How To Make Lolita Lace Sock Toppers
Taking on another reader request today: a tutorial on lace sock toppers! This is another of the ones where I lost the name of the person requesting it when I moved emails so if it was you let me know and I’ll update!
So yes there was a period in my life when I wouldn’t have been caught dead without frilly socks. At that point they were pretty hard to come by here in Aus so I made my own sock toppers to go over plain knee high school socks. These days I don’t wear them anymore because I no longer wear Lolita and prefer stockings to socks but there’s no reason why I can show you guys how I used to make them! I get a lot of requests for Lolita themed tutorials but I’m always wary of doing them because it’s no longer my area of expertise ^_^
There are two basic designs I used to use to make these, today I’ll show you the first which is completely adjustable and tied on with ribbon.
What you need for ribbon and lace sock toppers:
Now normally for this kind of thing you would use a lace which is as thick as you want the end result to be tall but I didn’t have any on hand so instead I am making this using several thinner laces which I will stitch together to form a thick piece. Obviously you can skip this if you already have thick lace. Also I am using a mixture of cotton and nylon lace, if you want a quality result don’t use nylon because 90% of the time it ends up looking cheap. Again I didn’t want to buy new supplies for something I might not use at the end so I’m sure you can just get the general idea from this and then choose your own materials! So you need to measure around the top of your calf and cut lengths of lace which are twice that measurement. Below are the pieces I am using for 1 topper: eyelet, two nylon and one cotton to edge it.
This is the order they will be stitched together.
The first thing to do is stitch the 3 bottom pieces together so it combines to make the large piece of lace.
Overlap them slightly and use a basic running stitch to hold the two middle pieces together.
This is the result:
Then do the same with the bottom edging.
And you’ve got something like this:
This is where you come in if you already have thicker lace. Lay the eyelet lace over the top…
And stitch that in place too!
Fold the ends under and stitch them in place as well.
And we’re almost finished! What you should have at this point is a long rectangle of lace with no raw edges.
Now to thread the ribbon through! I picked a light pink ribbon so it stands out but not too much.
Thread the ribbon through the entire length of eyelet lace. It can be a pain to do a lot of threading without something to push it through, only problem is that the eyelet lace is a bit small to thread a safety pin through as you would usually do. So my solution is to tie the ribbon to a bobby pin.
And push it through all of the holes!
Don’t skimp on the ribbon, you need to leave enough that it can be easily tied around your leg with enough for a pretty bow. Keep the ribbon flat so it’s not twisted at all.
Pull the ribbon, gather all of the lace together and tie the ends together in a bow!
Cuuuute!
This style with the ribbons is good too because you can tighten/loosen it enough to use them as wrist cuffs, hair accessories or anything you like. Yay for versatility. You know now that I think about it more I’ll probably use them as hair accessories haha!
So there you go, hopefully this was useful to someone! As always if you have requests feel free to send them my way ^_^ Next time I’ll show you the elastic version of sock toppers!
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Red and Black Lacy Scarf Shawl Sewing Tutorial
These stretchy scarf things have been quite popular in stores lately so after a request I thought I would give making one a try!
This is what I ended up with. It’s not exactly the same but it’s in the same vein and if you had more materials to start with you could easily adapt this tutorial to make that exact scarves that have been in the shops.
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What you need:
First thing to do is lay everything out so you know what order you want to put things in. This is what I chose ^_^
Then really, it’s all just a matter of stitching it all together. Deal with the edging first because it can just be sewn on flat.
Now the thing that gives this scarf it’s trade mark look is the elastic. You could use a plain matching elastic or even the small elastic thread you would use for shirring. I happened to have a pretty piece of stretchy black lace so I used that.
The method is simple but can require an extra hand or foot to hold everything. You need to stretch the elastic as far as it will go and place over the lace. While it’s stretched out, sew straight down it. I then added the red rick rack over the top as a decoration.
Now here’s the thing, if you want to make it more like a Summer or Spring scarf you can easily add a second length of wide lace to the other side of the elastic. This is what gives it that puffy frilly look. I didn’t have any more lace so I left it as is for now though I might add to it some more in the future. As is it’s more of a shawl than a scarf. |
Sooooo by this point it should look something like this!
Last thing to do is finish the ends. Running stitch up the end…then pull the stitch tight so it gathers.
Something like this:
Sew on a couple of bows to cover up the edges:
And BAM! finished ^_^
So now that you have the basic idea there are lots of different ways you could wear it or customise it! This one looks kind of like something to wear salsa dancing XD but obviously if you made yours with pink and white it would have a completely different feel!
News, Features, Excitement and Blogopolis
Firstly apologies for any typos or if this is written terribly, I’ve been sick with a bad cold since yesterday so I’m quite out of it at the moment but this couldn’t wait!
Thank you!
Thank you so much to everyone who answered my reader poll yesterday, all of your feedback has given me a clearer idea on how I can make the site better for you all and where to go from here! It’s very reassuring to know that I’m mostly on the right track and a lot of you are actually enjoying my posts. I really appreciate the time you all took to write in your suggestions so thank you!
If you want to take the poll or give feedback just take a look at yesterday’s post over here.
