Making a dress form (duct tape)

Some time ago I came across something very inspiring. Some blogger (I'm sorry, I don't remember the blog adress or the name of the blogger!) had created a dress form out of duct tape, instead of buying a "real" and expensive one. Now finally I have been able to make my own (with the help of my darling husband, Marcus!) and I am happy to show it to you all, and hope to inspire others to try it too!

First I got wrapped in some thin plastic (the kind often used in the kitchen when wrapping foodstuff...), from the neck to below my butt. Then Marcus went ahead and wrapped me in duct tape, closely following the curves of my body and trying to keep it as smooth as possible. Then he cut the duct tape open in the back and I stepped out. I taped the back opening together again, stuffed it full with scrunched up old newspapers. Then i taped the rest of the openings (arm holes, neck and bottom hole) and put it on a metal stand (previously part of a large cd stand that we didn't want to use any more). And ta-dah! My very own dress form!

The best thing with it is how close it is to the original (me!). Also, the worst thing with is is how close it is to the original! There is nowhere to hide... the flabby tummy, wide thighs and uneven boobs, it's all there and clearly visible. But seriously, it's great and I recommend the technique to all of you!

The last pic here is just for fun. After having finished the dress form I wanted to see how it looked with clothes on, so I pulled some random items from my wardrobe and put them on. Afterwards I couldn't stop myself, I just had to start a new sewing project now that I had a dress form! But that will be saved for a later post, when it's all done.

That's all for now. See ya!

Link - 19th c clothing

My fingers are itching... I want to sew! Now! But wait, no... all my fabrics and stuff are still not unpacked. Darn it.

Aaaanyhow, here is a good tip for all who are interested in 19th c clothing...

Just click it, I promise you wont be attacked by nasty viruses or anything. It's from Nordiska Museet in Stockholm. Enjoy!

Update on house and home!

Hey you!
Once again, I'm sorry for not posting too often at the moment. We are now moved into our new home but we're far from done, there's lots of stuff left to fix and enormous amounts of unpacking left to do...

I'm still amazed at how beautiful it is here. I LOVE this piece of land, and I'm so happy to call it home. Here's the view from our living room window... Seems like we get a lot of fog around here! This photo was taken just the other night. It was even more gorgeous in real life!

Here's me, painting the garage. Unfortunately after three days I still had one wall left to do and then the weather put a stop to it. Rain, raing and then snow. And one's not supposed to paint while wet, nor in temperatures below 5 degrees C. So still, there is one wall left unpainted.

Working on the inside of the garage, learning how to use fun modern power tools and NOT cutting any fingers off! :P

 That's all for now. I have a couple of pics I wanted to show you along with some kitchen craft, but as it turns out my phone (in which I have the relevant pics!) has severe mood swings and is currently not speaking to me. So that will have to wait.

Until next time, take care!

Hugs
/Fny

Improvised carrot bread

Today we're getting a visitor! My father-in-law is coming to stay with us for a week, to help out now that we're swamped with work on the house and garage. In two weeks it all has to be done!

However, today I just wanted to show you a bit of kitchen craft: bread baking, the Fny way. I bake a lot of bread, but almost never use recipes. Plus I rarely measure anything. This inevitably leads to all batches being different from each other, which I find nice.

Yesterday as I looked in the fridge, I noticed we had some left over carrots. Great, I can use that. From the pantry I got ordinary wheat flour and barley flour, salt and dry yeast. Usually I just use water but since we're having a guest over I decided to go fancy - so I ran out and bought some milk.


I mixed it all together (with the milk heated to approximately 37 degrees C), simply added flour until the dough felt good (mostly wheat, perhaps 3 or 4 dl of barley...), and left it to rest for 50 minutes. Afterwards I cut the dough into 24 pieces and rolled them into round balls, and the left them to rest and rise again for another 30 minutes. After that they went into the oven for half an hour (225 degrees C).


They turned out absolutely DELICIOUS! I can't tell you how pleased I am with the result, but it's probably one of the best I've baked ever! *nomnomnom*

(Written a couple of days ago, but I wanted to wait for the pics, so here it is...)

Granny squares - testing a new pattern

Last night I found this exciting granny square pattern (I'm sorry it's only in Swedish) and I just had to try it. Here is the result!

It turned out to be considerably larger than the other (traditional) squares I've done, so unfortunately they don't fit together. However, I'm thinking of trying to make a smaller version of this one. If I crochet the two inner parts (the lilac and white) it's ALMOST the size I want it to be, so if I can just make a smaller square frame around it then... it could work. Not sure how to do it though, I'm still kinda new at doing crochet... Any suggestions? And when on the subject, do you have any favourite granny square versions? I'd love to see more! Do you know of any that fits together (in size) with the traditional (at least, the one I've heard is the most traditional here! You can see them in the second pic.) granny square?

Creating a stone path...

Laying down stones to form a path to what will eventually be an earth cellar... Like a puzzle, always trying to find the best way to fit the stones together. Marvellous, I love this kind of very creative and hands-on gardening!








As much as possible I want to avoid buying stones for paths and decorative features in the garden. We certainly have enough rocks to work with on our small patch of land, plus I really like things not to be perfect and symmetrical.

Crochet ("mormorsrutor")

I've finally learned how to make so called "mormorsrutor" (whatever it's called in english...), I'm so proud!