Post No. 100, or: The tulle tutu, too?

Hey there, lovelies!

So, FINALLY, I finished the project of a (mostly) no-sew tutu, but I have come to the conclusion I'd do some things differently next time, which is still good because it also is a learning experience :).

Here are some pieces of well-meant advice from my side...

Number 1) Don't shop for sewing essentials at shops which offer "cheap prices"... At least for me it was horrible to thread a needle I bought from there with yarn I bought there; I ended up breaking the only thing that really helped me thread the needle... And a pair of scissors, too, which I bought there. Yes, I did laugh a lot about this, but still... Please buy your essentials from shops selling better quality yarn, needles, etc., you name it. I will definitely do this next time, and I am quite sad because still I wasted that money on the sewing essentials in that other shop... Ah well.

Number 2) If you are planning on making a tulle tutu, too, then be prepared for the elastic band to twist... A lot. Which also makes it less elastic, and extends it to a length that is way too long at times. (I was planning on wearing it around my waist, but now it is even longer than my hips' circumference, so... I wasn't prepared for this.) Next time, I will try a shorter length for the elastic band or sew it together in two different parts after attaching all the knots of fabric.

Number 3) Buy more tulle for the next attempt. I bought eight meters worth of tulle, and it happened to work well, but now I don't have that much left over. I have several ideas what I could do with that, though, so don't worry :P.

Some other things I learned were: Sewing, despite all the mishappenings, is so much fun. I used a backstitch (mostly) for sewing together the ends of the elastic band, in case anybody wondered. I am kind of proud I mostly did all this myself, even though I did get some help from my mum with the ending knot of the yarn thread (She twisted the thread around the needle three times and then pulled this to the actual thread below the needle.). I also was kind of scared that the fact my perfectionism was pretty much not there at all would mess with the project itself. But contrary to this, perfectionism would have made it look really odd I feel. Of course, I am not telling you to let go of all imagination of how it should turn out in the end, but please don't pressure yourself. I surely wasn't, and that was a good starting point for me! :)

I cannot wait for another sewing project. I thought I could make something like the following with the remaining tulle:

• A black veil... All the tulle I have is black, and the goth in me already goes "Yippeee!" just imagining this, so... ;)
• Something like arm / leg warmers. I wouldn't need that much extra for this project, but still... We'll see!
• An eye patch. Even if the tulle were just for decorating the actual eye patch, I would still love it.
• I could sew some pieces of the tulle onto other items of clothing that I own to make them look more interesting. Maybe formed like letters?

Who knows...

Anyways, when I asked my sister to take some photos of me wearing the tulle tutu, one of our cats decided to interrupt it and looked at me all the time like, "I want to jump up to you, but... but... I can't ;_;!!", which made me remove the tutu as quickly as I could, and many photos were photobombed by him, too :D (I don't mind, though. I love this little guy, he can photobomb whatever he wants!!)...

So here's a photo of me doing some weird posing and if you find a hint concerning my cat, please tell me. (I know he is in the photo, but maybe not everyone will spot him :P!!)

Editorial posing at the PROFESSIONAL photo shoot.

And, yes, this REALLY is the 100th post. I cannot believe it either. I am so happy I want to hug the entire world now... Hope you are having a great day today, too.

Return of the FAULENZER.

It seems even to me that I am always just popping in to say what has happened and to apologise for the previous period of absence here, so I will leave it to this. It is not like I have done NOTHING in the mean time, though...

I did start writing letters again. It is slowly, but surely getting better. I found two new penpals very recently, one lovely lady from Malaysia, and another one from the US. Will not go into the details concerning these people, but it makes me happy to, for example, draw / paint for these people... To share what is important to us with each other... To learn about them, and their home as well... Ah well. I am planning on sending more letters soon, but I cannot promise them all going out in NO TIME, as I do want to put some effort into writing them and preparing stuff for people. But... YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. ;)

I recently learned about the death of a loved one, and decided to write a song for them... It is still not very easy to deal with all this; the wounds are still quite fresh so-to-say.

And then, I started working on a tulle tutu this week. I cannot promise to really finish it this week, because there is still a lot of stuff waiting to be done OTHER than the skirt, but I do hope I will be able to make it still. I also bought some new sewing needles and yarn yesterday. And something to repair broken jeans' fabrics with. As in, you know when you walk sometimes there will be parts of the jeans thinning and such... THAT'S what I mean. I want to repair some jeans this way...

Recently, I have been in sewing / DIY mood a lot. But I didn't really get around to making much. I did watch some DIY tutorials on Youtube, though... So yeah. That tulle tutu is really easy to make, though (I GUESS XD!)... It is mostly a no-sew project, and actually quite popular. You will decide how much elastic band you will need for the project (Do you want your tutu to fit around your waist? Or around your hips?), cut that off (but with a sewing allowance!! I added about 1 centimeter for this project, so... I hope this will suffice!) after trying out whether you can still step in and out of it, then sew these ends together.

