Me and my needlework (and a Valentine)

So, some of you may be wondering if I still sew and embroider.
Well, technically yes, I just lack the time. I haven't sewn in quite some time because that's not something that you can just do while you're relaxing on the couch for example.The last thing that I worked on was my Tartan dress, but it turned out that I made some stupid mistake and have to undo half the seams, which kind of demotivated me.

As for cross-stitching, I finished my last project, but I can't find it right now, so I can't show you a picture of it XD
And I already started the next one, a quite big one actually.
This is the motif:

I'm mainly doing this for my boyfriend. I never got to play Zelda, although I always wanted to :( Ah well, maybe some time I will ^^ Anyways, this is my progress so far:

It's the upper third of the picture with all the colours that I already had in my stock, but new ones are already on their way.

I really wish I had more time and was more motivated to sew :(
In particular because I got some gorgeous teal-coloured tussah silk for my birthday and I don't know what to do with it yet. I'm always open for ideas ;)

Last but not least, I got a wonderful Valentine:

Thank you so, so much! I'm flattered and happy that you like reading my blog! I just wish I knew who you were, so I could give you a huuuge hug!
Thank you so much! *___*

Blah blah blah

Yeah, you already know the procedure: Sorry for not posting anything, blah blah blah...

As you can probably tell, I'm not in the best mood. There's still so much to do and so little time and it really starts getting to my head. I need a time-out -.-
I already tried cutting back on work at the callcenter a little and I think it helps, but well, I really need the money. I need to buy so many new clothes for my job and a driver's license also doesn't pay itself (even though I have help from my boyfriend in that matter, but it doesn't feel too good as you can probably tell).
Actually all I want right now is a vacation. I don't really care where, but getting out of everything for some days would be just wonderful. But neither do I have the time, nor the money for it. I always wonder how students can afford going on holidays with their boyfriends/girlfriends. Stefan and I haven't been on a single trip together, what are we doing wrong?

Anyways, speaking of driver's license: After some struggles in communication with my driving instructor, I'll have my first driving lesson tomorrow. And out of all the driving instructors at that school, I get the unfriendly, grumpy one -.- (I already had a theory lesson with him, that's why I know him. And he wasn't too friendly on the phone, either.) We'll see how it goes, maybe he's a bit nicer once you're actually in a car with him and if not, maybe I can change instructors.

Today I wanted shorten the legs of the trousers that I bought some months ago and guess what: I'm totally out of practice -.- I can't even sew a straight line, I feel like a toddler painting in a colouring book and constantly failing to stay within the lines. Through all the cross-stitching I've really neglected sewing and it sucks -.-

That's it for now, I have to get ready to get to the dancing school.
Sorry for the rant, I just needed to get some things off my chest.

I have new dancing shoes - reloaded

How are you all doing? I'm fine, but pretty nervous because on Monday my apprenticeship in Radebeul starts. I just hope everything works out fine, I really, reeeaaally want that job >.<

Yesterday my wonderful boyfriend and I made a trip to Zwickau to finally buy some dancing shoes for him.
Now he has a really good latin pair from Paoul, one of the leading brands for dancing shoes.
And I don't even know how I deserve this, but he also bought me a beautiful pair (also from Paoul)! *_____*

How does Hurley sneak into almost every photo I take? Anyways, Stefan's and my shoes ^^

My new shoes in their incredible beauty *__*

And again, I really need to clean that mirror XD

I've also been a little crafty again. I started a new stitching project:

It's the picture that is also on my favourite necklace, remember?
And I'll hopefully also manage to sew a skirt this weekend, I'll need it next week.

Blue tartan

How are you all? Are you enjoying the fantastic weather? (That is, if there IS fantastic weather where you are :D)
Vroni, her husband, Stefan and I did on Saturday, when we took a blanket and a picnic basket to the Great Garden in Dresden (a huge park). It was a great and relaxing day and it was great for Stefan to finally get out of the house. He was even able to eat some ice cream ^^
And last night was his first night without taking painkillers and he slept through it. Yaaay! The worst part is over :D

Maybe you've already read it over at Sophie's blog, on the Friday of Stefan's operation the Gang wanted to meet at Sophie's to do some sewing/knitting/crafting. In the end it wasonly Sophie and me for most of the time, but still we had a lot of fun together. First I made a simple Vampire Requiem headdress:

The other side is just plain blue so that I can decide which side I want to show ^^

And then I started designing the pattern for the dress that I want to make out of the blue tartan fabric that I showed you earlier. I want the cut to resemble the one of the IW dresses that I love so much.
So here's one of my sketches:

After several calculations, sketches and tests I finally have a pattern that might work, so now onto the fabric. This is what I did yesterday:

This dress includes several difficulties that I haven't dealt with yet: matching patterned fabric, princess seams and sewing a zipper into a dress with a gathered skirt. We'll see how that goes :D

But at the moment I don't spend that much time sewing because I'm at work often and because I have rediscovered my love for Sims 2 :D
And when it's boring at work, this is how I keep myself entertained:

I'm so bad at drawing these XD

What do you do when you're bored at work? And what difficulties do you have to deal with with your recent crafting project? ^^

100 posts!

