Let's just say..I don't make ordinary clothes. I can buy those, what's the point?
First, my fabtastic tailcoat - my own pattern and a slightly dodgy one at that (I know the fit isn't perfect, but hey, it's my first tailored jacket, I think I did OK . Made out of a curtain fabric remnant from my Oma's 80s curtains, velvet scraps and corduroy scraps.


The artsy shot:


Now, the parrot pants. I had a LOT of fabric scraps left over from t shirt recons, in a few different colours. I bleached some, dyed some and I had even more colours. So I made these ridiculous rainbow parrot pants with hand painted lace (bit scratchy but oh well)
They are useless but "avant guarde" maybe

The waistband is this gorgeous spandex/stretchy fabric I got from the thrift store for $1. I love it so much. I don't have much more, I think I'll make a pair of gloves (I don't want to wreck it though!)

The belt cost $2. So did the t shirt (new.)
I am so cheap

Hope you like them.

I think I am much better at drawing/painting than sewing.

I used to put stuff on Threadless.com all the time, but I got discouraged because none of my stuff got printed. However, I think I've gotten MUCH better, and so has Threadless (8 colours instead of 4, belt printing, new effect inks, etc etc)
Also, they had a Threadless Loves Drawing, where the prize is a cintiq graphics tablet and $2000 and $500 of store credit! I want to get it so much!

Anyway, if you have a Threadless account, I'd love it if you voted for my design. It's based off a drawing.
And it's here.
http://www.threadless.com/submission...other_problems

If you can't be bothered to click, here's what the picture looks like:


And here's how I made it:
http://www.louisagiffard.com/blogitem.pl?id=47

Hope you like it!

So yeah, I learned a whole bunch of new stitches (chain, and slip stitch - god, I can't believe I was doing running stitch back and forth before!)
I embroidered some psychedelic steam swirls on the cuff of a tailcoat I am making:

And..this took ages, but I embroidered two wings on a jacket yoke (The jacket hasn't been sewn yet, I figured it would be much easier to embroider the fabric before it was cut, so I could stretch it in my hoop, which is one of those HUGE ones...)

They're crane wings. And they're both different because I couldn't be bothered embroidering the same design twice. I made up the pattern myself based on photos (for the crane feathery wing) and a reference picture (for the x-ray wing)
Wing bones based on this picture:
http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/0905/images/wing.jpg

The feathery wing:


The x-ray wing:


To give you a little perspective, each bone is about 2-3 mm wide
And the wings are about 5 inches long (13 cm)

OK! Well I know what P and K means..but I really don't understand knitting patterns. What does DPN mean? Why does knitting make my brain hurt like this? It would be much easier to get into if it wasn't so HARD....
Can you tell me a few of the basic knitting terms that I'll encounter, and what they mean?

weeeelll I want to knit socks. Not ridiculously thin silky ones (I get cold feet, and I'm a beginner knitter), but at the same time not so chunky that I can't get my shoes on.
I have some sock needles in size 2. And the only wool I can find is these bales of sock stuff, but it is a) not pure wool, b) already dyed in random colours - I'd like to dye my own, and really expensive! $13 a ball :O
So..I'm just wondering, what ply would you use to knit socks? Any tips? The ball of sock yarn said that it would make a pair, but HOW LONG? :O

About how much wool would you need, and how do you get both socks the same? Same stripe matching or whatever isn't too concerning for me..but it'll be funky if they're not the same length...

Your comments are appreciated. There's a tutorial for knitting socks on wikihow - is knitting socks too hard? Would you suggest something else? (I've knitted scarves before...and I know how to knit basic cables - nothing on the round before)

Gah, I HATE vinegar. It smells disgusting, I hate the taste, etc etc.
OK. Well, I dyed the wool to make legwarmers (there aren't many pictures of the wool, but I had great fun making up heaps of different colour combos), and I also dyed a whole bunch of feathers.

the legwarmers all knitted up (most of the bright colours are food dyed)

the feathers. They are cockatoo, peewee and chicken feathers, with food dye (see how the chicken ones still show brown through the colour?)
It's quite hard to get subtle colours with the food dye, but I'm starting to work out the ratios and colour mixes I need (I use queens food colouring, which comes in bottles so you need a syringe to measure the dye out, or just pour it out and hope for the best - no droppers - I have red, green, pink, blue (which is a bright cyan colour like printer's standard blue) and yellow.)

