Renew and spring-charge your wardrobe with leftover fabric like I did

Earlier when I would get my clothes tailored, I would always request my tailor to give me the material left over. However, I have always been disappointed to hear that 'no material was left over'. Now that I sew the dresses, I am fascinated to find that if the cut is right, you are left over with quite a bit of fabric.

 

Also, I am so forgetful that I have 'burnt' quite a bit of dresses too while ironing. I can't wear them but why should I waste the entire fabric?

I put such fabric that I have collected to good use by reusing such leftover fabric.

This is a kurti I made with leftover material from another kurti. I found matching patches to attach on the sides so as to increase the length & breadth of the kurti.

Now, I also had this crepe material from a shawl that I accidentally burnt during ironing. I made rose flowers & stitched them to give the neck, slits & bottom of the kurti a different kind of look.

I am sure you can revamp your closet to give your dresses that 'new look'. So, what are you waiting for? Spring is in the air; do that spring cleaning of your closet & bring that spring & zing to your wardrobe without burning a hole in your pocket. 

If you need more ideas on what to do with such excess fabric... you know like making making different accessories to complement your wardrobe, then you will love this website -

http://www.allfreesewing.com/

It has inspired me to save up every spare bit of cloth and make beautiful little things that don't even take that much of your time.

Easter selfies!

I was never a selfie-kinda girl. In fact, I hate posing for pictures; I'd rather play photographer. This Easter, I let my hair down... Probably because there is nothing like celebrating the biggest day of a Christian with your family.

My parents are with me this Easter weekend and after the mass, we posed for selfies & pictures. This sparked a selfie-sharing frenzy on my various Whatsapp groups. Then came the pictures of different family activities or just chilling-out poses.

That made me try out my latest kurti which is actually made from the material for another kurti' salwar (bottom). I have so many cream salwars / churidhars / leggings that making another one seemed to be such a waste. Also, I collect the left over materials from my other creations in the hope of using it sometime in the future; that proved to be a boon.
I had to create multiple panels and sew them together but the result was worth it - simple yet elegant. Best of all, it made me stand tall. It was like I was implementing the message of Easter - 'The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone'; I converted my earlier rejects into something that I love wearing.

Now that is reason enough to give in to the 'posing and clicking and then posting on social media' frenzy. Here is the Mathews wishing you a verrry happppppy Easter!

Sewing a kurti with special significance this Good Friday!

Jesus died for our sins without question or argument; we commemorate that great sacrifice on Good Friday. 

I sewed a kurti with each color having a specific significance - black to protest the death of an innocent Jesus in a manner most cruel), yellow to proclaim Jesus as the light for removing darkness & evil, and other colors to show Jesus' sacrifice as a victory of good over evil. Light handmade and machine embroidery dotted the bottom and sleeves. I wore this to church. A song was on my lips as I went to attend the Good Friday service -

God gave his life for me, 

O what love I feel,

Jesus, the innocent lamb was slain.

All those protests leave my lips,

For such cruelties,

T'wards the Lord Immanuel.

Jesus, that light you are,

That which removes the dark,

You have conquered the evil in me.

There I do the dance,

To those trumpets blast,

You led goodness to victory!

Thank you Jesus for saving me; you are the light of my world!

Gift that chic, slim, and girly look to your newbie Mom friend!

Newbie Moms are so temperamental. They are worried about so many things about their baby like -  Is my baby feeding right? Why is my baby crying? Am I holding my baby right?, and then about themselves - Am I a good mother? When will I lose weight? Why do all my dresses make me look fat? When will I lose this tummy? I feel like eating all the time, should I stop? When do I exercise; I hardly have time to sleep?

The list is endless. If you have spent time with newbie Moms then probably you would have had this experience. The thing that really gets to you is that no matter what you say, she is not satisfied with your answer and holds out for that ever-elusive all-encompassing accurate answer.

I think it is best to avoid answers to her physical attractiveness. I mean if you say “No dear, you have lost weight”, she may promptly reply “What rubbish, I was so thin just about two years ago!” Or if you give tips to lose the tummy she will glare and say how easy it was two years ago to eat right, exercise and show off a flat tummy.

Obviously! two years ago, she was also not a mother of this baby. But this can be said only at your own peril.

However, no matter how irrational she is being now, she is still your friend and you want to try and make her feel better about herself.

I decided to make her look chic, slim and girly.

For the material, I took this silk sari that had been gifted but never worn and did not look like it would be worn anytime soon.

