Sewing patternless

Yup I'm doing it! I'm trying my hand at designing a jacket for the winter. A little scary, but awesome  -I can make whatever I like, with in the constraints of the material of course.
The jacket isn't completely patternless, I did start off with a 'base', remember this?

Well I'm basing it off this, because I want it to have some flair, not like an ordinary jacket. Plus it's the only jacket pattern we have (last I checked) So after lots of researching to decide just exactly what style I wanted, and lots of astronaut looking sketches

 I decided just to start, so I cut out the pattern in a large size (to leave room for draping etc) joined some of the pattern pieces together, as I didn't want the white biby thing that is in the above picture. I sewed a mock up in calico and spent ages in the mirror trying to pin it to fit. Then I decided to cut it in half so that I could add more length, cause as you can just see it didn't come down over my hips. So last night I added a strip and sewed it in between, like this (excuse the phone pictures)

(The right side is the top half by the way)

from the outside it looks more like this:

As you can see it's only half of it, and the bottom picture has the top on the left side instead.

Now I am starting to unpick the vertical seam so that I can cut it out on in the material (hence the lifeless half pictures) 

The material

And that's as far as I've gotten, I'm hoping to have finished unpicking today and get onto the real thing, and eventually the decorating (really looking forward to that part :D )

But I still have to design the hood, collar, and sleeves yet so hopefully it all goes smoothly :)
It'll probably be dystopian/post apocalyptic in style, using lots of zippers and old buttons for character :) This blog is definitely turning into a sewing/writing one.

-Tiffany 

Updating the last update

Oh wow! Excuse my terrible blog posting - the last real post was a new years one!! Oh dear, so much for wanting to post more :/

So what have I done lately? Got my licence, school work and contemplated sewing again :) My favourite place to haunt at the moment is the dreamstress (she runs a challenge to make a historical costume once a fortnight ) dreaming about getting some costume done in a fortnight so that I can make something. Well it's only been dreaming as I haven't got the patterns or material to pretend to start :/
Although I have started fixing a bodice of on my Regency dress that I made years ago -the bodice length is way too short, and on a Regency dress that looks hideous. Got so far but don't know if I have any material left -lol.
But even if I had a costume I don't know where I would wear it -Costumer problem #1. So I was thinking of making some undergarments, something that would go underneath the stuff I have. But corsets are kinda out of the question as I don't have half the material, although I have drafted a elizabethan pattern :P
Today we went through the linen cupboards and Mum gave me a few sheets, so now I have lots of ideas buzzing round my head, mostly including part silk table cloths. Ah oh well.

Anyway I have to have lunch, hopefully I get round to posting again soon :/

The Courageous Girl

a short while ago I was talking with a friend of mine, in fact we had all been in the car and were talking about strengths when suddenly she said "Last year was really hard, I tried doing all this stuff and I didn't seem to be 'good' at anything, all my friends did really well at one thing or another and I was just average, so I decided that I'm good at being average, and that's all I might ever be good at, that I shouldn't expect to much of myself..."
Wow. How often do you hear that? How often do you know that someone isn't killing themselves to be something? True it's sad that she has such a low opinion of herself that she can't see that she is good at a lot of things.  But imagine what the world would be like if people excepted their capabilities, that could be humble about what they can and can't do. Anyway there's just a little glimpse of a real princess, who I wish I was a lot more like

Happy New Year etc etc etc

I'm not much for writing cheesy cliche posts about Christmas -I'm sure your dashboard is already full of them. But I will mention that we had heaps of fun with our German friends; trying lots of different flavours and sweets. We had a good time, but as I said I won't bore you.

New Years was so much fun, partying at a friends place, watching despicable me 2 with lots of friends, good food, sparklers and fire-works at midnight. Getting to bed at 1:30am ;)
Excuse me for a moment, I'm just about to tuck into a '9:30 breakfast' Haselnuss-hazelnut german chocolate, it has four little pieces in each packet and tastes delicious!!!

Apart from that we haven't been doing much lately, only recovering from the hectic sewing we did for the wedding (28th December last year ;) But we did go swimming today in the waterhole -cold. The weather hasn't been very summery lately :/

As for my writing, I haven't officially done anything. Although I've started on a new story: heehee naughty me! It's far more paranormal than anything I've ever written (which isn't very paranormal at all) I'm a little afraid of it as the beginning is a little spooky. Oh well I've got at least 2 more books to write before I seriously start looking at it. Yeah. At least two more, I've decided my fate as an author is going to be writing more than one book, because I just can't not write.