Next, you cut the tulle fabric in the colour(s) you want the tutu to feature into (I would say) about 20 centimeters worth of width. The length should be, however, roughly twice the length from the elastic band's final position (Once again: Hips or waist, you will decide!) to the final end of the tutu's length (This could be any length, really. I want mine to be rather short, but have no idea just yet how short in particular this will be :P!). You cut out as many pieces like this as you will need. Then you fold the pieces (or two or three together?) so that the ends meet each other, and tie these to the elastic band (You create a loop at the end opposite of the meeting point of the ends *gestures wildly*, then hold this loop next to the elastic band, and pull the other end through the loop over the elastic... ^_^).

So, that is the plan right now... I have cut off the elastic band as I said already, and I bought yarn & needles. Now on to sewing the ends together. I will have 0.5 centimeters sewing allowance at both ends (Which may be a bit too small / thin, but I will try nevertheless.). This is my first "real" sewing project, and to be frank, I am a bit scared it might go wrong. I know some tricks now as to threading a needle & tying a knot for the end of the thread, too, though, so that's great.

Let's hope for the best, shall we? And with this more-or-less understandable, written tutorial, I am leaving you today. I hope you all are in a good mood. ^o^

[Nur wir]

Hello...

I have "lost" the competition, but I will continue participating in future ones nevertheless. Thank you to everybody keeping their fingers crossed and congratulations to the winner :)! I mean it. & I am really looking forward to reading their story or poem... I shall publish the poem I wrote here as soon as the winner's version has been published, too. Otherwise I'd see no reason in doing so!

Other than that, I ordered some fabric for making a tulle tutu, and I am looking forward to this task so much. It is - surprise, surprise! - tulle fabric in black... And even though the thought of making mistakes when making the skirt makes me nauseous, I still am very fond of it (the idea). It will be the first time I am making something clothing wise with my bare hands, and I hope that said hands will not get in my way. ;)

And the next point is a little unrelated, but still very important for me recently: The past 23 days + today, I spent learning mainly Italian, but also French, Russian and Swedish. But mainly Italian... Maybe some of you don't know this about me, but languages are really a part of my life I love working on. I know I am nowhere near fluent, not even in English, but still it makes me happy to practice foreign languages, and speak to other people in their native language. :] The upper languages are not the only ones I learned in my life, though.

Anyways, I'd really love to get some suggestions for blogs to read in one of the following languages: French, Finnish, Spanish, Japanese & Italian. It would be cool if those had to deal with stuff I am interested in myself... I want to make learning languages a lot more fun than just stubbornly sitting somewhere and learning stuff. :) And learning by doing is really important, too. I will keep my eyes open, though. :D

Thanks for reading & have a nice day...

FABRIC FABRIC FABRIC!!! :)

Hey guys.

My thumb is feeling better, although I can still see the wound (I can even (SLIGHTLY!) pull up the part of my fingernail which got hurt and look underneath it, but that*s beside the point :P!). I am not wearing any band-aid anymore, and am also not feeling bad anymore because of the vaccination, harhar.

This week (I think even TODAY!) we plan on getting some fabric to make things out of (That is what you do with fabric, isn*t it? YOU MAKE THINGS OUT OF IT!!), and I really am thinking about posting a tutorial in that relation, but I am not sure whether this would be okay with the owners of the patterns / instructions I*d do this with. It is solely FOR ME, though, I am not going to sell these things or anything ;^^;. It is just, I never sewed anything; I once tried to sew ears onto stuffed animals (horses), and I completely failed because I have never done this before and was too proud to tell anybody about this circumstance :\. Yaaay? -___-

So, what would I like to make? I really want to get some fabric to either make a skirt of OR a pullover (I know pullovers are often knitted, but this one*s sewn and like a hoodie (SP?). I will at least present the result of my hard, hard work, AND I will link to where I found the pattern or instruction. :) I hope you will like it!! ^_~

(OH, btw, you Germans ... "Fabric" means (Textil-)"Stoff" in German and not "Fabrik" (This would be "factory", as a ... matter of fact *places sunglasses on her nose* *DUUUH*!!) Okay, I will leave. ;)

Lame excuses? Thumbs up!!

Stupid Rina. Stupid, stupid ME. Yesterday, I cut myself accidentally with an axe. Don*t worry, my thumb is okay, but it is still hurting sometimes - when touching stuff -, and I don*t really have the will to draw anything right now. I am sorry.

I promise I will get back to doing something with this blog as soon as possible, especially since it means a lot to me, and I couldn*t get this out of my mind.