For the color, I chose purple… the color of royal robes. I want her to feel like a queen.

For the pattern,

I worked on main areas – 1. Make her look slimmer which means distributing body weight so that she stands tall and thus sport a slim silhouette, 2. Cover the butt even while walking, 3. Make her shapely so the cut would have to be such that all her apprehensive areas should not be evident.

I kept the kurta long to make her stand tall with the slit about 4 inches below the butt to cover it gracefully and the cut was shapely without highlighting any of the problem areas.

To get the ‘girly’ bit in, I chose to make the sleeves frilly just like most of the dresses worn by her baby daughter… that should have her feeling like she was ‘two years ago’, right?

Now, cutting a dress from a sari may seem easy but believe me that you have to be precise with the measurements of the adjustments that need to be done to convert the sari into the kurta. 

Tips: 

1. If you have tons of saris gifted to you over the years but you hardly ever wear them, this is a good way to convert these saris to clothes that you will wear more often.
2. If you are a beginner, then cut the pattern pieces on paper first with the accurate measurements and then cut the cloth by placing the pattern pieces over to guide you.
3. Look up in YouTube if you have doubts about how to do the neckline or attaching the sleeves perfectly; plenty of videos there. 
4. Practice, practice, practice.... soon you would be able to gift the special people in your life these fruits of your labor. 

Effort - tremendous.

Output – I love it.

Effect – Watch this blog for update on the surprise!

Baby bloomers to increase the 'cute' quotient on the sailor dress

Ever since I saw my niece looking oh-so-cute in her white bloomers at her baptism, I was obsessed with making one. And when I heard that one of my friends was coming to India with her new-born daughter, I thought ‘here is my chance’.

I made her a cute sailor dress, customized to the initial of her beautiful name – Mihira. Then, I started work on her bloomers. See bloomers are perfect sassy cover for diapers and it adds so much of ‘cute’ quotient to the ensemble.

This was the first time, I was making bloomers and I wanted it to be perfect. So, I started scanning online for tips on getting it right the first time around.

Anyone who wants to make bloomers after looking at this picture, 

here is the link to the pattern that a beginner can print http://sewing.craftgossip.com/free-pattern-baby-bloomers-2/2015/08/04/

Some visual instructions and inspirations to create your own masterpiece may be found on youtube, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-0p3ZuOkMA

That is when I saw this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v95Z8DOzXpk

Note to self: My next project – Bloomers for yours truly. Watch this space for more updates.

Quick & Easy to sew kurti for Xmasy wedding!

The Christmas season is upon us. Time to spruce up every aspect of your physical life as well as your spiritual one. One of my thoughts was about the dress I want to sport this Xmas.

Then I remembered that there was a wedding also that I needed to attend.

Typically, weddings are the best time to pull out those dressy sarees from your cupboard and wear them… otherwise they just occupy a lot of space in the cupboard and almost never see the light of the day after one wear. Unfortunately, that cupboard with my dressy sarees was sitting in Kerala. Drat!!!

Then I chanced to see this beautiful dressy material that my aunt had gifted me for my birthday. I never had a chance to stitch it yet.

Problem solved!!!

Having been influenced by all those dresses I had designed and sewn up till date, I went a bit mashup on this one. The heaviest influence I felt was that of the ruffled / gathered hem on the sleeves. I wondered whether I am too old for this but then again, my inner voice quelled my fear by repeating to me what I believe – “You live only once!”

Cheers!

Victorian with an Indian twist

A few weeks ago, I was at my friends’ house when her sister showed me this piece of material which was pristine white and self-printed. Now that I was crafting kids’ stuff, she wanted me to extend it to this piece of material. She had several nice-to-have requirements too – wearable with any of her cotton leggings, salwars and any of her stoles / duppattas, high possibility of wearing on Independence / Republic day and so on.

Also, she wanted something similar yet different (how is that possible, I wondered…) for her sister, my friend who BTW is very picky when it comes to design and colors – simple and not too colorful, acceptable colors – white, black, maroon, green and golden / saffron.

Ideas swirled around my head.

Since my friend hated too many colors, I thought I would play with lace and ruffles for her kurta and since her sister had these requirements, I thought of colored lace and trims so that she could wear it with any type and color of pajama bottoms and even stoles or duppattas.

The result: What you see in the picture!

We asked my friend to try it out and do like a catwalk for us and when she did, the rest of our friends gushed on how she looked like a Victorian doll. White lace and ruffles and just a dash of colors from the Indian flag... the effect was just as intended.