Yaaay, this is my 100th post!
Sadly there's nothing special I have to say today XD
I was thinking about making a giveaway, but I'm not sure yet, though I might have an idea for it.

Today was the last training together with my beloved Stefan for now, because he's having a major surgery done on Friday and won't be able to dance for some time. I'm happy and proud because Olga (our trainer) said that she sees a lot of potential and improvement in us, but at the moment my sorrow about Stefans operation prevails :(
I don't even want to think about Friday, though the Gang will be there to take my mind off of it. Luckily he'll be able to come home already on Saturday but I have to admit that I'm scared of that. I just hate seeing him in pain, so I hope everything goes as best as possible and that the painkillers do their job properly.

To ease my mind, the Gang and I'll probably do some sewing together and I already have some new projects up my sleeve, though they are not that exact yet. But part of the fabris are already there, they just need to be pre-washed:

Sadly the tartan in the front is not of the quality that I wish it was, I should have ordered a sample first -.- Anyways, I'll have to make it work somehow...

I wish you all a good night. Sleep tight and keep your fingers crossed on Friday, so that everything goes alright with the surgery ;_______;

I am sew productive! (pun intended ;D)

I can't remember if I told you, but I had made a promise to myself that I wouldn't start sewing something entirely new until I hadn't finished 5 points from my "To sew list".
And today I can proudly say: It is done ^^
I've had a pretty productive weekend, even though I had really bad back and neck pain @.@ (It's getting better luckily, there's no pain in my spine anymore. But now I have aching shoulder muscles from sitting in a relieving posture all the time XD)

So let's have a look at the 5 points that I crossed out.
First was exchanging the elastic in my Meta skirt, I already did that a while ago, remember?

Second was the dress/skirt from F+F that I already showed you in the last post.

Third was repairing my casual petticoat again. Seriously, I've re-sewn the damn thing so often that I can basically say I've sewn it myself -.-

Fourth was lengthening the straps of the Surface Spell chiffon dress. I was a little anxious about working with chiffon for the first time, but it actually worked out fine, even if it can be a little tricky. I've made the straps long enough for them to be crossed in the back because I hate it when straps slide down my shoulders all the time. This is how it looks now, though you can't really see it that good when it's on a hanger XD

*cough* yep, that's still X-Mas decoration...

...but in my defense: It's the only that's left *cough*

Unfortunately now that I can wear it properly it becomes apparent that they kind of messed up my measurements, so it sits a little strange on me... There's an "overdress" made from chiffon and an "underdress" (or basically lining) and the overdress has somewhat too much fabric, so that it sits a little floppy, while the underdress is a little restraining in the chest area. Apparently they just divided the breast measurement by 2 to make a front and back without taking into consideration that I actually DO have breasts :D
So it's not perfect, but I like it nonetheless ^^

And last but not least: I finished my underbust Vampire Requiem replica:

It's still hard to get in and out and I'm still angry at myself for making the curve around the breasts too big but oh well... I still like it and I'm happy that I can finally add it to my wardrobe ^^

And today I accidentally stumbled upon something that I'd also love to add to my wardrobe.
This wonderful, beautiful, gorgeous pair of shoes from Forever 21:

Aren't they beautiful? I'm so in love *___* *fights with herself*
I'm not as broke as I had thought I'd be this month but still I have to give this some good thought....

Speaking of things in my wardrobe, guess who snuck in? The one and only...