On the lighter side : On Friday, we found a great place to buy fabric at ... Not online, no. It is very close to where I live. Am looking forward to working with awesome fabric and presenting you the benefits of sewing ;)!!

Much love from me at this point!

Oh the dreaded pliers. :P

I am currently taking a break from the place I usually wriite at, thus trying to gather more time and ideas for projects I could talk about here :).

Since I*m currently taking part in a project for people who want to make greeting cards and such, I got to make greeting cards a lot recently, but I cannot show evidence since I didn*t take any pictures. It was really amazing, though; we worked with water colour crayons, i. e. crayons that you paint something with, and then you grab a paint brush (NOT too wide, though!), dip it into water, and brush over what you painted ... It will give a little water colour effect, and since I love water colour pictures, I want to try this at home. We also added smaller things to the cards.

Right now, the next step of the project is to make things for Crizzlemas (something that, once folded, looks like a tree or an angel or whatever), aaand we start making key chains ourselves next week. All this really IS inspiring me to make my own greeting cards and such. Working with the pliers (something that is necessary for making key chains) was a little hard, but I will get the hang of it after a few tries I guess :).

Then, I am planning on corresponding with other people more via actual letters, which is a good idea I think, since I haven*t written to people in such a long time. ^^

I also want to make a list of projects I really want to do, but then again, they are probably not always unlike the original ones. I want to try some things, though, like ...

* CRAFTING MORE.
* Making stuff off FIMO.
* Making jewellery myself.
* Working on the perfect paper (...) :D.
* Painting an actual picture with water colour crayons first and then making a water colour painting out of it.
* Making an actual art journal.
* Continuing to work on my RSLB.
* SEWING, knitting, etc.

I have found that, unlike what I believed when I was a child, I am not that bad at crafting. Back in my childhood, I thought I totally failed there, but I also guess I just didn*t have the right tools ... E. g. the glue I used always was very dry and didn*t stick. And I could barely use the scissors I had. It is getting better :).

Sew awesome!! :)

Sew awesome & special!! Oh my, those puns are GREAT :D.

How are you all? I somehow wanted to share with you some resources about sewing. I went to a small list of things I*d like to do and there was "Learn to sew" written on this, so I thought I should write about this a little, share some resources with you, etc. :)

During my childhood, I had an almost-"sleeping beauty" moment when I tried handling a sewing machine without anybody to give instructions & help, and then got my finger in between a piece of fabric and the needle - ouch! That moment, I SWORE to myself to never touch a sewing machine again. In fact, I started despising people who did sew, and I though they were "too feminine" in my eyes. Because being feminine is evil and all that *note for the readers : SARCASM!*.

Then Natron & Soda happened to upload their page(s); I am mainly refering to the actual site of "Natron & Soda", because Soda took down her site years ago, and I won*t blame her for this. However, "Natron & Soda" REALLY was a great place to start, at least for me. Basically, the page used to be all about sewing and generally making goth-related clothing, accessories, and so on. It is amazing!

So, I made a list of clothes to sew, but the list grew and grew and basically said includes (almost) every piece of clothing introduced on this site :). I *always* wanted to cut that list down, but all the planning is getting boring, to be honest. I can, however, see where the patterns come from - or better said, there are (mainly?) sewing instructions on the page on how to make your own unique pattern and how to sew it. They also give tips on music to play whilst doing that, and many people have contributed their own sewing instructions :).

So that was a turning point - discovering this site. Ever since, I couldn*t stop thinking about "I want to sew!", just imagine that with a zombie voice ... "Need ... to sew!! BRAINS!" (Need to sew brains? - Sounds like a cute version of a plushie to me :D!) Ah, that said, they also featured how to make some plushies on the page. I will put the link under "Resources" :).

(The page*s in German only as far as I know, though.)

So, I bought some books from book-selling pages which are famous for low prices :). Around the same time, Burda (a sewing/DIY magazine) released a collection of four magazines in which they explain the basics of sewing, and that said, the instructions are easy to understand. :) For example, I learned (theoretically) how to make a bigger version of an existing sewing pattern - which to me is really important, as many awesome sewing patterns are not available in my (plus) size.

On BurdaStyle*s homepage you can either download [or order?] sewing patterns ("Schnitte & Shop"; you can also regularly buy the magazine, it is really worth it!) ... There also is a section (somewhere) in which people explained how they tailored their clothes, plus there is a how-to on how to (ORLY?) make your own dress form. Great, I say!! (Also in German.)

Then, there are also resources like Dunkelsüß, Kostenlose Schnittmuster, and Cut Out And Keep. Dunkelsüß is probably most famous for being probably the most popular German-speaking page on which you can find information on lolita clothing. I am far from being as elegant as many lolitas (I mean it! I am just really clumsy and all that :(!), BUT I love the fashion styles in this genre. It is beautiful to look at, plus I like the broad creativity which enables fashion designers to create unique and pretty pieces of clothing.