Personalizing your little girls' clothes....

Imagine your little girls wearing their very own brand of clothes!

What is required for this? Simply your time and patience.... 

And the rest follows below -

First, you choose the fabric and the color that your little ones like.

Then either you design some simple or fancy or get ‘inspired’ from all the designs floating all over the internet.

Embellish or enhance the look of the dress with motifs or bows or ruffles or whatever you or your girls fancy.

The last thing is to personalize it to make it their very own brand.

Just like I did for my little nieces….

Designing, sewing, painting, embroidering… I did it all. 

The result and the reward is well-worth the effort.

Try it... you won't be disappointed.

Create your very own kurta!

Ever since I started renewing those things that had mesmerized me till I landed my job, the gifts that I receive from  family and friends  are always on the lines of encouraging and motivating me to pursue my dreams.

I have always loved designing my clothes and enjoyed sewing by hand. This year on my birthday, my parents got me a sewing machine and my friends got me lot of materials for my DIY sewing project. 

This Dusshera was special with the release of my second book and so I decided to design and sew a simple kurti for myself. 

The right cuts as per my measurements, the darts to accentuate the effect of the cut, getting the right length to make me look taller, the embellishments and embroidery... I did it all. 

It took me a day to complete it and I snapped a picture and sent it to my friend who had gifted me that particular material. 

Her overwhelmed voice and words to me will forever remain in my heart.

Makes me want to try more and more to create, check out the possibilities.  

Create a custom concept Photo book for your little one!

I was asked to design a custom concept photo book for a 2-year old. My constraints were – working with photos that were taken from mobile phones and hence lacking the resolution and clarity that my high-end SLR would have provided, and fitting the concept to the photos rather than clicking photos that were suitable to the concept.

I kept the concept simple and something that a 2-year old could learn and identify with the help of his own photos – his view of the world around him including his family, home, personal habits, diet and even his dream vacation.

My belief is that once the child sees himself with people and objects, he / she is able to remember it better. Ages 1-6 is significant for a child’ development because the child is continuously using the senses and grasping and learning. So, if you want to help your child identify objects faster and correlate with his/her life then it is best to weave a story or text so that the child sees the people and objects  in their natural surrounding – e.g. furniture at home, fruits and vegetables to be eaten, flowers in the garden, etc. Also, I feel that kids at this age should not be exposed to gadgets like smart phones and tablets and their time with TV should be limited to less than an hour per day.

So, I stripped the pictures, removed all references to phones / tablets and even TV and weaved the following story and modified the pictures in line with the background of the book –

Photobook Cover Page

Starting with him and his family, and his birthday celebrations. He decides to follow the instructions in a book that he received as a gift to become a good boy and make his parents proud. Good Habits from when he gets up in the morning to when he goes to sleep at night. This included the right eating habits where he identifies the vegetables and fruits and pulses and dairy products that would make him, the playtime rules including keeping the play things in its place and good behavior in the playground. While sleeping, he sees a dream where he travels by common modes of transport through forests on to a beach. He stays at a farmhouse which has several domesticated animals and birds and has a good view of the rivers and mountain scenery both during the day and night.

Flap Cover

I even had a shiny flap cover in which the teaser / sample of the photo book had a prominent place. 

Net result: Parents overwhelmed with joy and a delighted child. Quite fulfilling, don't you think?

Fashion Blooper Entry # 2

It was a special occasion; I was meeting my friend from school and junior college after 20 odd years… I wanted that first impression after so many years to be perfect. This is the problem with Facebook; you put some of your best pictures online and many of your friends from school and college have seen you and pictured you in your best, so you have to match up that expectation when you meet personally. At least, that is what I felt.

So, I dressed up in my best ‘comfy’ clothes considering the heat; the only luxury I allowed myself was the ‘almost -new-yet-been-in-the-closet-for-a-year-due-to-lack-of-right-occasion’ sandals (a blue & ivory colored 4-inch wedge heel) that made me look really cool & glam.

So, there I was quite near to the place we were to meet when suddenly…

The heel came unglued…. in the middle of a crowded street.

Now, normally I carry spare shoes (I have so many of them, so why not) but because I wanted to get the ensemble right, I had a bag that did not have space for ‘spare’ anything.

I could see neither a cobbler nor a shoe shop (this was a good reason to add some more shoes to my lay-in-the-closet collectionJ). What to do?

So, I tried to look as cool as a cucumber and proceeded to walk  with a 4 inch heel on 1 foot and almost no heel on the other. Now… I would not recommend that you ever try this. Unless of course you want to take a break from work or something and you are looking for a good excuse like a back sprain.

