Owl and the Cat - Sewing Projects

(Note: This is the newest of four posts today which cover the Christmas season of craft)
For my baby nephew for Christmas I sewed this owl toy inspired by the design in the book 'Simple Softies', however I made changes such as the use of cotton fabrics instead of felt (except the wings remained felt for functional purposes)

Also from the same book, I redesigned these simple cat toys which I modified to become Christmas decorations. I made a black one for my sister who has a black cat Satie, and a more colourful one which is closer to the design in the book. I never follow the instructions in the design books for some reason, but rather create something based on the pictures with little reference to certain steps of the instructions.
The faces are hand-embroidered and the bodies sewn together on my sewing machine. I also slip-stitched the ribbons and stuff to the pink cat. I disemboweled an unused cushion to use for stuffing.

-AlbusOwner

Cambodian Artwork

So on Monday my sewing project was due in at school, and today me and my friend who also does this subject presented our garments in Assembly!!

My design is inspired by the impact of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia during the 1970's, and their slow progress and regrowth since then.

Now these are a few shots from my friends' garment!

And here's a few shots of my project when worn!

I have included my design development drawings because I spent a long time on them and feel they need some recognition too! The drawings aren't totally honest, but they show a fair depiction of the general progression of ideas leading up to my final design.

Flowers completed!

I have FINALLY completed everything about these complex flowers!!!!!!! FINISHED!!!!!!!

The inner petals use rayon thread, free-motion machine embroidery over a wire structure. The outer leaves are again free-motion embroidery over thin fabric, with one piece of wire through the middle. The centres are circles of felt with two circles of white beads sewn over the top. The whole structure is hand-sewn together.

They have now been attached to the front of the skirt, and I think it is quite effective :)


Now I have to decide whether or not to embroider a quote to the base of the skirt or to cut it out of the design... at the moment I am more inclined to include it.
Stay tuned!

Bodice

I have now completely finished my Cambodian-style bodice! Yay!

And when I went to try it on, I realised I had made it a size or two too large for myself T-T

So in these photos you might notice I am pinching it tight behind my back. WHAT A SHAME.

I will alter it to fit my size once I get it back from marking.

Here's what it looks like off the body:

Do you see that detailing? See those seams?? See that boning??? See that zipper????

(You're not meant to see the last two)
This took me forever T-T

Now it's time to work on my skirt!!

Sewing Fun

Some sewing fun I have been creating lately:

Flower

Silk Painting

This is by far the most sophisticated bit of sewing I have ever done. It looks hideous, because I did it badly! But through that mess of stitching, I have actually created my own fabric to the left of the shiny fabric by using solvy and free-motion machine embroidery!

 

 

 

 The last picture is what I created today, and I am quite proud of it. This term we have no theory at all (!!), every lesson is practical where we are being bombarded with fairly sophisticated techniques. This one is meant to be a petal (but I used a leaf pattern and didn't realise that petals don't have centre veins....) and it has fishing wire around the edges to keep shape, and wire down the centre to bend it into cool shapes!

My plan is to create more petals and then somehow join them to create a full flower! Exciting!!

SQUARE

It's more than a square!

It's a SQUARE CUSHION!

I apologise that this is not straight, but my blogging thing just got updated and I can't work out how to turn pictures around....

Unfortunately when it's on the pillow you lose all the exciting bits around the edge D;

 

And this is the back!

 I'm so proud that this is done - there was a point there where I wondered if it would ever actually look like a cushion, but it surpassed my expectations!

I must just be awesome :D

Some more squares...

I am currently at a half-way point in two squares for my large embroidered cushion for school textiles.

I struck difficulty with the rosella one, I need to find some kind of eye-looking button or something to sew on for an eye, and I'm having a bit of a block about the blue thread which does not really show up, at all. I'm considering going over it in white thread?

I moved on to the bottle-brush in the meantime, and I quite like the overall effect. This is a terrible photo though, I hope the leaves don't look that bad in real life... Dang it, I knew I should have made them equal!!

I realised with horror today that my mum will be away during the time leading up to my handing in of this task, so I'm either going to prove my genius by whipping up some original construction stuff about making it actually into a pillow, or else I'm going to suffer with this assignment.

On the note of failing in textiles, we have an assessment next week on the properties of fibres and fabrics. I am SO dead. I very rarely come up to an assessment feeling completely and utterly unprepared. In fact, I don't think I've ever felt that before...

So I'm either going to have some brainwave about it in the next week, or I'm doomed for that too!