wedding crafts

Dan and I married 10 days ago. So the million dollar question is, how did I get on with the crafts?

Cake:
Very tasty. The unintentioned use of stem ginger to replace some of the dried fruit was a rather lovely touch. Turns out the cakes really didn't need to be taller - there was plenty to go round with some to spare.
Despite the process of covering the 2 tiers with marzipan and icing (on the warmest day of the year) being a sticky and bad-language-inducing process I managed it. The decorations by my Mum's friend were inspired - fun, not too serious. An excellent reflection of the spirit of our wedding.

Bouquet:
A big hit! Everyone loved its quirkyness. The kids fought over holding it. It did take a bit of a battering, but survived relatively intact. And best of all it'll last way longer than real flowers.

Bridesmaids's dresses
Finished in time. Both girls seemed comfortable in their pretty dresses. They looked very lovely in the ceremony, but were comfy enough to run around in the park after.

My dress

Completed with a few days to spare. I learnt lots from the process. A few flaws in the finished dress, but nothing too crucial. I was very relieved not to have messed up my beautiful fabrics.

that's me in the middle





Bunting

I cheated! I stapled a bunch of old playing cards to tape and used that to string up as bunting. I did the same with some butterfly shapes cut out of multi coloured felt. Given that the rain started that night and destroyed all outside decorations I was glad I hadn't expended a lot of time and effort on them!

So there you are: wedding crafts complete!

Although we didn't ask for any gifts we had some wonderful handcrafted ones: paintings, wood turning, knitted items, cupcakes. We had a brilliant couple of days.

Wedding craft project: An update

Today is 9 days until I get married, so time for an update on project 'craft your own wedding'!

Progress so far:

1. Cake
Baked and regularly dowsed with brandy. Last night I covered the 2 layers with marzipan.
Good things:
#1 The crumbs I had tasted good.
#2 A friend of my Mum's has offered to decorate it. She's an artist so I have high hopes of a very pretty result.
Possible worries:
#1 The cakes a quite stumpy - about half as tall as most wedding cakes. Hopefully that's fine and everyone will be happy with having a higher ratio of icing to fruit cake!
#2 I forgot to brush the cake tiers with apricot jam before covering with marzipan. Hopefully that's not a completely crucial step.
To do:
Ice with white icing in a couple of days time and deliver to my mum for decorating by her friend.

2. Bouquet
Brooches collected, ribbon flowers made, all attached to wire stems and gathered together. I've made a fabric and tulle yoke made to sit round the top.

To do:
Bind the stems with ribbon.

3. Bridesmaid dresses
One completed, one needs the hem finishing off. This is the completed one:

To do: give both dresses a good press, finish the hem of the other dress.

4. My dress
Silk cut out and sewn, lining attached, zip inserted. Buttons bought, covered with silk and sewn on.

To do:
Sew on loops to close the top of the bodice, hem the lining of the skirt, hem the outer layer of the skirt, inserting horsehair braid to give it some body.

5. Bunting
Not started yet. Oops! To be honest though, it wouldn't matter terribly if this didn't get made in time as we have quite a few other decorations: pretty lanterns and strings of lights etc.

I'm pretty sure that this is all do-able in 9 days, with a full time job to juggle and various other organisational tasks for the wedding. It should be possible I think. I have a schedule, so as long as I don't slack off it should be all good.

I'm enjoying feeling crafty. My employer might not be enjoying the fact that I'm consistently 10 minutes late to work at the moment!

the wedding craft project

I'm getting married 4 weeks today, and because I do like a project its a very DIY wedding. Is it wrong to turn your own wedding into a craft project? I'm quite liking having lots of crafts to do, but now the deadlines are drawing close so the pressure's on!

Here's my to do list. I'll post an update nearer the day to let you know if I managed to finish everything in time.

Make my wedding dress
Progress so far: Practice version made in calico, practice bodice made in fabric similar to the real thing, real fabric chosen, bought and cut out. Started sewing the bodice.


Make bridesmaids dresses
Progress so far: Nearly done! Just need to hand sew the waist bands and hem the dresses.

Make wedding cake
Progress so far: 2 fruit cakes baked. Currently being dowsed in brandy at regular intervals so that they are suitable boozy by 2nd June. Will need to ice them a couple of days before the wedding and make a sponge or carrot cake for the final layer.


Make bouquet from vintage brooches
Progress so far: brooches collected, wire and tape bought to turn them into a bouquet.


