DIY - How To Make Your Own Dress

Smock dresses have been popping up everywhere in stores lately, which is fantastic as they have been on my to-make list for quite a while! Why buy when you can DIY? I always thought that they'd be pretty easy to make because the waist is not fitted and they're generally quite loose-fitting, so there is definitely room for error when you make your own :) I was inspired by The White Pepper and Vintage Style Me to make a plaid-pinafore smock-style dress. I'm super happy with how it turned out! I will now attempt to explain how you can make one for yourself. You'll need basic sewing skills to do this, but definitely nothing too fancy - if you can sew a straight-stitch, and have been able to successfully sew a skirt or something similar, you're good to go. By the way, if you want to make a dress like my Hungry Caterpillar Dress, the instructions for making the bodice are essentially the same (though you don't add the extra inches to each measurement, which makes it more fitted), and you add a circle skirt instead, but attach it to the top in the same way. And FYI, my DIY crop-top instructions are coming next! First off, you'll need to take some measurements if you want your dress to fit you (yes, you're making your very own pattern!) Take the following measurements (see photos) and write them down somewhere, adding 2 - 3 inches to each measurement that you take, as the dress is going to be slightly oversized (and it's always good to add a little bit extra, anyway). These are the measurements that you will transfer to your pattern. (note: under-boob and waist measurements go all the way around you!) You then need to translate these measurements onto a piece of paper or newspaper, and cut out a shape similar to the one below. Divide your waist and under-boob measurements by 4, and your shoulder-to-shoulder measurement by 2 first. (The top of the shoulder strap to the top of the neckline, by the way, was 6 inches on my pattern. However, I made the straps a lot shorter in the final dress, so around 3 - 4 inches is probably a good length from shoulder strap to the top of the neckline, no matter what your size, unless you want a higher or a lower neckline than I have on my dress, for which you would alter this accordingly). Also note - if you're bigger than a B-cup, you should probably replace measurement c below with your bust measurement, rather than under-boob measurement. This is a pattern that I have made for a number of different styles of bodice - the line marked at "d" is actually where the bottom of the bodice will be for the smock-style dress, and so this line is where I cut my fabric! You can make the bodice any length you want - I recommend adding a bit extra than you think you will need - you can always make it shorter later! It's also not the worst idea ever to "wear" the pattern before cutting any fabric. This should give you some idea as to whether it will fit you or not! If it looks a bit too big - that's what you're aiming for! Now you just need to pin your pattern onto your fabric, and cut it out. You will need two "back pieces" (just flip the pattern over to make the other side): And one "front piece", which looks like this (simply flip your pattern over once you've cut out one side, and make sure not to cut down the middle): Next step: darts & lining. First, you should make "darts" on your front bodice piece (and it's also a good idea to make the front bodice piece a little bit longer than the back pieces. You can probably see how mine is actually a bit longer than the two back pieces in these photos). I actually forgot to make darts until after I added the lining, which was kind of dodgy of me, so make sure you do it first! To make darts, on the back of the fabric, draw a horizontal line 5-6 inches long, then make it into a triangle. Fold the fabric on the horizontal line, and using a straight stitch, sew along one of the triangle edges. Hopefully, you should end up with something that looks like this: To line the bodice, which I highly recommend that you do, place all the bodice pieces on your lining fabric right side down (fyi, I just used a cheap white synthetic fabric for the lining), pin, and cut it out so that they're both the same size, and, keeping the pins in the fabric, sew them together. Sew all around the edges, except for the bottom edge. Turn it inside out, and you should have something that looks like this: The process is the same for the front bodice piece too - just sew the pieces together all the way around the outside, but leave the bottom bit open. Place both your back-pieces onto the front piece, right sides together...  And sew them together in these two places. Do this for both of the back pieces.  You should now have something that looks like this! Gorgeous! Next: making the skirt Cut a length of fabric that you can wrap around your waist at least one-and-a-half times, and is the length you desire (plus a few inches). Now you will need to gather your skirt fabric. Along the longest edge of the skirt piece, sew straight across the fabric using the longest straight stitch, but do not forward or back stitch at both ends like you normally would. Then, grab only the top stitch or the bottom stitch on one end of the fabric (this site explains how to do this really well), and carefully pull the thread out of the fabric. This will cause the fabric to begin to gather up. Push the gathers along and continue until the entire fabric is gathered. Do this on both ends! Here's a good tutorial on how to gather fabric (I did the cheating method). Also, don't worry if you gather too much - you can always "un-gather" it a little. Anyway, your gathered fabric should look like this: Now you need to attach the skirt to the bodice. Line the two up, and un-gather the skirt so that it is the same length as the unfolded bodice. And then flip the bodice over onto the skirt, pin together, and sew as below: Try the dress on for size. Now, if you've accidentally made a moo moo dress like I did, that's okay - you can make it smaller by repeating the above step, but sew even higher up on the bodice. You'll also have this whole thing going on, where it appears that you've made a hospital gown (stylish, right?): Which just means that it's time for you to add your zipper! The zip needs to be long enough to cover the bodice, and at least some of the length of the skirt - or you will find that you won't be able to get the dress on! The bodice pieces can be placed directly onto the zipper because they have neat edges, but you will need to fold the fabric of your skirt in a little before placing it onto the zipper (I explain how to insert a zipper here; the idea is the same even though that article was for a skirt). First, un-zip your zipper and pin it to one edge of the back of the dress. When you get to the bottom where the zip is, lift the foot and carefully do the zip back up, then continue on sewing. Do the same for the other side. Sewing on a zipper takes quite a bit of practice, so don't stress too much if you stuff it up the first time! Your skirt will now have a slit at the bottom wherever the zipper ended. Sew this together by flipping the dress inside-out, and sewing the two skirt pieces together (right sides together). I couldn't get a good picture of this, but if you've made it up to this step, it should be pretty self-explanatory! Now all you need to do is to hem the bottom of your skirt. To do this, simply fold the skirt's fabric up an inch or so inside the dress, and sew all the way around the skirt. You can fold it over twice for a neater look. And guess what - you're done! If you've got any questions, please leave me a comment and I'll answer as best I can! Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Teapot Prints & The Smallest USB Ever Made