Oh and by the way I've dyed my hair red... not very red, more red velvet because of my dark hair but anyway I like the subtlety. I decided to go with commercial dye as it was cheaper (henna costs $30.00!) and a friend was able to do it on me. I've finally got used to looking in the mirror ;)

We've also been feasting on berries; cranberries, gooseberries, raspberries, strawberries, boysenberries and cherries. Very good, Especially when you get to have yoghurt, cream and raspberries on your cornflakes (best breakfast ever!!)

So as you can see we've had quite a lot of fun, how about you? what have you been doing these holidays?

Life

My life. Right now.. very interesting, very two faced. One day right one day wrong. Everything up in the air, not thought about, everything used without a thought. Confusing. Is this how it's meant to be? How is a black and white seeing person meant to survive without being judgemental? how do they stay open? I just want to know what to do. How to fix my life. How to be happy. Not much to ask? Apparently. Yeah I know life isn't kind. And I know that it's meant to make you stronger. But what about being free? What about not having to worry? Yeah I know that God is meant to fix that. But then how come it's so hard to get close to him? how come you are always drifting back and forth? And I know I don't have time for this, for crying and weeping over myself. There are people out there who are ripped in two and bleeding. Who are trying to cover it up.

How come I want to heal stuff and instead I am shredding things to pieces?

Nanowrimo year 2

Heeheee I just realised I haven't done an update on what happened to my writing! Well it didn't get very far, 9k but hey, I wasn't even planning on doing it this year, so I guess it's more than nothing.
This is my second year on the book "The Chased" which is now 43 pages and I've already started revising with a published author/friend. In other words I've worked myself it too a hole, so I've reverted back brainstorming and pinning ;D gotta get inspiration somehow.
One thing I have learnt is that this story is going to take it's time, no 51k in a month for me :/
I'm actually missing just plain writing and making up stories for fun, and not worrying about the details.  I know, that sounds bad, I'm meant to enjoy writing this,  I'm not meant to worry about what other people think. But it happens regardless... oh well I'll stop moaning, sorry all you non-writers for all the mumbo-jumbo
-Tiffany

sewing again

Yes already! You'd think I'd had enough after Oamaru's flurries. Well no, today from 10am to 5pm I was hard out sewing. (With some professional photography in-between ;) ) I was helping with the flower girl dresses for a friends wedding. Well there was actually five of us all set along the extended table working all five machines. It made quite a sight, blue, and lots of purple satin strewn across it, mingled with threads, ribbons, pins and at least three quick-unpicks. Our goal was to have seven dresses done before the end of the day. It was intense I tell you, Samara managed to finish two dresses, the rest of us completing only one, my excuse? Ahh strange shoulders and confusing fabric -mostly my fault :) Oh well, it was quite a lot of fun, and I got some of the material to make a dress for myself - so I guess I'm not nearly finished with sewing...*

Tiffany

*I wrote this yesterday but only just managed to get publish

Oamaru Heritage week

The train (er van) arrived back at my house last night
sooo I'm back!!!!!

And was it fun! True I did absolutely no writing, but I don't really mind anymore, I might get 10k done this year but that doesn't matter. Although I had two radical ideas that will greatly change my book - oh well, I'm not sure if I'll use them, we'll see.  One of them is changing the setting to some place down south instead of Waipara North Canterbury, but that will include heaps of research.

I got my jacket done in plenty of time, I was sooo glad I wasn't sewing last minute. Although strictly speaking its not finished according to the pattern, but I didn't want to put lace on the cuffs as it looked fine without, so that's all good.

here's a couple of pictures from the trip

this is the tiny little house that we stayed in,  it was sooo cute the front part there is the lounge/kitchen, the house had a double bed, a loft with a single bed, a bathroom, and tiny laundry in the hall way. It's meant for three people at the most. We had 9 people there one time, for getting ready and for meals (which we had on the deck) and 6 sleeping over night -and I tell you it was a squish!

the view of Oamaru from the deck

my jacket all finished

eating ice cream in Oamaru, all dressed up in one of Mum's bridesmaid dresses (adapted of course)

I got badly sunburnt that day

So that is a little snippet of what happened, now I'm off to have lunch 

Write... Sew.... Sleep...

As I said in the last post this is pretty much my life this November..

Well not so much the writing, I've decided to make my goal to plan something rather than to write myself into a hole. I'm doing the same story that I did last year, and although I haven't done much,its quite fascinating seeing how much my characters have changed.