Some of the wool and feathers.

This is the first time I've tried cable before!
I did reverse cables, regular ones and ones that twisted both ways (I realise sometimes I forgot which ways the cables were going but I don't mind.)

I don't know how to knit on the round yet (I'm a beginner knitter, this is the first thing I've done that wasn't a scarf!) so I just sewed these together at the back. I realise I didn't decrease the stitches, but it doesn't bother me.
Some of the wool was left over stuff (inherited stash and from the thrift store for cheap), and some of it was white wool that I dyed with food colouring. Woohoo!
so...do you have any links to anything that teaches me how to knit on the round easily? I'm not a good knitter! Although luckily I am far past the wonky tension dropped stitches stage
Here are some in progress photos:

it started to get a bit crazy at this point:

OK. So I was sorting through my fabric one day and I had all these scrappy bits...just enough to make a project, and I'd bought all this red fabric last year (no idea why) and just didn't know what to do with it!
Not to mention all this dyed turquoise stuff. I also got a bunch of lace from the thrift store and the fabric store.
So I made a really fun skirt.

It has: turquoise, gold and white lace (I dyed the coloured stuff with acrylic and textile medium), white piping on the pockets, turquoise and pink (bleached red fabric) pleats on the back, a turquoise ruffle on the front, and a pinecone embroidered on the right pocket (phew! Deep breath.)
No one can say I was subtle!

view of the back. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of the embroidery, but it's not really the best so you aren't missing much
I also made the armwarmers and legwarmers, and dyed all the feathers in my hair with food colour (they are cockatoo, magpie/peewee and chicken feathers)

Ok! I'll see if I can get a photo of the embroidery later.
I had a lot of fun taking pictures of this (my friend is the photographer), but it WAS freezing that day so my legs were quite cold....

OK, so I got this fabric for $1 from the thrift store.

Colour is a little bit off in the photo, just imagine the pinky-white bits are pure white and the whole thing is brighter greens etc.
The piece measures 70 by 90 cm, and the stretch goes so that the fabric piece is "portrait" rather than "landscape" (tall rather than wide..so that the 70 cm is the top, if that makes sense.)
It's really really really really really really realy stretchy, I think it's spandex or something (as in you definitely don't need seam allowances and it's very irritating to cut.)
I've used a little bit as a waistband for these great colourful parrot pants I made, but I don't know what to do with the rest.
Too little for a minidress. The options I came up with were:
- short shorts (not sure if I'm brave enough!)
- miniskirt (also not sure if I'm brave enough)
- arm/leg warmers (not sure if I'd get enough wear out of them)
- sleeves for a shirt (it would only go on one shirt though)
- Use bits of it as waistbands/short sleeves/hem binding for other projects (it's just too awesome for this!)
- Gloves (wtf? gloves? that's almost crazy enough for me to want to do it!)
That is about all that I can think of now.
If you can think about anything else, please comment. It's not very thick fabric so I doubt it would be warm (although it is very clinging.)

I made this for my mate Paul. I had no idea what to give him for his birthday but then I hit upon the idea - what about a hoodie that looks like formal wear at the front but is actually a hoodie?
So I present to you, the well dressed bastard hoodie!



It's made out of one of my brother's old shirts  (that ripped right next to the buttons, so my Mum chucked it out and I nicked it out of the bin), a $6.50 guy's t shirt, a small $4 girl's t shirt, black fabric and a whole bunch of fleece scraps I have left over from a hoodie I made in year 8 and some fleece remnants.

The back just looks like an ordinary hoodie, like this:


The waistcoat bit buttons, but the placket at the front is actually stitched together..so it looks like the shirt buttons but there is actually a zip there. Much easier!


You can wear any tie with it that you want owing to this great hood slot false collar arrangement.



The cuffs go all around the sleeves...


Also, it has hidden pockets


and a super warm fleece lining!


(I apologise for the slightly woeful quality of those pictures. The real colour of the back is best seen in the first two pics. )

Welll..you asked for it! the HUGE tutorial! Sorry about the rather bold colour scheme..I wanted to make it very clear which bits were which with the hoodie. And I had to draw the pictures all by hand (dies) they took up 5 pages!