...the Hurley ^^

And with this I'll wish you a great start into the new week and later you'll probably hear more about my new projects ^^

It is done

Yesterday I finished the project of which I had posted a teaser last time, and here it is:

Hurley tries really hard to be in every single picture I take :D

I didn't sew the skirt, I just painted the golden stripes onto it. It used to be a dress from F+F that I bought two years ago (this one to be exact), but it was too big and looked hideous on me, so I turned it into a skirt, which was also too big. Now I finally made a fitting skirt out of it and decorated it nicely (I am a sucker for black-gold combinations). Just in case someone might ask, I didn't actually make perfectly straight lines myself. If you look closely you can see that there are rows of pintucks and I just painted every second one gold :D
I really love how it turned out and look forward to wearing it. I just hope it doesn't look too weird because my petticoats are actually a little too short for it... we'll see ^^

When it comes to my private/professional life: I'm on a roll :D
When I brought my application to the dancing school the day after my last post, I had a really nice talk with one of the owners and now they'll contact me soon about an internship to check how we work together (at least that's what she told me, but she seemed really confident and I think she liked me ^^).
On the same day I also got two invitations to job interviews, one for a sideline here in Dresden and one from a dancing school in Leipzig that I had sent my application for the apprenticeship to.
The interview for the sideline was today at a callcenter that Vroni also works at and I'll start working there next Tuesday ^^
The interview in Leipzig is on the 9th of march, one day before the meet-up :D I hope it goes well... (though I of course hope to stay in Dresden, but it's always good to have a second option)
And yesterday I brought my application to another dancing school here in Dresden. Unfortunately no one seemed to be there so I just dropped it into the mailbox but I guess it doesn't matter that much, they'll receive it either way :D
And then I discovered another dacning school near Dresden that I'll send an application too.
I just hope everything works out well >.<

Training was really exhausting today @.@ We only did latin dancing today and half the time we just did Samba technique so I guess I'm looking forward to aching muscles in my legs (and basically everything :D) tomorrow. And it's so difficult -.- Samba used to be Stefan's and my favourite dance when he finally started dancing with me but now it has become my least favourite latin dance because there are so many things that you have to pay attention to. Of course there are a lot of things to pay attention to in every dance but they feel more natural to me. Probably because I also practice them at home during the day sometimes, while I always avoid the Samba. But today a woman from another dancing group asked us if we danced in tournaments because we're so good. That really made up for all the hard work :D
(Yeah, maybe this isn't all that interesting to you but I think I'll write some more about dancing in the future because it's such a huge part of my life. I love it just as much (or probably even more than) Lolita or the other things I usually write about, so it's actually quite curious that I write so little about it...)

And to finish this post, have another "Schmankerl" from the amazing Yulia ^^ This might even be my favourite choreography from her and Max.

Good night ^^

A bit of this and that

Sooo, actually I'm not in the best mood today, partly because I'm a little nervous about tomorrow when I'll be visiting one of the dancing schools to hand in my application. I have an appointment there so I'm not sure if I'll really just hand it in and that's it or if they want to talk to me right away, so I'm a little anxious @.@ Keep your fingers crossed ^^

My fortune cookie seems optimistic though :D

These last days I finally got to do a little sewing again and I'm really happy about that. And here's a little teaser on my current project. It's for the next meet-up which is going to take place in 2 weeks under the motto "fairytales":

I'm open to guesses by which fairytale my outfit will be inspired :D (except for guesses from those who know ;D)

Aaand, you might already suspect it: I've been tagged again ^^ This time by Mia.
Here we go:


1. How would you describe your style?
A bit of this and that I guess ^^ I don't want to limit myself to just Lolita or just any other fashion. But it's always rather dark and pretty feminine, I don't wear any trousers for example (though that might change if I really become a dancing instructor).

2. Sweet, Gothic or Classic - what do you prefer wearing?
I'm really comfortable in Gothic, though I also adore Classic.

3. If you could only buy clothes in one shop for the rest of your life, which would it be?
Wow, that's really hard... H&M always has a wide range of styles, so maybe this... or rather Orsay, I love how everything they sell looks very feminine and elegant. And you can even find loliable clothes there from time to time ^^

4. Your favourite designer/label?
When it comes to "normal" clothing I don't really have one, but when it comes to Lolita it's Alice and the Pirates, closely followed by Innocent World.

5. Your dream dress/piece of clothing?

The "Dance of the black cat" JSK II by Alice and the Pirates *___*
It's the one and only musical print that I like and it fabulous and beautiful and wonderful and I fit into it *___* I soooo want this thing in black or green!


6. What do like best at meet-ups - taking photos, eating or doing something cultural?
Well... if you want to call it that it would be eating, but by that I mean going to a café and have coffee together. I love that we also do something cultural and taking photos is also fun (even though I always feel a little uncomfortable in front of the camera) but I just love it when we all settle down together and chat. It's a great opportunity to meet people that you don't usually get in touch with ^^


7. Brand, Indiebrand, offbrand or self-made - what do you wear most?
Offbrand or handmade... I think it's pretty even between these two ^^

8. Which colour dominates your wardrobe?
Definitely black.


9. What's the average height of your heels?
I think that's about 5 cm. That's also the height that is the most comfortable for me when it comes to wearing shoes all day long or dance in them. But I also have higher ones that are still comfortable ^^

10. How many purses do you own and how many of them do you use regularly?
I own ... 6 I think and I regularly use 3 at the moment.


