Pretty in pink

It feels like ages ago that I made this dress but it's only actually a couple of weeks. It was a gift for my beautiful niece for her christening and so I wanted to wait to give it to her before I shared it here.

I used this New Look pattern and chose bright and bold fabrics, I wanted it to be girly but not too sickly. It was fairly easy, took about 4 hours but was a wee bit fiddly in places although I suspect that is just me not being used to sewing such tiny garments. Now I just want a matching one for myself! :)

Midnight Blue

Here's another present I made recently for my friend, Jenny. We share a birthday and I wanted to make her something pretty. I made this bag exactly the same as this one here which I made earlier in the year but chose a beautiful midnight blue taffeta embellished with pintucks and beads and a co-ordinating cotton for the handle and lining.

 I love this bag pattern and i'm determined to get round to making one for myself at some point, I'm just struggling to decide on colour, perhaps that means I should make one in every colour and then I'd always have something to match my outfit! :)

Farewell Cardiff

In just a few days I'm leaving lovely Cardiff and moving back home to Somerset. For someone like me who never thought I would enjoy city living, Cardiff has surprised me. Perhaps because it is rather small for a city and has huge areas of parkland right in the city centre. Whatever it is, I'm certainly sad to be saying goodbye. 

 I know I'll miss the amazing view out of my bedroom window over the River Taff and the Millennium stadium.

 I'll miss my friends here and all the wonderful people I've met.

I'll miss the noise and the fact that it never quite gets dark here with all the city lights.

I'll probably even  miss a little the drunks shouting outside my window at ridiculous times in the morning! :)

I will definitely miss living right on the doorstep of the city centre. Just 5 minutes walk to pretty much anything.

I'll miss candlelit breakfasts at Barkers and wandering around antique shops on a Saturday afternoon.

I'll miss strolling through Beautiful Bute Park or lazing there in the sunshine.

And I'll miss my flat here, it's not perfect but it's home.

However it's not all sad, Somerset is only a couple of hours away so I will be coming back on a regular basis for sure.And also, Somerset itself is lovely. Beautiful countryside, beaches nearby, my friends and family. Mostly I'm looking forward to starting a new adventure! :)

(More) Sketchbook snapshots

I realised whilst making the last post that although I had shared a lot of my practical sample work from my final degree project I'd never really shown much of my drawing/designing/studio book work. So here are a few pages from my supporting work for the project.

Sketchbook snapshots

I've been concentrating on designing for the commission I mentioned a while back. The design needs to be finished and handed in for approval by the end of the month so I'm busy as can be! I'm really looking forward the making part of this project, it's great to get back to doing what I really love.

Here are some sneak peeks at design pages from my sketchbook for this project. I'll keep you posted as it comes along! :)

CAD visuals

Yesterday the degree show was taken down. It seems odd, all that working away for so many months and now it's all over, marking has taken place (results are on Monday! :o) and all my work is now sat in boxes in my living room. Very strange feeling indeed.

Soon time to start thinking about the next challenge! But for now, I realised I never properly shared my CAD visuals. As creating my own pieces of lingerie was out of the question, I created a digital image to show how my designs might look if they were manufactured into garments. And here they are. I'm not a photoshop pro or anything so I was incredibly pleased with how these turned out.

To create them, I purchased ready made garments and photographed them. I then loaded them into photoshop and layered a photograph of my design over the top. Then using a combination of reduced opacity and blurring I merged the two images so it appeared that the design was actually stitched onto the garment. I wanted to create a soft, dreamy feel to the images. These were then displayed in my show, alongside my work to help people visualise how the designs might be used.



Degree Show snapshots

Some snapshots of my degree show, I finally remembered to take in a camera. The whole show is wonderful and still on until the end of the week if you're in the Cardiff area!