dress is c/o Sheinside (also worn here) | shoes are from JuJu Shoes | lipstick is Ruby Woo from MAC Here's another outfit featuring an over-the-top obnoxious print :) I absolutely love this dress, and I just realised how well it goes with red hair, so I've been wearing it for a few days straight! This is also a consequence of the hot weather - it's been way too hot to wear anything but loose-fitting dresses and sandals lately, and as I'm looking at all my Northern Hemisphere blog friends I have to say that I wish I were freezing and able to layer up - layering allows so much more creativity in one's outfits, plus it looks so snuggly! So here's something amazing - these guys have created USB devices that are the size of sticky-notes! In fact, they're made from graphene - which, simply put, is an arrangement of carbon atoms that is only one atom thick, and allows the storage of loads of data. The awesome thing about these data stickies is that it aims to "bridge the gap between the physical and the virtual". The stickies are able to transfer data simply by sticking them onto a receptor surface (called the optical data transfer surface). You can put these on a computer, or a phone - anything that can receive data, really - and the device will be able to read the data that's stored on the sticky. Image source Still, I wouldn't want to put anything too important on these stickies, without it being backed up elsewhere. So much data is going to go missing if these become a big thing, and I predict a lot of frustration... Read more about how they work, and other applications of the data stickies on this website. Much love, Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Lizard People & Extremophiles

Guess where my awesome new lizard-print shirt is from. Some fancy boutique? A reptile museum gift-shop? Nope, guess again! In fact, it's a boys "ages 8-9" shirt that I got for $3 in an op-shop the other day. This is a reminder to any thrifty people out there that you mustn't restrict yourself to your own clothing section when thrifting! Whenever I go thrifting, I always make sure to look in the children's section just in case I find something amazing like this lizard shirt. And apparently, apart from the sleeve length, I am a perfect fit for a boys size "ages 8-9" anyway so I guess I should shop in that section more often, haha. shirt is thrifted | skirt is thrifted | socks are from a market stall | shoes are no longer for sale Prepare to be amazed by the toughest creature on Earth - a teeny tiny (and quite adorable) little creature that is known as an "extremophile", meaning that it can thrive where most other creatures can't - such as in volcano vents, super hot temperatures, or under extremely high pressures. Some theories of the origins of life on Earth include panspermia - that life originated elsewhere, on another planet, and traveled to Earth through space with the help of a meteorite - and extremophiles, some of which are able to survive in the freezing vacuum of space, give such theories credibility. Have a watch: I hope you're all having a great day! Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Sailor Mars / Earth From The ISS