I cursed myself for the n^th time for not carrying my spare set. But my mistake actually was that I kept my shoes all locked up. Some racks of my shoe collection lie unopened for days even months on end. The result was there for me to see. And I made another realization as well, this was not the first time that my shoe had come apart perfectly at the heel and only needed gluing.

I learnt my lesson. As of today, all my footwear are ‘breathing easy’. 

Personalized learning can be fun!

Every parent that I know, wants that their child should do well in studies.

When I was a child, the only distraction available was Doordarshan channel on TV with very limited programs and the VC player on which we could play the cassettes containing cartoons like Tom & Jerry and Pink Panther under close supervision of parents. Playing with friends on the building grounds was allowed only if the homework was completed. Questioning your parents was not even considered an option and so when they said ‘Study’, you just did.

Forward 25 years and now you find the distractions are increasing by the day – Gaming on Play Stations and smartphones and tablets, huge stream of channels with cartoons and kids’ programs and then there are reality shows especially for kids. Questioning your parents’ decision is a done thing and parents these days are dealing with it. Then there is the worry of your child’ safety because the newspapers & internet are always swimming with news about children being abducted, assaulted and abused.

I figure that we should convert our superheroes & cartoon characters and even the games to reinforce the subjects taught at school instead of taking the child into the world of make-believe where gadgets or some unbelievable character comes to your rescue every time you are in a tight spot or you get points for shooting targets down.

Hence an idea of a personalized book. Set the context for the book – something that you are training your child to eventually take responsibility of. For e.g. going to the market to buy vegetables and fruits.

1. Identification of the vegetables / fruits can in turn check the spellings in different languages not just limited to English.
2. Toss a bit of information about these like soil, water, sunlight and you got the science of growing these. You can even get your child interested in farming translating to responsibility.
3. Include the places that it grows so that the Social Studies bit is taken care of.
4. Weights and pricing calculations will put fractions and other aspects of mathematics in perspective.
5. Awareness and personal safety do & don’t can be explained far better in this context of a real marketplace setting

Still, why should all this interest your child?

Because, your child is the lead actor in this book and the book revolves around him / her. And, tell me this which child does not love to be the know-it-all superhero? 

Personalize birthday parties & make a memory!

You have thrown a rocking birthday party for your 6-year old. Invited handful of his / her friends, cooked some of their favorite food, played games, managed tantrums and yes of course the noise. The house seems like a tomb compared to the din just a few minutes ago before the children had all gone home.

I imagine this is the experience of most parents every year – putting tons of effort to make your child’ party of few hours extra special. Would you not want that effort to be remembered?

Now, for a 6-year old to form a memory, you need an ‘Attention Grabber’ and once formed, it should be renewed frequently in their minds. Which is a difficult task because most often we are competing with the TV, tablets, smart phones and Play Stations. Besides do you really remember the menu at your friend’ birthday party even though it was in some swanky restaurant filled with so many people.

The one thing that children love and crave for is the attention and focus on them. So, we did a little experiment this year where everything was about our 6-year old.

Décor / Party Decorations: If your child is not partial to any particular colour then one of the best theme for decorations is rainbow preferably in that particular shape with the name of your child peeking out of the rainbow. Another interesting theme would be something that ties with the games.

Games: Select at least five games which help you learn and at the same time it is a lot of fun. 5 because in case, children throw tantrums in the middle of a game, you can stop it and play another. The trick is to select one game in which your child will surely win (hey, it is your child’ birthday party and nothing works better than winning among all your friends, so you can have this ace up your sleeve).

Food: Should be simple and not too much in portions or varieties most of which should be your child’ favorite. There are only 2 or 3 things that will appeal to a child. Smaller portions imply lesser wastage… don’t worry children are very vocal about what they like to eat so if they like something a lot, they are going to ask for a 2^nd or 3^rd helping. In this party, garlic bread was such a hit that all the children asked for at least 3 helpings.

Return Gifts: Now, here is a perfect place to score with your child’ friends – become part of their memories. We personalized the gifts of each of the 10 children – towels painted with the child’ name and monogrammed with their initial, in which we wrapped homemade chocolates (one bore the name of the child and the other bore the name of our 6-year old) and these were put into personalized gift bags for each child. Imagine each of your child’ friends opening their return gifts and seeing their name on the gift… there forms a memory and every time he / she looks at that gift, the memory is renewed.

