Hi everyone! There’s been a few changes going on ‘round these bloggy parts, as you might have noticed. With the magical help of my friend, we’ve been working very hard to overhaul this website to something more . . . lucrative! Well, and fun, and convenient – for me – to sell my things.

In other words, I’m opening up this cute little corner of the web as my new store. I’m very excited with this so far, and I have some lovely third party items also on the way! It might be just a little bit longer before we’ve got everything working properly. Until then, I hope you’ll be patient, and that  you will enjoy shopping here at Mode a la Belle.

My goal is to create vintage, whimsical, and Lolita inspired garments and accessories, to be worn by all ages young at heart. I look forward to creating something special for you, as I’m happy to discuss commissions.

At first, I wasn’t planning on doing much of anything. But as it so happens often with me, spontaneity is my forte. After taking a shower and thinking about doing nothing for Valentine’s Day, my brain was all like, “Hey! It’s Valentine’s Day! Wear Lolita!”

“Okay!” I said. Yes, I answered my own brain. Just roll with it.

I frantically put together an outfit while my husband kept pressing me about getting lobster bisque at our favorite restaurant (that bisque was a special request, and when they make it at the Trading Post Café, we always go to get some, and take some extra for home). It wasn’t even noon and already I was getting the, “Honey! Let’s go!” thing from the other room. I didn’t even have my eyelashes on! Pfff! Husband, you’re just gonna have to wait.

Well, and hour later with my wig on, and gems on my face, accessories chosen, and feeling fabulous, I start walk out to the front room. I feel a pop on the top of my foot and I discover my shoe strap broke! >.< The scream was brief. I kicked off my favorite minty platforms and went to get some red tea party shoes that are a tad too small for me. I was a little cranky when I really shouldn’t have been, but I lightened up and had fun after that.

Really, I was just going to dress up for the hell of it while out to lunch. I bought some Hello Kitty valentines at Walgreens, wanting to put together something cute for my friends. I only needed two of them, but since it came in a pack of 34, I started thinking of giving them to random people.

The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory is on the Taos Plaza, and I figured to get my friends some really special chocolates – and a dozen chocolate covered strawberries. To my surprise, there was an event going on in the plaza when I went to go buy chocolates. It was perfect!

I signed all the cards as quickly as I could with my name. I attached a few Giradelli squares on some of them for kids. Then I went out into the crowd and cheerfully started handing out Valentines randomly. I loved the surprised look on some faces, and many many smiles. Also, one girl gave me a kiss on my cheek! ^.^ It was super sweet. It was an event for raising awareness for Women, so there was a big crowd of people wearing various elements of red and performing a massive dance number.

Husband was moved by the happy dancing people and music. He’s a sensitive type.

Here’s a nice random shot of me while I was giving away the Valentines in the crowd. Thanks again, Nice Lady!

Photo Shoot

We tried to get some photos of the coord I put together, and some of them came out okay. Husband is still clueless about digital cameras, though. heh

I am continually changing my mind about blogs and how to run them. I have two of them now, the other more focused on my sewing projects a la Lolita – and this one more of my personal (mis)adventures in life as a Lolita and over all crazy-person.

Personally, I think I suck at blogs, as it’s never really anything meaningful that I have to say. I’m just sharing myself and what I do, and I know some of you like it. And I like sharing. Why am I constantly defending this? Ha…

Moving on – a lot has happened since the last post about my apron project.

I had an amazing time one night when I spontaneously decided to join some friends for open mic here in my town. I happened to be dressed up in my fabulous Baby, The Stars Shine Bright dress. The print is Twinkle Constellation in white. I won’t begin to tell you how much it cost, but it was one of my major splurges when I was in Japan last September. Worth it!

I Made Me Some PJs – Lolita, of course

I’m learning how to do nail art!

Thanks to my friend Misty for letting me use her hands for six hours. heh.

Dressed up for Thanksgiving

Annual Yuletide Arts and Crafts Fair in Taos

Thanks again goes to my sweet friend Misty for taking all the lovely pictures!

Wearing my new Bodyline acquisition, and Alice print JSK in black and white.

And I couldn’t help myself, but we adopted a new kitten that day. Meet Merlin!

New Lolita boots! Perfect for winter!

So as I continue on with doing the things I do, I will again try to be more forthcoming with updating blogs and stuff. This weekend we’re going to the Albuquerque Comic Con at the Hard Rock Casino resort. I intend to wear my other expensive acquisition: Alice and the Pirates Vampire Prelude dress in blue.

Coming up soon is my birthday, and it’ll mark one whole year that I’ve taken my Lolita fashion seriously, wearing it out in town as often as practicality allows. So far, I’ve gotten nothing but positive feedback, so I’m just gonna keep on doin’ it.

Ciao for now. <3

So, while I’m happy to trace all these patterns for everyone, once in a while I feel the need – the need to sew. So I traced a pattern for myself (I have some pending orders for patterns, and I promise I’ll get to them) which was the Innocent World Apron found in Gothic and Lolita Bible Vol. 9 . . .

