The road to the runway

The journey!!!
Making time to sew is not always easy especially when you have a full time job and are a full time mummy. It comes down to time management and groveling so that hubby can watch the kids while I am downstairs in our basement sewing. On other days when hubby has to work and do other things I just have to take Jo with me downstairs...





The routine is pretty much the same. I leave her to play by herself for about 30 minutes before she starts to fuss... then I feed her she gets happy and plays by herself for another 30 minutes. At this point what she really wants is to nap so I cuddle her until she naps and pray to God the nap should last 2 hours. In most cases, it lasts about an hour, at best, an hour and a half hours. In this time I try to get as much done as possible. Most times, if I have a deadline, I utilize the nights as the best as I can while they're sleeping, that's if I don't fall asleep myself. Lol!!!!

When we were building our house, we had agreed to use one room for my craft but somehow, the room, inherited two drum sets for hubby and Sy. It's just a matter of time until Jo gets her own small sewing station in that tiny room and Ill have to relocate. You might wonder how I am able to share the space. There is an open space right outside the sewing room that I use to measure and cut fabrics.





My workstation.

In this fashion show,  I already had some ideas about the direction I wanted to take my designs. I have a style that I am drawn to... So seeing certain fabrics I already knew what I was gonna do with them. I made a couple of trips to the fabric store to pick more fabrics and other supplies. The rest was pretty much putting hand to machine and creating my designs.

Here are some unofficial pictures of the Fashion show as I wait for official pictures.

Repurposed denim pants

The joy of growing tall and growing up Torimiro... My son outgrows his clothes soooo fast and sometimes I just tend to love some clothes more than others that I find it hard to let go. So I did what any other mother would do when faced with a dilemma of whether to let her son go to church with pants that are wayyyyyyyy above his ankles.

I tried to fold the pants and make them 3/4 pants but that just made it look like I was trying to hard to make him look stylish. So I quickly took off his pants, but before that I marked a line where I wanted to cut them. I headed to the basement with a pair of scissors in hand and cut them off. This overzealous mom quickly folded and stitched the hem before my husband even realized what I was doing or where I was. I would have gotten an earful if he knew that instead of finding something else for him to wear I took to the machine. I just wanted him to wear that particular pair.

I then pressed the edges/hem with an iron, slipped them on him and an hour later we were at church. No one suspecting of our little morning adventure he got a lot of compliments even one from our beloved Pastor.

These pics were taken in the afternoon at the house after church. Sy and his friend were playing in the backyard.

The joy of Dressmaking

These past couple of weeks have been amazing in my little world of dress making... I think I am really enjoying this new journey of sewing all over again. There is a high I find myself on when I work on a style... that high I cant describe or explain.

Anyways... so these is a dress I worked a while back. I love the details of the fabric. I love African weddings and events. That when all these amazing fabrics come out to play. I know sketching an outfit is the utmost important part when making or creating a style. But something I literally skip that process and go straight to the my dress form and start cutting... Honestly whispering a prayer that God should take control of my hands because I can't afford to damage someone's fabric always makes me feel at ease.

The details of the fabric are  insane... Enjoy