.  The pattern is elm leaves it was a gift to me from a reader who liked my blog was so sweet I have a few more gifts like this to make but I am behind in life in general so please do not think I am not grateful for the gifts I do plan on making everyone I have eve gotten.  It was hard to take  a good photo of this project for some reason the colors never came out right in my photos it is a pale lavender in real life called arctic plum.  first photo seems to be the closest but still not true to color

Just makes me smile

I know I did not do as much as the other people and I did not expect my name in the program at all because of that.  So when I went to the show last night I was excited to see this in the program as I did not expect it at all.  Made my week great.  What also made my week great was seeing a former student as Marius and one of my husbands high-school friend's wife as Fantine.

Valance to folk shirt how to

So as I said yesterday in the update my middle daughter got excited to go through my thrift shop stash of fabric.  I like to buy curtains and such that have pretty details to use as accents on costumes.  She found this single valance that was 14 inches by 56 inches.  Since there is a dance tonight with a red white and pink theme Valentine's I would guess yep you can guess it she wanted it made.  I told her she wanted a shirt she had to help dismantle in this case we are dismantling more than we did for the other one as it is going to need the seem allowances in the valance for the length and width of the shirt.

Warning this post is photo heavy

After ripping out all the seams and cutting it in half she now has two pieces of fabric that are 20 by 29.5 inches.  As you can see a lot of fabric in the seams to make the curtain rod slot and hem.  She gained 6 inches for the length of her blouse.  We could have cut nice little angles  for the arms in the fabric you are welcome too but I like having the extra fabric in there to make it more billowy.

Because I have some ( a tiny bit) of red 100% cotton vintage lace I decided to add that to the two pieces of the valance to make it even a little longer I pinned then surged in place thus finishing the raw edges and makes for a nice seem to flip to the back that I can top stitch over to hold down.



This is where we have to change a lot from the other item as this is only truly enough fabric the front and back of the blouse (for teen/adult size for a baby/toddler I would have cut differently and would have had enough to make a summer dress.  The joys of children growing up the things you learn you can use at one point and not another.

Wish we had found two valances but we didn't.  So we had to find something else for the sleeves

I was trying to keep the flower look of the valance embroidery when I picked the lace with flower details same is true for the fabric for the sleeves. I picked red and white fabric with flower details.

I cut a slip 11.5 inches wide by the width of the fabric 44 inches.  Then on the length I  sewed more lace.  Then cut the whole thing in half so I have two pieces that are 11 by 22  I did not worry about removing the salvage as I know it will get cut off when I serge that seam but you are welcome to cut it off.

Pin in place on the front and back of the blouse sew 8 inches down leaving the ends open see photos.  Then sew up side seams making sure to match up lace edges under arm point and lace edges again.

I had a tiny bit of lace left about 3 inches shorter than the width of the neck but since the item is going to be gathered any way.  I just pinned it so that the fabric and the lace where each divided into four equal sections.

 

Then when sewing held the lace firm so that the feed dogs could pull in the excess fabric and make them fit together.

 
Next I cut two pieces of elastic 11 inches long the diameter of my bicep did the same to the sleeve as I did the lace.  Divided both sleeves and elastic into four equal parts and pined in place.  Then when sewing used feed dogs to pull in and stretched the elastic to make it all fit and gather nicely.

I went back to the neck area  folded over 3/4 of an inch of fabric an made a casing sewed it and laced in 24 inches of small elastic sewed ends together and shut opening.

 

I put it on my dress form and decided  I wanted am empire waist so I sewed twill tape under the bust to make a casing and added elastic.   I like it much better that way.  Still not fond of the back yet but I am all finished or so I thought.

After my daughter tried it on she decided she wanted the back pleated I said I was done with it and she would have to do that her self.  So she placed it on the dress form and went to work changing the back to something she liked more.

Overall she likes the hang of the purple one more but the details on the red and white one the best.  I have not taken a photo of the new back pleats she added.  When she is done ironing it I will post that too as an

update to this post.
Here are the other photos of what my daughter did to the back of the blouse.  My littlest daughter wanted this shirt too.  Since my middle daughter already had the purple one after she added her mods to it she gave it to her younger sister such nice kids to share.