I was actually inspired to do this one because of my friend. I have a young Lolita friend that I’m somewhat of a mentor to, and she mentioned how she wanted Innocent World’s Apron. It’s a play apron, reminiscent of the kind children would wear out in the garden during late Victorian times or turn of the century.

Either the apron was sold out or it was just too expensive to justify. A little research, though, and I found that exact apron pattern in one of the back issues of GLB. I didn’t have Vol. 9 – so I ordered it from eBay for about $20 bucks. In looking at the rest of the patterns, the apron really seems like the best prize. I want to make it a Xmas gift, so I decided to set to work this weekend making this apron.

Traced the pattern – sometimes when I trace for myself, I get lazy about transferring all the alignment markings, since I always have the pattern to refer to again, which I did. heh…

The panels for the skirt – two back, one center front cut on fold. Sewn and overlocked (I loves me mah overlock machine).

The belt of the apron. This bit was a little confusing. Since my reading of Japanese is a little slow, with much reference through dictionaries and translators, I eventually figured out that this piece of the pattern had written on it: Placed/attached in front of/before the chest piece. And by doing this, I learned even more kanji. Yay, learning. ^.^0

Press everything! EVERYTHING! Your iron is your friend. This is the belt again. Here I only pressed in the seams for the ends, and then one side. The unpressed side is where I attached the skirt – right sides together! How many times do you hear that when sewing? Soooo many… it’s kinda like “righty tighty – lefty loosey” only not as catchy. And less annoying.

Here you can see my basting stitches in black. I already sewed the gathers in this picture, but I basted first to gather. I DO have a ruffler foot, which is awesome. But sometimes good ol’ hand stitching is best.

All gathered!

The skirt is attached to the unpressed edge of the belt piece. Note the lace edging around the hem – I added that before I gathered the skirt. Sometimes it’s easier to do those things before the skirt is gathered and attached to anything. NOT always true. The skirt is open in the back, so I didn’t need to match the ends of the lace or the hem itself.

The chest piece. The ruffled eyelet lace was attached first. I used some galloon lace and threaded 3/8” white double faced satin ribbon through it. The lace was flat at first, but I made the ribbon extra long and gathered it toward the middle. The decoration there can be any kind of ruffled lace – or no lace! – you want.

The shoulder straps are pinned inwards, sandwiching the chest piece. Sew this first all the way to the ends, making an L shape when you’re done stitching. The last edge will be pressed first, with the shoulder ruffled attached, before it’s sewn closed.

The shoulder ruffle. I really thought this was going to be the hardest part! I have an 1/8” narrow hem foot which, as you can see, makes a super fine finished edge. Works great on cotton fabrics. Thought the curves of this ruffle were going to kill my confidence, but somehow I managed it. That little bit of weirdly folded edging gets tucked into the shoulder strap, so it’s okay that it looks like that. Mostly looking good!

More hand stitched basting and now it’s pinned to the markings on the shoulder strap.

Sew and press!

Looking good!

The top part gets attached to the skirt. This time, wrong sides together. That little bit at the bottom of the chest piece with the shoulder straps on either side – it gets tucked into the bottom edge of the belt band. When it’s turned up (and pressed!), the belt part gets a top stitch on the bottom edge. This closes it. Then, with the belt laying flat along the bottom of the chest piece, another top stitch goes on the top edge.

The waist ties get a little tuck and are pushed into the openings of the belt band on either side, then stitched over with a top stitch.

I haven’t added the buttons or button holes yet, but I just couldn’t wait to show you guys my latest project. Hope you’ll forgive me! ^.^ Not bad though, huh?

I just realized I never posted pictures of the finished product! Well, I just have to say that it was one of the most comfortable traveling outfits I ever wore. The JSK was snug in just the right away, and I wore a very mild petticoat/slip underneath for just the right volume so as to not be too distracting at the airport.

And a lot of people liked it. ^.^ It’s nice passing by a little family and the mother whispers to her kids, “Isn’t that a pretty dress?”

*blush*

Some other pics from the convention that weekend…

Amazingly, there was an h.NAOTO booth at this convention!

So I see this really neat, narrow hem edge with a satin stitch a lot on professional garments – store bought things. For Lolita, it’s the perfect kind of hem for a lot of things. But how in the heck do you recreate what’s called a Merrowed hem without the Merrow machine?

This can be done with a rolled hem function on some sergers. Unfortunately, I found out my serger does not do quite so tight of a stitch. I have a Janome Magnolia serger. The Brother 1034D is about half the price and does do it. Feeling a little foolish, I didn’t want to just break down and buy the Brother serger. So I figured a makeshift way of achieving a similar look on my own sewing machine with a satin stitch.

The Merrow hem is also called a purl stitch in sewing, or a satin stitch. Also a narrow hem stitch, however this could also be just a straight stitch with a narrow rolled hem foot (which I have and love).

I was working on some ribbed jersey knit fabric for a Lolita bolero. Since it’s so thin, and stretchy, it’s a little awkward to try to fold the hem and stitch it that way. I wanted something that was a little prettier, and lighter. So I thought to try a satin stitch and trim off the edging. Because it stretches, it’s really hard to keep it straight and even.