11. How old is the oldest piece of clothing in your wardrobe?
Oooh... Hm... That's either one of the tent-like shirts from my father that I sometimes use as a sleeping-shirt or it's my two Nirvana-shirts that I got when I was... 13 or 14 I think

And again, I can't think of any questions from the top of my head...

By the way, if you're looking for your cat one day, try the door. Yes, I mean the door. The cat could be ON  the door :D

So with this I say good night and read you later :D

You may call me Gollum...

... as I am on the hunt for my beloved ring ;___;
For my birthday two years ago (or rather Nikolaus but I don't know how common that is where ever you are :D) my boyfriend gave me a claddagh ring. It's wonderful and pretty and beautiful and I love that thing to death. It looks like this:

(pic taken from here)

And now it's gone ;___; I know I took it off for washing the dishes yesterday and I'm almost sure that I put it on again afterwards but today it's just gone O.o
I hope I find it soon, I feel so naked without it :(


Anyways, to talk about more happy things: On Friday I was at a Katzenjammer-concert and as last time it was AWESOME! And with awesome I mean all kinds of awesome! These ladies are just the best, their music is fantastic and seeing and hearing them perform it live is like the biggest party you could ever experience :D And they are so funny and charming, it's almost scary XD We were in third row, it was sooo great! And they always perform pretty long, almost 2 hours!
If you haven't listened to them yet or seen them live, you should definitely do that!
And here are some impressions from the gig, sponsored by youtube ;D

This is the song "Cherry Pie". Not really my favourite song by them, but I still want to show this to you because the guy who shouts/growls "STOMACH" in the beginning is my boyfriend :D

And this is "To The Sea". I looove that song!

By the way, I have (probably) finished one of my sewing projects (finally @.@). It's my Card-JSK, unfortunately I only managed to take a blurry picture of me wearing it:

Maybe I'll take a better one soon XD Here you can see it laying on the floor (and looking really deformed O.o) and some details:

I had originally planned to decorate it more but now I actually like it's simplicity. What do you say?
I only hope I find a nice red waistbelt to wear with it. I'd be thankful for suggestions where to get a good and cheap one :D

Oh, and here's a progress picture of my stitching project. It's almost done ^^

Sewing fail... or not?

I haven't blogged much lately, there's a lot going on in my head at the moment and I'm not always in the mood for it.
But I am always in the mood for applepie ^^ Luckily my boyfriend is little by little conquering the kitchen and made one and it was delicious!

Yummy yummy yum yum ^^ He'll definitely cook and bake more from now on! XD

As some of you may have already read, Mia, Sophie and I have started working on our Vampire Requiem fabric and as I said I want to make an underbust JSK. Well, it's almost done. In fact it has already been almost done several days ago but I was so angry with the thing and myself that I just put it away and didn't want to look at the damned thing. You may already tell: I messed it up. Kind of. When I put it on again today it didn't look that bad to me anymore. Have a look at it:

The two things that bother me most are the fact that I should've made the curves around the breasts smaller and the shirring panel bigger because it's a pain in the ass to get into it (getting out is even worse).
I've thought about undoing it and changing those parts but I don't have much of the plain blue fabric left and to be honest I just don't want to because it is the first lined thing I've ever sewn and everything turned out very well and tidy.
The straps are actually supposed to be crossed in the back but they didn't turn out long enough so I probably have to make it a neckholder. I'd rather lengthen them and stick to the former plan, maybe I can find a way to do that.
Another thing that bothers me is that the lace sticks out on one side of the "neckline":

I'll see if I can fix that.
So, what do you think of it? Wearable or total catastrophe?

And then my lovely boyfriend also got me a supercool gadget:

It's for drying nailpolish ^^ You apply it and then you push the banana button and the monkey blows it dry XD Isn't it the cutest thing ever? I am so in love with it <3

Blue

No, I am not sad, but I have some blue things to show you ^^

On Friday, Mia and I helped Sophie paint her new flat and Mia brought my share of the Vampire Requiem fabric along. It's really beautiful and nice quality:

The only thing that bothers me a little is that it even says "Alice and the Pirates" above the gate. I'm actually okay with replicas, as long as they don't print the original designers label on it, so this is a little bummer :/ But still, the fabric is just too great to refuse using it XD
I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do with it. I'd actually love to make an underbust JSK out of it but I don't have a pattern for it and don't know how to make one myself. I guess I'll have to do a little research. Any help from your side would be greatly appreciated ^^

And yesterday Sophie and her boyfriend moved and of course the gang was there to help ;) My arms and legs are still hurting from carrying things down the mass of stairs and going back up again. Luckily now she lives on ground floor XD And her new flat is sooo beautiful *__* I have to admit, I'm jealous XD
While we were sorting her clothes into her wardrobe, she found this pretty belt that she doesn't wear anymore, so she gave it to me:

It's actually a little tight on me but I hope with the right clothes it won't look as bad.