 I'm focusing more on my sewing as I've only got till Thursday to finish my jacket, but it isn't too bad as I've only got to pop on the buttons, ten to be exact, which I'll probably end up doing tomorrow - hopefully I'll have some pictures to show you later

And well sleep, lets just say not much -after all a writer needs to tank up by reading ;)

I'm looking forward to having the next two weeks almost free (Ikr almost) so hopefully I'll be able to stick my head into writing, and try a few sprints because hey I'll  still want to try to get to 30k, oh well, we'll see.

-Tiffany

A flurry a whirlwind

ah,  I'm pretty much panting. My life is sooo busy right now, and well it's mostly my own fault. I'm doing Nanowrimo again, trying to push out 1,000+ words a day, to end up with hopefully more than 30,000 words by then end of this month. hmm add that to frantic sewing for Oamaru heritage week, a week of baby sitting, secretary-ness, hand-writing and counting every. single. word. Also lack of inspiration, procrastination, and life and you end up with 8,245 words on day 10 (when you're meant to be at 10,000+)  Just sad just plain sad... so any way thats my list of excuses for not blogging in aggessss   ;) and I did try and find a picture of my sewing for you but it seemed to have run away :\  life
Oh and by the way and completely out of context - The Shack is a REALLY good book :D

Getting it right

Hi,
I'm writing again ;)
Actually I've been away for two weeks... it was pretty fun. And I just want to share with you a real crazy out of place, God moment I had at confrence. We went to Manifest Presence confrence last year and it was really good last year, but this year I had a little bit of a reserve about going. I was panicing that it wouldn't be worth coming and that I might believe a lie that the teachers unwittingly told; something un-Jesus like. And on the first night I was trying to rid myself of all this prejudice and Daddy/God suddenly put into my head that he is truth (well duh) but not only that, we don't have to rely on people getting things right for us, we can go straight to God for an answer. Ok I know that sounds really dumb and a Home-schooled Christian should know that stuff off by heart. But my questions weren't small and some how I'd got it into my head that some questions are too big for God and that I had to ask other people to see whether this was even remotely wise. (not that I'm promoting ignoring people, but I've learnt that you can overdose on human reasoning)
Anyway there was this peace that I didn't have to get it right, that I could believe a lie and that it honestly wouldn't hurt God, I mean he may have a learning curve in store for me, but he's got this even if I tear my world apart he won't panic!!
What a relief

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world.” John 16v33

CEF camp

Hey everyone I just got back from CEF camp (child evangelism fellowship) it was so much fun despite the fact that I had a terrible cold all week. It was exhausting but I already missing my girls and all those lovely leaders You guys were awesome5! Anyway where do I begin? Well on Sunday afternoon a friend and I went down to the camp where a whole bunch of teens were gathered in slightly awkward circles waiting for everyone to arrive. When they all did we went inside and played some icebreaker games aka going round the circle saying your name etc. Then we played horses knights and cavaliers in which you had to pair up with a Guy (luckily I was paired up with someone who I consider to be an older brother) so with that person you had to do a series of three actions a horse, someone on there hands and knees and the other person sitting on them. A Knight, where one person was down on one knee and the other person sat on the other knee, and then there was the cavaliers where one person jumps into the other persons arms. And you had to do all three as fast you could with the director calling out the order -it was a great segregation breaker :) After that we had a devotional / challenge from the director, went through all the training stuff and eventually the director announced which leaders (teens) we were with, then we went to put our bags in the cabins, had tea and more training, with a little time to hang out before bed. The next morning we had breakfast and started decorating the cabins only to near that the bus full of children had arrived. Now there is nothing like the excitement of thirtyish leaders when the bus arrives. We all run outside wild with excitement and begin to unload their gear. Followed by morning tea and a safety regulations talk, the boy and girl campers get split and we find out who our "girls" are. I was in a cabin with seven girls and three other leaders. As the week progressed we got to know our sweet little girls, learnt the difference between just being nice and actually loving. You learnt how valueble encouragement is, what exhaustion feels like and you learnt that God has got this, and how important showers are for relaxing by yourself. How annoying head colds are, how fun air rifles are. You wonder how Jesus loved, how other leaders could be so constantly giving all the compassion they've got, how you could give more but in your own way, how food at home tastes worse than food at camp, how to be so tired that you have to think to spell your own name, what herding seven children outside at six o'clock in the morning feels like, because the fire alarm went off, what enthusiasm is after waking at sixish in the morning and getting.g to sleep at nine thirty if you're lucky, what giving every ounce of kindness within you 24/7, doing everything from acting to decorating your cabin in a cowboy theme, to getting complemented for that skull and cross bones that was painted on your cheek for pirate day, to getting home and sleeping from eight pm to eight am and still feeling tired, but most of all terribly missing every single moment of CEF camp Tiffany

Some fun

 So this is what I got up to today ;)
(second title: what you can do without a computer)

So I raided the dress up box and tried some steampunk... da da da ddahhh!! (drum roll)

                                            Then posed in front of the camera serval times...

