Hello Hive

It's needlework o'clock and I'm sure that everyone in the community is as delighted as I am. It's beautiful that we all have one or two creative projects to share with the community and if you aren't able to make any projects these weeks, there is room for everyone to come around today to learn how to make one thing or the other.

Today I made a beautiful blouse for myself from a this beautiful African print fabric.

First of all Christmas is coming and everyone here have begin their preparation for Christmas celebration. We would be having some carols here and there and I needed something to wear that will flow with the season.

I have plans to sew a baggy Trouser from this fabric but before them I would need a top that will go with the trouser since the trouser design is new to me, I am yet to make an attempt on how to sew that. I will have to watch one or two YouTube videos to learn how to sew baggy Trouser. This is the characteristic of designers

Just recently I have purchased the fabric and sewn a jacket from it but since I have about 6yards of the fabric it's almost like I am not going to exhaust it.

The fabric is giving me a Christmas vibe as it is possessing the Christmas colors of green, yellow and red. It will be a perfect traditional outfit for Christmas outing especially now that there will be series of places for one to visit.

At first I had wanted to sew myself a flair blouse with it just like the this one I had made below

But I changed my mind and decided to smoke the fabric instead.

For the smoking, it's a local term we use for outfit we make using this elastic thread. Sewing is done with an elastic thread to pull the clothes together so that it can both stretch or shrink when pulled out. There is this beautiful effect that smoking gives to our outfits different from wearing a regular blouse and I hope that you love this particular design I'm wearing.

To make this blouse I took out my off shoulder basic measurements.

While taking this measurements you have to cut out a X2 of your regular body size as the elastic will shrink this cloth back to normal size

After measuring and cutting the fabric I reeled the elastic thread into the bobbing using hand as this can only be done manually

I created horizonal lines on the blouse where I will carry out each stitches

After sewing the hemming of the blouse I started to sew on the horizontal lines

Sewing the hemming of the blouse.

This is the hardest part of sewing a smoked blouse. You will have to spend hours stitching and stitching. It's faster when there is electricity and I can use the electric sewing machine.

After paddling for hours I got tired as most of my sewing is now in the night, I often sacrifice some sleep to sew at night as my day is already occupied with farm work and harvest.

Next I cut out a flair sleeve and attached it to the blouse and after that my blouse is barely completed.

I got tired of stitching and left the dress half way hoping that I will smoke the remaining lower part of the dress when power supply is restored. Although I can chose to wear the dress this way as it is fashionable but a seamstress desires is to create a specific designs and I will working with this until I bring to light what I had imagined to sew.