Today we met at Dresden's new and already second Bubble tea bar which Vroni, Stefan and I already tried out yesterday and I like it better than the first one, because you cannot only get tea there (which in most cases I don't like, except for those with yoghurt) but also flavoured milk with bubbles ^^ Sooo yummy!
And fun fact: I wore my blue floor length flower dress ^^

A while ago I found this tutorial and I have to say, I am really tempted. Maybe I'm going to try that out (or rather let Vroni try it out on my hair XD) once I finally have a consistent hair colour.
I am madly in love with anything black, but especially when it comes to my hair, I like colourful... colours... derp...

Strawberries and skirt-love

I recently thought that it was quite funny that my blog is called "Frills and Strawberries" and while I showed you some frills you've never seen any strawberries here, so now here they are:

Yummy ^^ (Wow, even in pictures like this you can see how messy our flat is at the moment XD)
And by the way, this is what happens when you forget to shut your washing machine:

Yesterday I finished the skirt I was going to make from the floral fabric and I'm quite happy with how it looks (though I just remembered that I'm not entirely done with it, I still have to add my label ^^). It was the first time that I made a shirring panel and it was easier than I thought, although when I was done and stretched it for the first time one of the elastics snapped back into the tunnel *ARGH* I had to open and redo this part again *sigh*

And I finally got to use one of the embroidery stitches of my sewing machine:

So all in all it looks like this:

Today Stefan and I went to do some shopping and I had to take it out right away:

While I was sewing it I began to be a little worried that it wouldn't fit into my wardrobe because of the colours but I think it doesn't look as bad as I thought it would when you combine it with black and gold accessories. I still have much of the fabric left so I'm probably going to make a bag and some bows as hair accessories.
At first I thought of making a ruffle at the bottom but I think it looks much more elegant like this.
So, how do you like it? ^^

Secret Bingo

First of all a word to the Gang and kajime: I'm glad you like your Valentine/Secret ;)

And now: How awesome ist this secret?

Whoever made it: You made my day! You're a genius XD

You may have noticed: There are some updates on the sewing list. I fixed my petticoat and I am planning to sew another pair of short bloomers, because the ones I already made are rather plain and now they have become my staying-home-and-relaxing-standard-clothing XD
Actually I wanted to start sewing the skirt with the floral fabric, but I realized I don't have any matching yarn so this has to wait. Instead I think I'm going to start with the bloomers now...

By the way: Does the font on my blog look incredibly small to you too? When I started it, it looked rather normal to me, but now it's somewhat smaller... And has it always been black? Wasn't it brown? O.o

Progress

Just a small update on my sewing list: I added the ruffle to my red skirt, since I found the fabric when I was going to my fabrics for the camera bag. I'm not too happy with it because not everything went as planned and I had to de-ruffle some parts that now just hang flat, which sucks, but I didn't want to redo the whole thing so I just kept it like it was. That's how it looks now:

Not ironed or anything. And this is the flat part:

And I found a hole in my casual petti that has to be fixed, so I added it to the list.
I don't feel like writing more today due to personal reasons.

Blonde? Well... not exactly...

So, after two tries of dying my hair blonde, technically I'm not blonde. Actually I'm more of a ginger now XD
Have a look:

Me, desperately trying to capture the colour of my hair ^^
You may call me Anni Weasley now :D We'll try to get it even brighter on Thursday, except for the hairline which already looks pretty good .
In reality it looks a bit different, our camera apparently is not the best when it comes to displaying colours.

Speaking of camera, I can cross out one point of my To-Sew-List! I made a bag for it, even though it really was a pain because of all the small parts and pieces that had to be sewn. I'm not perfectly happy with it, but it works, so it's okay ^^

This is a small bag on the outside for spare batteries. it holds 6 of them as you can see here:

 

Stefan also likes it ^^ He was the one who gave me the final ideas for the design because I wasn't sure on how to enhance a bag for the batteries. I always think too complicated when it comes to stuff like that XD