Midori + Meetup Awesomeness

Spent the better part of yesterday (‘course it was the better part!) with Jenny and Emily. Prepare to have your retinas seared by hideous iphone images. But first, here’s the dress I wore:

Standout moment of the day: walking through Myers department store and being approached by two buff, shirtless, hunks in low waisted jeans.

Hunk 1: Moisturiser?

Me: What, to put on you?

Hunk 1: *pause* -it’s a sample…

Me: Sure, why not (in my defence, it was men’s moisturiser and he did consider my offer).

I believe Emily’s response to Hunk 2′s offer was, ‘Sure. Squirt some on, I’ll rub it in for ya’.  

What was that thing about great minds thinking alike?

Emily, deconstructing the work of art that was the top tier of our high tea.

The lads were very tolerant given it was 5:40 PM and they’d probably been putting up with cheeky comments for 4-6 hours by then. Oh well, presumably Biotherm paid them for their time and their calendars are now booked solid for the next decade, so all’s well.

Structured wool clothing from Woolmark International’s Australian winner Dion Lee. Images of other finalists’ creations here, my favourites here (that cross-stitched dress..*o0*). Apologies for the lack of hunk shots, I was completely distracted-they should put them in the women’s lingerie section next time.

Emily and I had La Terre Sucree High Tea at the NGV tea room (24 hours later my pores are still oozing sugar. Sofi’s lounge next time-I prefer savouries) then browsed Cleggs Fabric store and the Magnation store (they have the September and October 2013 issues of burdastyle andthis issue of La Mia Boutique on the ‘Crafts’ shelf at the moment-jump on it).

We then made our way through Myers department store, got our moisturiser samples (hawhawhaw) and walked to Cookie where we met a fabulous lady in a completely self-drafted wiggle dress (with an awesome zipper in the back) and had dinner and cocktails together.

Emily’s wearing a skirt from an Oona swap, Jenny’s in a self-drafted wiggle dress. The waiter was so distracted by our hand-made awesomeness he brought us water twice and blurred every photo he took of us. The rest were taken by a helpful waitress.

Emily and I discussed pattern drafting the last time we met, so Emily brought along some drafting books for me: a Mrs. Stylebook and a vintage drafting textbook she’d used to teach herself drafting. I spent the tram ride home excitedly flipping through the books.

Mrs. Stylebook essentially gives you the directions for turning your personal bodice, skirt and pant blocks into contemporary wearable garments (much like the Pattern Drafting for Dressmaking/ Kamakura-Shobo books used to in the 60s, 70s and 80s). There’s another, similar, magazine called Lady Boutique with more ‘grown up clothes’ but I’ve never seen one of those in Australia.

Here’s a couple of my favourites from the Mrs. Stylebook:

I love both these tunics. The one on the left is such a simple, modern silhouette and the sleeve treatment on it is just elegant. The one on the right should work well as a day shirt/ silk blouse too.

MSB often includes designer patterns but I’ve only ever seen them feature Japanese designer patterns before, bit of a surprise to see an Anne Klein number. I really like the shirt dress on the left, it gives the impression of a narrower waist without any physical cinching involved.

I need to check on the copyright status of the other one (low hopes, it’s from 1970) to see if I can scan it for Friday Freebies.

When I got home Carl was in the middle of a whiskey tasting session with one of his programmer friends.

C: What do you mean hunks?

Friend: We’re hunks mate.

Me: Oh good, you’ll need this moisturiser then.

He left it behind. But not before having an interesting discussion with me on making a proper pattern/fabric catalogue app for mobile devices. Coolcoolcool.

Pattern: Patrones 306, dress 23 H&M

Fabric: Double sided silk (the wrong side is black)-a birthday gift from Carl (I wore it the day we were in the live audience for Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell show and the audience prepper asked about it. When I said I’d made it from fabric Carl gave me the whole audience went awwwww).

Modifications: I (cold) machine-washed the silk, line-dried it, and pressed it before use. Shortened the pattern 2 cm at the waist and 3 cm at the hem. The armholes are on the bias at centre points so I’d suggest basting through inside the seam lines or bias covering them first. I didn’t, and there was bit of stretching while I sewed so I actually had the take in the shoulders about half a cm front and back (either that or it just has larger sleeve openings than normal). All inner seams finished with a narrow hem presser foot.

Tights from Galstern.

Disclaimer: All non-self generated images remain property of their owners and are used here for purposes of illustration, discussion and review.

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Tags: Basic Pattern Cutting by Maria Mori, Cookie, hand made, handmade, High tea, i sewed this, La Terre Sucree, Melbourne, Mrs. Stylebook 2008, NGV International, Patrones 306 Dress 23 H&M, Pattern review, Sewing blogger meetup, Tea room

• 18/03/2013
• Japanese sewing pattern book, Pattern Making, Sewing Socially, Social Sewing
• 23 comments