BTW, there is a great page called SpoonFlower for designing your own fabric!! (Link in the resources!)

Anyways, I*d love to try out wearing Lolita fashion [I don*t want to make myself ridiculous but it would be an honour and a pleasure to me to wear it?], and for the reason Dunkelsüß also offers some sewing instructions for Lolita fashion, I want to go for this :). (Reminder to self : Do that!! :D)

Also, you might find the releases of the "Gothic Lolita Bible" interesting. They also feature some patterns on how to make some Lolita fashion items yourself, like scarfs and such. I only own one of the releases but they show how to make a skirt there, explain how to alter sewing patterns, and there*s a kitten scarf explained :). The version of the GLB I have is in English even.

Kostenlose Schnittmuster is a collection of links to all kinds of sewing patterns online. Some descriptions are in foreign languages like German, [English,] French, and Japanese. I guess there are even more languages I didn*t come across, but brace yourself for the mass of languages you can choose from (I find this amazing. If you need help with some, please tell me!).

As for Cut Out And Keep, that is an English-speaking page on which everybody can contribute their WIP for creative projects. Some might show you how they painted their shoes, some may show you how they dyed their hair, some may show you how they tailored a skirt ... It is an amazing resource and in my opinion one of the best :)!!

Of course, you can also google DIY blogs or craft blogs or sewing blogs or whatever you like.

Lastly, some words on the "Nähmaschinen-Führerschein" and the "Große Nähschule" : I have bought the former book, and it is showing you step-by-step how a sewing machine works. You have small tests to pass after each lesson, and all through the book you get to sew smaller items like plushies or bags.

The latter I haven*t bought yet, BUT I once saw it in a book store in one of my former hometowns and thought, "Someday I will buy this book!! It is amazing!", and my opinion hasn*t changed ever since. Fabrics are explained, steps on how to sew what are explained, and so on. I think it doesn*t contain any sewing patterns unfortunately, but the general knowledge delivered makes it worth the price nevertheless.

Okay, now I want to sew :D. I also have two (!) sewing machines, one is a bigger one by Singer, and the other one is one of these small sewing machines which you can use for smaller projects. Which one would you choose for your first projects? (I haven*t tried either of them. Maybe they still need some oil or so? Hm!)

Resources :

Web Sites :

* BurdaStyle. (Also has a "physical" magazine you can buy over here.)
* Cut Out And Keep.
* Dunkelsüß.
* Kostenlose Schnittmuster.
* Natron & Soda.
* SpoonFlower.

Books :

* Der Nähmaschinen-Führerschein (Author : Eva Schneider).
* Die Große Nähschule (Author : Alison Smith; original title : "The Sewing Book").
* Gothic Lolita Bible.

Battling the battle to battle the battle.

Now I don*t know what I was about to say with this subject line *lol* (but I nevertheless think it sounds funny). How have you all been? I hope you are all in the mood for an update~.

Today I wanted to tell you about me suffering from a buying frenzy of some kind. I bought several things, but mainly want to focus on the microphone bundle I got, as well as the sewing magazines I bought, but what should I start with?

The microphone bundle I got at a page called Thomann. I recommend it to anybody who is serious about pursuing his/her music career; and Thomann also offers videos and sound examples of the things they sell :). And no, they didn*t pay me for writing this now, even though it is the second time I ordered something there. *nods* Opening the boxes always feels like Crizzlemas, too!

So, the box contained the microphone "the t.bone SC 450 USB", and a pop killer (That is this net-like thing you put infront of the microphone in order to let it kill the popping sounds of several consonants, and I assume it helps with spitting, too :D ... That is, it helps prevent the microphone from being watered this way ...), and a microphone rack, and a 3-meter-long cable (USB), AND a software (Magix Samplitude11 Silver Sequencersoftware). And, let*s just say, I got all this for a really good price :3.

I shall try the microphone today, and have been wondering about what to sing then ;). I still am not sure ... But we will see; I am just happy to be able to record my singing now!!

As for the sewing magazines; I bought six of them. Now you may say, that*s quite a lot, but four of them came as a bundle, too (All those bundles!!! O___O). These four magazines are the same as a "book", so-to-say. It is called "Leichter Nähen" I think, and was released by Burda. Then I bought the new Burda Style, and another magazine that I forgot the name of (Oh laziness, you don*t allow me to look it up now, do you?!) D:. But the latter also has sewing patterns in it for larger sizes ;) (Well, and so does the Burda Style of course!).

So, now there shall be no more excuses. Except for one : I don*t have that much material to sew D: ... But there are ways of obtaining it really quickly.

And now that the Wave Gotik Treffen is happening and I am sitting at home ... I really want to be there right now!! ;) To everybody attending it : Have a great time!! & greet Leipzig from me~!!