I'm a bad blogger. Of course, I knew this before I started this blog (by no means the first blog I've started). I tend to get excited about it, make a plan to post tons, and then after a while forget completely. Maybe I should aim a little lower and try to post...once a month? It's better than once a year ;)

I'm also a bad seamstress. In that I'm really bad at finishing projects (sense a pattern here?). I get excited about it, make big plans, then when it doesn't quite work out...you get the idea ;) That's what happened with the red fabric I posted a photo of before. I had hoped to make it into a dress but realised half way through that there wasn't enough fabric for a skirt. It would still make a very pretty top, but then I got into trouble with the sleeves and now it's been in the (sizeable) "half-finished projects" pile for quite a number of months. I need to dig that thing out and finish it!

I'm also a bad photographer. In that I never remember to take photos. Well, it doesn't help that I don't have a proper camera! But I have finished some other projects since the last time I posted. The biggest one was a made-to-measure dress for my sister:

Being modelled here by a knitted bunny and one of my kitties :) It turned out really well and I was quite proud of myself for actually finishing something properly! She wore this to a wedding with a Vivien of Holloway petticoat, which makes me so jealous I could cry :( But I won't - I'll just steal it off her sometime. Isn't that what sisters are for??

I did also make some cute little hair clips to go with the dress:

So there you go - I think this counts as a post! Perhaps I won't give up on my teeny weeny blog just yet :) Maybe I'll also work on the photo-taking and project-finishing...that'll be the day!!

Dressmaking: green

I've been getting more and more into the sewing recently. Still not producing results very fast, but I'm starting to get a feel for patterns and structure and technique. And I'm rather enjoying it! I happen to have rather a big stash of random fabrics that have been waiting for YEARS to be sewn into pretty things, and I'm finally now beginning to delve into that stash.

However, the first vintage-y dress I made got its inspiration from a cheap fabric discovered in a shop, that suited the theme of a party I was going to. After what can only be described as a dress-making boot camp - a full week of slaving away to produce three identical dresses in very different sizes without proper patterns - this was the result:

That dress was definitely a challenge and a half! The wonky hem has since been fixed but the halter is still only pinned on, and I've managed to wear this dress twice since then ;) Perhaps one day I'll affix the halter, redo the seriously badly-inserted zipper and tie off various loose ends ;)

When I started the "green dress" project, my first inspiration was actually a petticoat - I really really wanted one of those super-full, super-fluffy 50s tulle petticoats. And I actually managed to order some really cheap tulle off the net (here) - all 40 yards of it - and found a pattern/tutorial - but what with the challenging dress project, we did not finish the petticoats in time to wear with the dresses.

I've since finished the petticoat and discovered that with my body shape (hips a-plenty) I really need a lower waistline for a big poofy skirt to look good. So as soon as I manage to make myself a dress or a skirt to wear with my lovely petticoat, I shall post pictures!

There was a lull in sewing after the "green dress" project - I needed to rest my nerves - but I've now finally got to work on making a pretty 40s-style dress out of some gorgeous red fabric in my stash that I've been eyeing up forever. I think it was actually originally a curtain, probably made in the 60s or 70s, so it's got this great retro texture that you don't see nowadays.

The positive side to starting off with a really challenging project is that I now feel like I can pretty much tackle anything, sewing-wise - but it really helps to have a pattern ;) I also learned a huge amount about how long it actually takes to make things! With the red dress I'm once again working mostly without patterns, making them up as I go along, so it's very much a two-steps-ahead-one-step-back type project. But I was prepared for that this time so it's not stressing me out. I'm quite close to finishing now and hope to share pictures soon, but for now I shall leave you with a little sneak preview :)

Pretty little head thing

I've always been into different types of crafts, which really comes in handy with this new interest in all things vintage, not to mention burlesque! I'm also not totally rubbish at sewing, which is good, because I'm currently on a tight budget so can't go buy an entire new wardrobe, but I do happen to have a selection of fabrics stashed away in the attic just dying to be turned into cute dresses and skirts.

