Sewing and lifestyle blog of a wannabe "full-time vixen"

Monthly Archives: March 2011

The fabric for my wool coat

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Here is my grey coat fabric. Let me tell you, it’s still chilly in these parts so it’ll be nice to have a light Spring coat and if I don’t finish it by Summer, I’ll have a nice Autumnal coat instead!

This is the wrong side, it’s very fuzzy and soft!

It took me a while to figure out what exactly this fabric is. It’s a wool blend and I believe it is a wool jersey or knit. Something like that. :P It’s fuzzy and soft on one side and smooth on the other. If I am incorrect, please correct me! I love to learn new things. I am pre-shrinking it right now in my dryer with this method:

http://off-the-cuff-style.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-pre-shrink-wool-fast-and-easy-at.html

Anyways, I’m really sorry for such a late update. I’ve had to pull a couple of double shifts at my two jobs and some crazy stuff has been coming up at work and my personal life. But I think things are going to calm down again. I still think I work too much…but I think I’ll be able to sort it out soon.

Mr Vixen has been dealing with some terrible things too and it has been spilling over into my life. It’ll be alright but I wish life was less stressful. I still haven’t found any appropriate fabric for my pink half-slip but I’ll be going to the fabric stores again this week. Yay!

Watercolour Dreams

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For the past 8 weeks, every Wednesday night I attended a fashion illustration class for 2.5 hours. It was a beginner’s class and I was taking it to fulfill part of my VSB Continuing Education part-time diploma in Sewing and Fashion Arts. I had a lot of fun. So much fun!

I’m not an artist. I only took one art class in high school, I think, and whatever art experience I had in elementary school. Hahaha! But I spent hours in elementary school and my years in grade 8-10 drawing anime. I think just about every Asian kid does that at some point in their life. By grade 11, I had stopped drawing entirely and focused on creative writing, sewing, and academics. So now years later, about 4 years, I find myself with a pencil and sketch pad again…

I will show you some of my best sketches. And remember, you can click on the photo to see it in a larger resolution.


This was our first assignment! Our teacher just wanted to see where our skills were at.


This is a figure drawn without proper proportions.


This is the assignment we had after we learned the 10 head scale of proportions. Looks better!


We had more assignments in drawing from magazines with an emphasis on fabric rendering.


An original design…


This is one of my preliminary sketches for our final project.


All coloured in!

Everyone in my class did really well! It was a lot of fun to see other people’s styles and be inspired. Every week we were showing each other our homework assignments. The instructor, Gabriela Peana was a very nurturing person. I plan to further develop my skills in fashion illustration. So much fun!

Full-Skirts and Trench Coats

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I have a new goal for myself, I will be posting every 2 or 3 days from now on. I think it will help motivate me in terms of keeping on track with my sewing. Now onto something more interesting!

It’s spring! In Vancouver, this means rain and flowers as opposed to the rain and snow of wintertime. The one thing I am coveting right now is a “full skirted trench coat”. Like this:



The pleating is quite amazing in this cream one! I would love to twirl around in it.


I want to make a pink one like this! Maybe a brighter pink with black highlights. You shall all see soon that pink and black is one of my favourite colour combinations right now.




And I adore the last three photos of what is basically my ideal trench coat. The colour is rich enough to distinguish it from the bland, blah-blah, sendentary khaki that a certain former employer of mine required everyone to wear. *shudders* I would love a pink and black trench coat and a classic coloured one like this.

Full skirted trench coats appeal to me for a few reasons:
1) I am short, only 5 feet tall (shorter than many children!), so I’ll do anything to highlight my waist and show off my legs. Anything that has a hem going past my knees tends to swamp me. Also, rectangular shapes (seen in many classic trench coats) does nothing for me as well.
2) I love the idea of wearing full skirts and full skirted dresses with such a trench coat while galumping in the rain!
3) I am young! Not even 21 yet, so I’m going to wear as many cute, adorable styles as I can get away with at my age.

Now the only problem is that trench coat sewing patterns are hard to find and I have yet to come across one that is also full skirted. So I may need to draft my own or modify a trench coat pattern if I manage to find one. I’ll be keeping this idea on the back burner…

Vintage Patterns!!

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I just bought three patterns off Etsy from the store Opals Owl Vintage! The top one is has just the loveliest collar. The next two show how CRAZY for scallops I am.



I cannot wait to receive them. The owner of the store is away till March 24th on vacation so I will have to wait even longer to receive them. But that is okay! I am a very patient person when it comes to ordering things online. Also the shop is located in Seattle so that’s just a hop and skip away from Vancouver! The first two patterns are just one size off from me and the one on the bottom is exactly my size! Perfecto!

In the meantime, I am going to be making a slip for a pink skirt that I have yet to blog about (but soon!). It was the project from my intro to pattern drafting class last term and I quite love how it turned out. But my instructor did not want us to have to deal with lining our skirts and my skirt is made out of a somewhat thin fabric so I’ll have to make a slip for it!

I’ll use this tutorial from Gertie and I will also add a scalloped edge to it using this tutorial (also via Gertie). Can you tell I LOVE scallops?

I am also going to make a nice spring coat for that transitional period from rainy, cool early-Spring and into late-Spring/early-Summer. It is this pattern:


I am making the long coat on the right but not in such a bright pink, I’m going to have to find a light grey coloured fabric. I used to have a grey jacket from Urban Behaviour that I bought for $10 which I’ve worn to heck. The fabric is cheap so the dye has been fading in many areas. I find a light grey jacket/coat works really well with my wardrobe and style.

That’s all for now! Can you tell I’m excited for my future projects now that my classes are almost done?

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