So I got an unintentional curly edge, which would be fine if I wanted it that way – and if the stitches were even. Alas, they were not, and I needed to find a better way to do this than just blindly feeding it through my sewing machine.

Of course! It’s essentially like embroidery, so what do people do when they embroider on their sewing machine. They use stabilizer! With a temporary spray adhesive for fabric, and a water soluble stabilizer, I made another attempt.

The difference was quite amazing, and very pleasing.

So now, after waiting for these two vital things to finally come to my doorstep (I have to order most specialized things online  -_-) I can finally finish working on my bolero . . . that I’ll most likely end up selling. But we’ll see!

I have gotten my hot little hands on a number of really great pattern books from Japan, including the Gothic & Lolita Bibles that I’ve been sending for regularly. Though I’ll admit that the GLBs are less impressive than these others, and I feel a little silly that I’ve only just discovered them.

Boutique-sha publishes some really high level sewing pattern magazines, including the other Lolita magazine that I’ve heard whispers of until now. I always thought that the Gosu Rori magazine and the Gothic & Lolita Bibles were the same. Ha… I’m so glad I was wrong.

The Gosu Rori (Goth Loli in English :P ) magazine is a serious sewing publication, with one giant sheet of at least six full garment patterns. What’s even more impressive is that the instruction pages within the book itself has patterns that require you to draft them out yourself. So not everything available in the book is printed on the giant pattern sheet. Challenge accepted.

While I have full confidence that I can interpret the instructions-only patterns, it will definitely be a challenge for sure. Everything’s in centimeters, but the only hard part about that is that my rulers aren’t. So I have to keep checking my measuring tape which IS marked with cm. Silly Americans. Why do we have to make everything so hard?

So my recent acquisition includes Vol. 15 of the Gosu Rori mook (magazine/book) and another publication also by Boutique that was a special collection of Lolita pieces in their Lady Boutique series (again, very high end sewing book with patterns).

These sort of publications make me wonder if sewing and crafting is a serious past time in Japan. I don’t think they sell anything like it in the States, and I could be wrong. I do recall my mother once looking for a particular magazine she used to know of that had patterns in it, but they stopped selling them a long time ago.

I’m also worried, however, that the Gosu Rori mooks are no longer printed. The latest issue I can find listed anywhere is No. 16 from 2010. I’m hoping I’m wrong. But I could always try to find back issues.

On another note, with these patterns I’m acquiring, I’ve started offering a service to fellow Lolita seamstresses. Now, I’ve been sort of thinking about this with a little trepidation, in that maybe I’m breaking copyright rules by doing this. I’m sharing patterns sold in a mook for a small fee, but I’m not necessarily photocopying them.

Because the patterns in all these magazines require you to trace them from the single giant page it’s originally printed on, I offer to trace them professionally on equally giant tracing paper, ready to be cut and used – like the way American patterns come. I’ll also add seam allowance if it doesn’t already come with it, which the more advanced sewing books require you to do on your own.

So I charge $8 for each pattern. Maybe not the small ones. It is sharing material, and so I wonder – is this perhaps not such a wise thing to do?

I guess I just figured that I bought so much tracing paper for myself (20 yards on a 30” roll) that I thought to share patterns with others. And when I did for the first three that were interested, tracing the patterns with the skills I was taught in Fashion Design School, I realized it was quite a lot of work. So I thought to ask for a little compensation.

Thoughts?

Wow, that seems like an unusually long title for a blog post. o.O

In any case, how is it that I have not posted this video yet. I finished it at least a week ago. Anyway, as promised, here is my slightly quirky, slapped together video tutorial of how to construct the jumpskirt from the last post using the GLB pattern in #42.

Enjoy! And it’s okay to laugh.

I’ve been a busy bee, lately! After sending out some pattern copies to some nice Lolita girls on Facebook, I thought I might put together a video of me making the dress from the same pattern, for visual aid for them. This is the second time I’ve made this pattern, an Innocent World jumpskirt design from Gothic Lolita Bible #42.

I must say that it’s definitely come out better the second time around. The video will require much editing. But here are the finished product photos!

The size of the pattern is a standard size 8, Small/Medium. It fits me, so for comparison, 34” bust, 26” – 28” waist. The skirt from the waist is ~21” long.

Hello Kitty Gingham Skirt

If you don’t want the JSK, I’ve got a nice skirt that will be for sale soon on Etsy. Size M (waist 27 – 32 inches).

BtSSB Bloomers

Made in the classic Black and White Lolita style, these are black bloomers with white trim and lace, and black ribbon. These are a size S, and are made using the official pattern from Baby the Stars Shine Bright bloomers in GLB #43.

Finally! I stopped hemming and hawing about it, and put together a few things to start selling in my little Etsy shop. Whether they sell or not – meh – I know it’s hard to move any product when the competition is so stiff. But at least I got started!

Check out my journals (and other stuff):