This post is about the accessories though. I have a friend who shares my interests in crafts as well as vintage fashion, and she had a birthday recently. We've been collecting a lot of materials for fascinators, hair accessories, etc, but hadn't got around to really doing much with them yet. So I decided to put together a little mini-fascinator for her. Here's how it turned out:

I ended up having far too little time to finish it, so the end result was a little bit less neat than I would've liked, but I thought it still turned out pretty cute!

I'm currently resisting the urge to go scour the web for cheap places to buy different kinds of feathers and beads and things. I also need to find some cute little head scarves, or fabric to make them out of. All in the name of saving money, of course! ;)

Style transformation: hair

When I started to deliberately dress vintage, one of the first "problems" to solve was: what on earth do I do with my hair? I say "problem", because I do actually rather enjoy playing with my hair ;) But I've had short hair for so many years that I'd gotten out of practice with the more elaborate forms of styling. The good thing is, I used to have really long hair and as a teenager was really into dressing it in all sorts of creative ways, so it hasn't been much of a learning curve to get back into it.

However, my current cut hasn't made life easy. I actually had grown my hair to about shoulder length, before in January this year (this would be before my style epiphany) I decided to go for a sleek, blunt bob with a fringe. Like so:

Not really the kind of vintage I'm into, although I did really like this haircut and received a lot of compliments on it. Since then it's been slowly growing, and it's about half way between my earlobe and my shoulder now. All one length, and not really long enough for updos.

I've been experimenting with it for a few weeks now, trying out curls and different ways to put it up - especially victory rolls, although those still turn out fairly pitiful considering the length! I'm a serious perfectionist when it comes to my hair (as well as everything else in life, let's be honest) and nothing's looked quite right to me until last week I finally hit upon the right way to curl my hair, and got it to look like this:

Which I'm really quite happy with! I've since been practising getting it to look more or less like this every day, and I've managed it for a couple of weeks now. I'm lucky in that my hair curls easily and I work from home, so I put the hair in rollers after having a shower and just leave it for a couple of hours before taking out the rolls and brushing it out. In the evening I roll it back into pin curls before going to bed, so the curls are fresh in the morning.

Other than that, I'm more or less just waiting for my hair to grow. I'm sure I'll do more experimenting with it the way it is now, and maybe hit upon a few other ways of wearing it, but I think I'll have to wait until it's longer to really discover some variety. At some point I think I need to have it cut anyway, not to take away any length, but to put layers in. With it all being one length, when it's curled it ends up being rather boxy, and that's only going to get worse.

The thing is, getting a hair cut simply for the purpose of curling and doing vintage dos seems like...rather a big step. ;) So I've been delaying it, in case I get tired of looking like this and want to go back to what you saw in the first pic! So far, so good - I love feeling feminine and the curly hair certainly gathers lots of compliments too, although they're more of the "ooh, lovely hair - are you going to a party?" variety. I just smile and say "no, I just felt like curls today". :)

Now that I've got the hair figure out, a new "problem" has presented itself: my wardrobe doesn't contain enough clothes that match the hair! I say "problem"...

Welcome

Hello and welcome to my blog! I call it the Teeny Weeny Style Blog because I think beauty is in the details, all small things are pretty, and well, I'm not looking for massive world-wide fame :) Rather the opposite - I'm a fairly private person and I spend a lot of time elsewhere on the 'net, so I probably won't be posting here every day, or even close. Nevertheless, I wanted to create a space where, every now and then at least, I can share some of my discoveries of beauty and hopefully spread some joy :)

Why do I want to do this now? I have in the past year or so gained a huge amount of style-related inspiration from various sources, not the least of which is the fabulous Freelancer's Fashionblog, and I've recently made the jump from admiring to doing it myself. I feel like I've always wanted to dress this way, but never realised it until recently - and it also took some time to realise that it's actually possible and feasible to do on a daily basis.

But that's enough for now - let's get on with the show!