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

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Productivity down the drain

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So friends, I have to admit I’m having a difficult time being productive. I can narrow it down to a few things:

– being addicted to my computer
– not eating properly/enough (low energy levels)
– sleeping in too much
– working too much and work related issues
– having family things to deal with

I am definitely going to rein in on my computer/internet usage tomorrow. A good tip I found is to give yourself one or two alloted time periods to be on the computer – say one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon/evening to check emails and do internet housekeeping tasks. I get a ton of pertinent emails from my job at the library so cutting out internet completely is not possible.

I have to work harder at eating properly. And not sleeping in. And maybe that will help deal with needing to work 6 days a week usually. I hope to cut this down to 5 days by the time I leave my job at the laboratory. The lab is a drain! One hour commute to and from and being required to be there in the morning (at my other job I work in the afternoons almost exclusively and I have night classes….) and being required to be there for 7 to 8 hours. T_T

Hopefully I get my family related things over and done with by this Sunday. Blergh.

Here’s a Katy Perry music video featuring fantastic vintage garb, make-up, hair, and accoutrements! This cheered me up today. I want to get back on track of things tomorrow.

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…

My Sewing Studio!

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So it’s been a long time again and I apologize for that. My goal from now on is at least one post per week. For my next posts, I’ll take pictures of the projects I’m working on in my classes – Haute Couture Pattern Drafting, Fashion Illustration, and Sewing Level One.

For this post though I took some pictures of my sewing studio. Sure it’s really just a room but I like to think of it as my studio, it’s got EVERYTHING I could ever need in one room. The only qualm would be a larger table for fabric cutting but the one I have in there right now is quite adequate. No more cutting on the floor!



These are my two dress forms! The one on the right is Peggy Sue, my duct tape double/clone and the one on the left is unnamed at the moment but if you have a suggestion I’m open to one. I named the duct tape one Peggy Sue because I was listening to Buddy Holly one time and I just really loved how he mentions this girl named Peggy Sue in a couple of his songs. The red one is an adjustable one I got from Dressew for $125 + tax which is 50% off the original price! Whooooooooooo! It was during Dressew’s 50% off Everything in the store due it being their 50th anniversary recently.



The adjustable one is great for me because I’m not very “shapely” and I actually only need to adjust the waist a little larger, the bust and hips are just fine. Peggy Sue (duct tape dummy) is problematic because she’s a whole inch or two larger everywhere due to the nature of duct taping. Also, she’s not pinnable. But I can’t seem to think of where to put her or if I should just dismantle Peggy Sue. The base is a Christmas tree stand and I used a PVC pipe from Home Depot to mount her. My sewing studio is not very big so she might have to go!


The curtains I made! Wooden dowel is from Home Depot, fabric and lace from Dressew. It’s difficult to see due to my poor photography skills but that is mint fabric with white and pink lace. I love the colour combination of mint and white or cream right now….




My horde of patterns…..I also have a goal of getting through EACH one at least two or three per month after my classes for this term end. Must obtain cute clothing….


Serger! I love her so so much. I think she might need a tune-up although the other day when I was using her, she wasn’t doing so bad.


AND THIS PRETTY BABY! I sold my other machine on Craigslist and actually made a little bit more money than I had originally paid for it. And then I put that money towards this sweet pea. She’s a BEAUT. The machine of my dreams, does I think 5 different buttonholes, including the highly coveted (by me) keyhole buttonhole.



And my fabric and cone thread stash. I am also starting a mini spools of Gutterman thread stash. My fabric stash is actually not as large as other sewists mostly because I like to work on one project at a time and buy the fabric with a specific project in mind. This means I don’t waste money on fabric too! But alas, I cannot control my pattern stashing.

So that’s my sewing studio and I love being in it! It’s a room I’ve rented out from Brianne who lives 8 blocks away from me, it’s a nice jolly little 10 min walk from my apartment! Very convenient, it’d be more convenient if Mr Vixen and I just moved into a two bedroom but we’re kinda attached to our current apartment (despite its many downfalls) and he just doesn’t have the money to move.

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