                                                                heehee it was lots of fun!

                                                                         -Tiffany

Bits and bobs

I'm just writing down some interesting ponderings about stuff I learnt to day.

In search of truth.

Wouldn't it be nice if we knew somethings were absolutely true. I don't mean things like did God create the universe. But things like is being doggedly positive about everything Christian/Buddhism, Christian or Buddhism ;) get your head around that one. Ok I'll ease it up... Do you think "pain free births" are for Christians or is it an influence from an Eastern Religion? hmmm... I don't actually know... sounds Buddhist to me (as in everything is an illusion type stuff) but at the end of the day it isn't important (well definitely not for me ;D ) *

But it would be really nice if Jesus just said" Missy you're doing real well there.... and well this needs fixing." A kind of Rev 2 & 3 re-enactment. Well that might actually be kinda painful in the end... but a least you'd have some sense of direction!
(just paused to read an article about Buddhism and pain free births, wasn't that helpful in a philosophical sense but I gleaned one thing; *don't freak out* about labour pains and I have to admit that that's gotta help)

Anyway all that blah di blah was just a baby question of mine (pun not intended) and I guess everyone has questions about everything. Soo helpful. So last month I decided to go to a counsellor (someone fall over and die/scream or gasp) just to see what it was like -as it was free. It was like having a conversation, we didn't discuss anything big and it was a lady btw. We talked about fairly controversial topics like music and conflicting word views that you agree with (WHAT! somebody explain! ;) when someone on one side of the fence says blah di blah about singing and the other person on the other side of the the fence says blah di blah opposing their neighbours view... but when you analyse them they both make sense. Small problem) anyway we talked about stuff and one thing that I really got out of it was... don't worry if you don't get it right! well duh common knowledge... but for some reason I couldn't quite get into my head that you didn't have to know everything about God right away... I mean all he asks for is you to believe and receive that he loved you enough to die for you**... really? Is it that simple?! well apparently... But then life crashes in on you (btw I tend to be slightly pessimistic naturally) and you watch riveting videos about the promises in Revelation that are panning out in modern day Israel that urge you to study God's word (out of fear, I mean honestly who doesn't want to avoid bad stuff) but the problem is your bible isn't at all interesting and you want it to be interesting plus you've been raised on the book so you kinda know a bit. Ok a *bit*.
Anyway you go down the same old track of getting other peoples opinions and some say get to know God first then read his book and others say take a concrete pill/ build a bridge and get over it. Then you get really confused and round it goes again. Brilliant!
But life goes on... and you keep on struggling through it with highs and lows. So hopefully God will reveal himself more and somethings will fall into place before we're on our deathbed. ;D So I guess this is my little corner of rebellion. I hope it made sense. Probably didn't help one bit. But anyway it's a slice of a real teenagers life
-Tiffany

(and I manage to cover my favourite topics; midwifery and deep thoughts in one post and it's 11:10pm)





*Another unimportant, wanna be a midwife find;  apparently Vaginal Birth after C-section (VBAC) is safer than continued c-sections statistics for maternal death of VBAC mothers 3.8 out of 100.000 v.s the American populace of 13.4 out 100.000 (for non VBAC) also apparently Amish women have a lower c-section rate etc. read more here
**btw I only just realised that was all God asks for

A book!

In June I was reading a post on Writer's Alley, at the end of the post they asked the reader's what their favourite books were. So I looked at all the comments to see what books the other readers liked ( to get a good idea what to read ;D ) and typed in one of my favs, Mara daughter of the Nile.

A week later I was scanning through Writers Alley again and I saw my name it fairly big print. I stopped, and scrolled up a little and there was: Tiffany Jane won the favourite book competition. The prize being one of the Writer's favourite books. I was in complete shock. I didn't even know it was a competition!!! (If you go and have a look at the comments here you will see my remark of complete and utter shock)

 A few days and got a reply from one of the writers, saying yes I won it. But I had a small problem, I'm no from the States. So after a few days of emails going back and forth, the writer said she could still mail it. And today the book came!! I'm so excited, I haven't even read the back cover. I hope it's really good book!  It's called Wish you were here by Beth K Vogt. And it sounds very adventurous/thriller and romantic, a mix that I love!!