I encourage you to try this at home. It is manageable and does not cost a bomb and your child and his / her friends will remember how special you made them feel.

And please do share your experience with me.

My foray into personalization

A gadget that has held my fascination for the last 15 days is the Singer Talent 3321 sewing machine. Why?

Because it helped me renew one of my pet passions since I was a child - to create and customize.

Not just my dresses, my accessories and anything that I am proud to own. That opens up a huge amount of things to customize and I for one am up for this challenge.

My mother and her sisters and I have one more thing in common – a sewing machine; all thanks to my Mom who put up her hard-saved money to buy me this precious gift.

In the last 15 days, I have practised for hours on end trying to understand the various features of my machine and how it can help me create my designs which I have started saving since the last 25 years.

 

The experience have been varying in parts – from moments of hilarity at the output looking a comical version of my original imagination to sheer frustration of not getting the stitches in the line that I have drawn after practising for the n^th time to acute despair at not being able to achieve exactly what I wanted after hours of practice to sheer joy and satisfaction when I successfully stitched a personalized kurti for my Mom as thanks for gifting me this spectacular machine. When she wears this kurti, it will be as if she is wearing her very own brand.... Hmmm!

I had another chance to show off the numerous ‘talents’ of my Singer Talent 3321 sewing machine. My nephew was cooking Chicken curry for us after being inspired by Masterchef Junior. I wanted to give him something to mark this occasion - a personalized apron with a child-like writing. He wore it before he started cooking and looked super cute and his chicken curry was mind-blowing. There’s a Masterchef in the making.

Not without my shoes!

“You claim to be living a simple life, yet you have more than 4 dozen footwear, so many of black and most of which you cannot wear here because you don’t want to risk your neck in a fall. Look at these, why would you want to hang on to them?” Dad was in his element as usual because for him, overspending on shoes is clearly a no-no. Spending lot of time and effort looking for the perfect footwear every day – sacrilege! 

No matter how much I tell him that a woman must accessorize her dress with that right footwear to get that ‘look’. Now that could be stilettoes or pumps or platforms or wedges or mules or that fine pair of boots; these are what I normally prefer.

But depending on the occasion or the setting, I must also have my trainers, flats and even flip-flops.

Then there is the color-coordination with that right amount of hue.

So you can imagine how much we labor for getting that right look. I feel sometimes after looking into my footwear cabinet that even 4 dozen is less especially when I get an outfit for which none of the ones I own has that ‘IT’ factor.  SIGH!

While travelling & living in the 5 continents, every gap I found in my suitcase, I would fill with footwear. Now that I am based in India, I stopped frequenting malls so that I would not be tempted to hoard and thus live my life simply. What can I say, temptation even lurks online in the form of not-to-miss deals on footwear @ Amazon, Snapdeal and Flipkart. How much can one resist? I gave up a long time ago and indulge whenever I cannot move from that page without clicking “Buy”.

Am I committing one of the seven deadly sins – Greed? I am confused because my ‘greed’ is incurring cost only to me; whereas the shoemakers and retailers are getting their share of the revenues. Besides I am happy and they are happy; a win-win situation cannot be sinful, don’t you agree? 

Fashion Blooper Entry # 1

A few days after returning from UK where I had lived for about two years, I had gone to the mall here in suburban Mumbai. I found that the men, women & even children were dressed as if they were going to some casual party. Now, whether it suited them or whether they were actually comfortable wearing their respective garments, was quite another matter. In my faded jeans and just-about-ok T-shirt, I looked completely out of place.

I decided that I needed to adapt and be very quick about it. In a few days, I was invited for the screening of a Malayalam movie at a mall by my childhood buddies. I took this as an opportunity to show everyone how well I had adapted.

I was waiting near the car for my friends who were running late as usual; they just made it with absolutely no minute to spare. But all of us made time to exchange comments. Starting with them saying “You know that we are going for a screening of a Malayalam movie not the premiere, right?” I was quick to retort “Yes, but people ‘dress up’ at the mall”. I had no time to change anyway so I had to listen to some ‘Oh Oh’s throughout the 30-minute ride to the mall.

Now come on, I am ‘dressed-up’, I look good (they agreed on that at least) with my color-coordinated accessories and best of all, I am comfortable in them.

However, I got what they meant when I reached the mall. Yes, this was a different mall with a different audience, as I realised after many stares and even muffled laughter.

Note to self: Do a bit of research on the place and the audience before you decide on your ensemble. When in doubt ask around for what everyone else is gonna wear.