Make bunting to decorate the garden for the party
Progress so far: None, but I have loads of fabric scraps so I' m sure it will be quick to do.

Its a fair amount to complete in 4 weeks, but hopefully I'll do it.

jackets jackets jackets

Its getting obssessional now: I must sew something other than jackets!

The latest jacket I've made, finished last week:

This one wasn't for me, so I can't vouch for fit and style as I haven't yet seen it on the person it was made for. I'm told its good though. (Not wishing to sound big headed, but she said it was amazing.)

Anyway, next up are 2 bridesmaids dresses and an evening dress, so I'm temporarily getting away from tailored styles. I'll be back with a vengeance once the dresses are finished I'm sure!

home decoration

This week I failed on the cooking front (no new recipes), but I did only get back from holiday on Monday afternoon to an empty fridge and bare cupboards, so I'm using that as an excuse!

I did, however, complete a blind for the house. We have a long window at the front of the house which is too long and too narrow for an off-the-shelf blind, so I decided to have a go at making a roman blind. Basically, I was tired of the neighbours seeing me in my pyjamas when I stumble out of bed and downstairs to make coffee every morning!

I was pretty pleased with the final result:

I thought it wasn't too bad for a first attempt. I followed some instructions I found online, with some minor adaptions, and it turned out to be quite straight forward to construct. The only awkward part was marking out (accurately) such a large shape for cutting the pattern.

A mobile for Lily

In August a dear friend of mine had a baby girl, and in September she asked me to be a non-God Godmother. I felt honoured to be asked, and hope to be able to have a wonderful relationship with baby Lily as she grows up.

Lily's first Christmas is coming up and I wanted to make something for her rather than buying something - I felt that I wanted to put time and effort into the gift. I decided that a mobile to hang over her cot would be a nice first Christmas gift, so I got out my felt, embroidery thread, glue, and ribbons and started crafting. It took a little while to complete, but I'm pleased with the results:

I figured that unless Lily is precociously advanced it was safe to post this - its unlikely to ruin her surprise!

I took the templates for the felt items from my marvellous craft book Everything Alice.

An update: It seems Lily likes her present!

Dressmaking

I have a guilty secret - A box full of part-made dress patterns. Begun then abandoned to a more interesting/more urgent job. Recently I have resolved to finally complete a few of these, and in the last few days I actually ticked one off the list: A shift dress from a very elegant 1950s pattern I found when rifling through the shelves at a junk shop in Bath.



There are things I would do differently next time (my zip insertion didn't go all that well!), but I love the style of this dress. Very elegant and understated (until you make it in giant red polka dots of course!).

Crafting

My corsetry course back in August seems to have had the desired effect, in that it has inspired me to do more sewing. No, the corset isn't finished yet, but that's largely because I've had several other projects on the go at the same time. (Its not far off though, so I hope an update will be forthcoming soon!)

The first sewing project to actually get finished was completed this morning:



A toy rabbit for Dan's niece's 1st birthday.

I was really quite pleased with how he turned out, and Dan seems amused and charmed by the dandily dressed and dapper little toy. I'm not sure if it really shows up in this picture, but I sewed his niece's name onto the bottom of the jacket to make it a bit more customised and personal.



The instructions came from a wonderful book full of craft projects which I bought recently called Everything Alice. You can find out more information about the book here.

I think a lot of people I know will be getting hand-crafted Christmas presents from the book this year - hope they don't mind!

Apologies

Apologies that my blogging has been neglected for a couple of weeks: I've been working on a different kind of creativity.

Last week I did a week-long course at London College of Fashion on how to make custom-designed and fitted corsets. It was amazing! I learnt loads of good sewing techniques, as well as cutting a pattern for a corset to fit me, and making it (well, nearly anyway - I have some finishing up to do at home). The course was just a starting point though - there's loads more that I can learn through trial and error, practice and experimentation. I'm looking forward to improving on the skills I've learnt!

So here's the pattern as I drafted it:



Then traced out into individual pieces and ready to cut the fabric:



Snipped to size!



Catching up a bit by doing some of my sewing at home:



And the front (on the right) and back parts of the corset in the workshop:



You can see the industrial sewing machines in the background - they gave me a lot of grief! Being used to a domestic sewing machine I found it tricky to get the hang of the heavy, FAST, industrial machines. I'm sure I would manage them if given enough time to get accustomed to them, but a week wasn't really long enough to do so.

I'll be finishing the corset at home over the next couple of weeks, so watch this space for a snap of the completed project.