dress is from Clear It (Dangerfield) | bag is thrifted | shoes are c/o Yeswalker | cardigan c/o Sheinside(?) | socks from a market stall I have had this dress for months now, and I don't know why I haven't blogged about it yet - it's definitely one of my favourites! Maybe it was because I was subconsciously waiting to re-dye my hair, because the dress goes really well with red curls! Always a sucker for sailor-style dresses and twirly skirts, I feel like I'm channeling Sailor Mars a little bit in this outfit. I had had my eye on this Dangerfield dress from about April this year, and happened to find the dress marked down to a ridiculously low price (from the original $88) in Dangerfield's clearance store. My heart broke when I saw that the only one left was a size too small - but I decided that I would just have to squeeze into it, because I couldn't not buy it. I don't regret my decision at all :) If, like me, you think that Gravity was kinda incredible (I was inconsolable for long stretches of that film - luckily we saw it in a near-empty cinema because I was doing some serious sobbing), or even if you have any passing interest in astronomy, you'll love this video: a gorgeous 3-minute compilation of videos taken from the international space station, looking both down on Earth at night, and up into the rest of space. Enjoy! I hope you're all having a lovely day, Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Red Locks & Cropped Tops

Shirt is DIY | skirt is c/o Choies | shoes are from JuJu Shoes Cropped tops are now my new favourite things to make. I've churned out three in the last couple of days - I really like how fast they are to make, how little fabric they require, and how flattering the fit is! Anyway, I was wondering if anyone would be interested in a tutorial on how to make them. Let me know! Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Floral Dresses & Cropped Sweaters | Biochemistry Basics part 2

Dress is thrifted | socks are from a market stall | shoes are c/o Yeswalker | sweater is thrifted | bag is from Asos When I moved out of home, I left about two-thirds of my clothes at my parent's house. Whenever I go back to visit, I also get to rediscover all these old clothes! Going through my old wardrobe is like visiting my own personal (free) thrift shop, and lets me refresh my wardrobe every few months without having a buy a thing. This cropped sweater is a gem that I've had for years, originally thrifted. And I just got this dress for a couple of dollars at an op-shop the other day, too! I'm really enjoying getting into thrifting again, though it's helped that I've been finding the most awesome stuff lately. Now that you all know how cells, DNA and chromosomes work (if not, read part 1 of this post first), let's talk about what genes are. Inherited your mum's thick hair or your dad's big nose? It's all got to do with your genes, baby. The "gene" is the basic unit of inheritance - the stuff being passed down from generation to generation. And a gene is actually just a section of DNA, somewhere on one of your chromosomes, that gives your cells instructions to make a particular protein. Genes that make globin, for example (part of your blood) look like this, and the protein it makes (a stylized image, of course) looks like this. (If you've forgotten what the letters stand for, read part 1 first.) So your cells make proteins by reading genes. Your cells are able to read the DNA sequence of your genes, which each have a little "promoter" - a specific DNA sequence - to let the cell know that it is there and ready to be made into protein. When the cell knows that the time is right (and there is a whole lot of complex signalling going on to tell the cell when the time is right, that I'm not going to go into here), it uses what is called an "RNA polymerase" to transcribe the DNA into a similar molecule called mRNA. mRNA also uses "bases" and they are just the "opposite" of what is written on the DNA, with T being substituted for a very similar base called uracil ("U"). When mRNA is made, it pairs up with one strand of DNA, and places a U wherever there is an A, an A wherever there is a T, a C wherever there is a G and a G wherever there is a C. The mRNA is just a code for making proteins - and each group of three bases makes a particular amino acid, which is the basic unit of proteins. For example, the code "UUU" makes the amino acid "phenylalanine" in the protein. If you can imagine that all the DNA in your cell is a whole book of instructions, making mRNA is essentially like copying out just one instruction from one page of the book. Then the mRNA sits around in your cell, a code waiting to be translated into the language of amino acids. When it is translated into a series of amino acids, this is called a protein. The protein can then go and do useful stuff - like making your hair a particular colour. Example: Red hair genes A gene that can determine whether or not you have red hair is a sequence with the name MC1R. It is located on chromosome 16, and one particular variant has this DNA sequence. MC1R makes a protein that attaches to hormones in cells which make skin and hair pigment, and influences the rate and type of pigment being made. We all have the MC1R gene, but if you have a particular version of this gene (meaning that the letters in the DNA are slightly different from someone with brown or blonde hair), you will have red hair! I unfortunately do not have this gene myself, and have to dye my hair red instead. This map shows where many of the genes are on your chromosomes that are responsible for determining the thickness, colour, growth rate and curliness of your hair. We all share a lot of the same genes with one another - you are 99.9% identical at the DNA level to any other random human on the planet. But the differences inside many of the genes, and the insanely large number of combinations that you can make out of all of them, is what makes us all individuals. Read biochemistry basics part one here. Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr