Knitting and Stitching Show @ Alexandra Palace

So today I embarked on a journey without Rianna :'( and went along to the A-Level Textiles trip to Alexandra Palace for the Knitting and Stitching Show. Trust me it's not as lame as it sounds, despite the amount of old people roaming the whole place.

As well as a variety of threads and yarns and fabrics to buy, the show also showcased work by artists and graduates. I was in awe at how everything was made with a thread and needle.

Now my favourite stall in the whole show had to be this "Alice in Wonderland" inspired piece. The whole ensemble from the dress, to the setting was done in 16/18 months by Sue Walton and Ann Small. 

Yes, those are bones. Chicken bones in fact.

Here, Ann Small's wonderful, wonderful hat.

Sue Walton's work was a complete contrast to Ann's but both of their work was amaaaazing.

GEE I WISH I COULD MAKE A QUILT LIKE THAT.

Learnt how to make lace, oh yeah.

My proudest moment was learning how to knit with Shalom, after years of failing, I finally understood how to knit.

DIY: Bow ties are cooool!

In today's DIY post, I thought I should use up some of the scrap fabric I have left from last year's GCSE project. So today I will be showing you how to make a bow tie.

So you'll need:

• A 10 x 5 piece of fabric
• A 2 x 3 piece of fabric
• A sewing machine or a thread and needle.
• Elastic or a safety pin or a hair pin, depends on how you want to use this bow tie really.

1. Cut out all your pieces and lay them flat. Fold the edges of the large rectangle and sew along the edges for a neat edge. 
2. Then fold both pieces in half lengthways and sew along the edge.
3. Then turn both pieces right side out. You might want to use a pencil or a chopstick to turn the smaller piece right side out.
4. Accordion fold the larger piece and stitch in the middle to hold it in place.
5. Stitch the ends of the smaller piece together, wrong side up so that you can have a neat exterior, then flatten the bow so that you can slide the smaller piece through the middle. If you're using an elastic band, then stitch the ends on to the end of your smaller piece, then you can slide the smaller piece through the larger piece. (idk if that was understandable...)
6. If you're not using an elastic and planning to use a hairpin or a safety pin then just slide it through the middle and you're done!

DIY: Galaxy Dress!

Grab your paint people because you're gonna want to do this to everything you own - ok maybe not everything- but still, in today's tutorial we will be showing you how to make your own galaxy dress. The best thing about doing galaxy prints is that you can't go wrong and you can always cover up mistakes with more paint.

So you'll need:

• A make up sponge, cut up into pieces, it doesn't really matter how.
• An old dish sponge, again cut it up!
• A paintbrush
• Blue, purple, white acrylic paint, you can also add green and yellow, but it depends on you.
• A plate or a paint palette
• Any black garment that you want to paint on. If it's not black then you can dye it...unless you still want to paint on the not-black garment.

Always practice first on an old shirt or a piece of fabric to see if you really want to do it and also to see if it looks nice. We did a practice on one of Rianna's pyjama tops.

We didn't even do the whole shirt because we were so in love with the effect we decided to get straight onto the dress.

 The trick is to just dab blue and purple paint with an old sponge all over the fabric. We used two different types of blue and a dark purple. The white gives the effect of a cluster of stars, this should be done with the make up sponge as you don't want it to have the same look as the background. If you wanted to, you can dab red and orange to create nebulas but we didn't do that this time because...well because we didn't think about that at the time.

 Rii's dress was asymmetrical so what we did was put the galaxy print on the hemline of the dress and had a slight fade effect. The whole thing took less than an hour to do!

 It's a very messy job~

 After dabbing the area you want with blue, purple and white, just add some white dots around for individual stars.

Love or Loathe: Chanel's Hula Hoop Bag

One thing we got out of Paris Fashion Week is a hula hoop beach bag that we can use as a haute couture drying stand. -raises eyebrows-

Melissa: Oh Mr Lagerfield. -shakes head-

Rianna: This bag has clearly left Melissa speechless and I'm quite sure that she isn't the only one. Karl Lagerfield has given an explanation for his design '“It’s for the beach. You need space for the beach towel. And then you can put it into the sand and hang things on it.” For once is seems that it is function over fashion, but I can't imagine people paying so much money to then place it in the sand and use it as a hook. Having said all that about the beach bag the swimsuit was just too cute. To me this bag is just crazy even if you were to bring on a trip to the beach it will take up up much space anyway.

Above is the concept design for the use of this bag. L-O-L.

Melissa: I had to take a break so that I can stop laughing and crying at the same time. If the bag was detachable then sure, I'll stick it in the sand and use it to hang my towel or even better, use the hula hoop...as a hula hoop to get that perfect bikini body. But because its a Chanel bag, I wouldn't be bringing it to the beach...or anywhere at all. Can't wait to see if any celebrities rock this bag. To rock it you need to be utterly confident and not give two cents about knocking people out with your big ass bag. Saying that, I think the mini version of the bag is cute.

WE HAVE A LOGO!!!!

After months of trying to come draft out a decent logo for out for our blog. we have finally succeed. We just finished it today and we are so proud of it. We were messing around with the idea of butterflies and came up with this. 

Style Crush: Chloë Moretz

For someone younger than both of us, we're pretty jealous of Chloë Moretz. The young fashion icon has been turning heads since her performance as Hit Girl in Kick-Ass and also on the red carpet. I must admit that whenever I go outside thinking I look great, Chloe Moretz is always a constant reminder that I actually don't...

Left: September 2010, Chloe in the red carpet for the world premier of Let Me In.

Right: November 2010, Chloe wearing Chanel for the British Academy Children's Awards (she was probably the best dressed there- hee)

2011: Chloe participated in two very different shoots with two very different looks, on the left, Chloe is seen in all white pulling of a very pure, innocent look. On the right, blues and whites are the main colours with a mix of prints an stripes, in brief, she's cooler than you and we will ever be.

2012: Chloe in teenVogue for the December/January issue and in a McQ by Alexander McQueen dress for the UK Premier of Dark Shadows.

And that concludes this week's Style Crush! I hope I'm not the only one who's self-esteem has been crushed by the one and the only Chloe Grace Moretz.

Anna Dello Russo for H&M

If I had gotten home sooner I would've had my hands on some of her stuff from her H&M range! Unfortunately her decadent range has sold out by 12.30 pm this afternoon!

Fashion fans have been lining up since 6 (holy cow! I just about manage to get up at that time!) at the High Street Kensington branch of H&M. Unlike previous designer collaborations, there was no quantity cap on today's customers. I saw quite a few people on my way home with limited edition bags filled with all the stuff from my wish list. The collection is perfect for adding a pop of colour or a personal touch to any outfit. Especially now that the cold weather is around the corner, we can beat the blues with a few statement pieces.

Sunglasses- £29.99

Earrings- £14.99

Clutch- £34.99

Bracelet- £34.99