I never imagined when I started this blog that literally thousands of people would be logging on to read it every day, the idea that people would actually be interested in silly things I write about at all makes me so happy. Having never been in a situation like this before I appreciate you guys taking the time with me as I learn how to move forward and progress! At Blogopolis I was complimented in some really heart felt ways that made me tear up a bit. I know that what I write here is hardly earth shattering or world changing, but knowing that there are some people who log on to cheer themselves up after having a bad day or to escape from their real lives for a few minutes gives me the energy and passion to keep going and make this the best site it possibly can be. Without you all reading I would be able to do half the things I do now and any success I have I owe to you guys… so thank you! I’ve learned so much since I started this blog all those years ago and I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.
Which brings me to my next point…
Newspaper!
This morning I woke up this morning to a bunch of texts, emails and tweets letting me know that I was on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age *_* Apparently there was a journalist at the Blogopolis event over the weekend who picked up my pink hair as being a new fashion trend! I’m not really up with current fashions but I really appreciate the shout out and the fact that she thought I was worth writing an article about! Thank you so much Natasha Hughes for writing the article, I’m really flattered to be in such a large publication!
And thank you to the awesome Danimezza for taking that photo of me too, I’m so glad you were at our table and it was awesome to meet you finally!
If you want to read the article and some of the funny comments that were left just visit the links below!
http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/beauty/blogs/beauty-beat/pink-hair-everywhere-20110801-1i8jb.html
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/beauty/blogs/beauty-beat/pink-hair-everywhere-20110801-1i8jb.html
Adelaide!On to other exciting news, I’ve just had the details finalised so I can let everyone know I’ve been invited to be special guest speaker at the Adelaide Beauty Conference! I’ll be speaking about blogging and giving a nail art demonstration on a couple of the girls attending. So excited! I’ve never been to Adelaide and I’m so lucky that the first time I get to go it’s because I’m being flown in to talk to fellow bloggers! They wrote the most flattering article about me on the site too, I feel very fancy!
To see more about the conference take a look at their website over here: http://www.adelaidebeautyconference.com/ IMATS!In other travel news James and I will also be attending IMATS in Sydney this year. IMATS is the International Make Up Artist Trade Show which is held every year in Sydney. This year there is a blogger’s weekend happening around it called ABBW (I know, so many acronyms I’m confused now too!) and we will be flying down to Sydney for the weekend! I’ve only been to Sydney once before and it was just overnight so I will be very happy to spend a bit more time there with like minded people and explore! Blogopolis!So as you’ve probably guessed, on Saturday James and I were lucky enough to go to Nuffnang’s Blogopolis Conference. It was basically a conference with around 300 bloggers from all around Australia who came to talk about the ins and outs of blogging. There have been a lot of run downs of the day already including some really in depth looks at the content covered so I will just show you guys photos and my funniest moments from the day ^_^ Full gallery with many photos of me posing with various awesome bloggers and people I respect. I will update with everyone’s URL’s and info as soon as I feel a bit better as well as the link to the professional photos. Apologies for the crappy picture quality, I didn’t realise some of the settings on my Lumix had been changed until we got home >_< the other half of these are from my phone that I was live tweeting on the day. [zenphotopress album=310 sort=random number=50] My favorite parts: On the way out in the morning it was pretty chilly! It was an early start so we left home at around 8am to walk to Fed Square
This is how James looks that early in the morning…
My outfit for the day was my Jesus Diamante dress, a belt and a shawl.
We got a bit lost on the way there but were lucky to meet up with Tim and Ming who are the founders of Nuffnang, below I’m with Tim while Ming was signing in! I was so surprised how big Federation Square was, even though we live very close by we haven’t actually been over to explore in the entire year that we’ve been here, how sad is that?
This is what a bunch of bloggers look like when we conference 😉 Oh yes, everyone heads straight for the coffee table!
Miss Grace and I had a Nail-Off competition, I’m pretty sure she won haha! We decided that I should do a whole line of Grace inspired nail art which involves large amounts of chips. How cute is her jewellery? The one on the left is a little mouse!
I failed pretty miserably at playing Blogger Networking Bingo. Basically we had to introduce ourselves to people in the room and see if they fit the boxes, first one to fill them all won. I was too shy to get many though >_< Next time give me a game of Pictionary and that will get us all talking and possibly yelling and beating each over the head with note pads! BAM. ICE BROKEN.
There were a lot of talks and advice given, the most amusing of which I took from this was from Mr Gadget: don’t write your slides on the plane ride over very late at night because you will accidentally confuse your dot points and tell people to give up blogging hahaha!
You may also have some serious stock photo abuse going on too hahaha! Don’t worry Arnold I still loved your presentation and your stylish suit made up for it!
Morning tea was yummy cupcakes and short bread. I was so excited meeting new people that I forgot to get milk for my tea before the next session started *_*
For lunch James and I went out with Ayr and Super Kawaii Mama for some sushi and Lord of the Fries.
We were nicknamed “The Fancy Hair Brigade”…. no clue why 😉
On Friday I stayed home for ages and was late for several appointment because I was waiting for my new business cards to arrive, very inconvenient but worth it because I’m really happy with how they turned out! Of course I kept forgetting to hand the damn things out which was pretty stupid. If anyone wants some let me know and I’ll post them to you!
I think the main difference I noticed in this convention to other blogger gatherings I’ve been to here and overseas is that everyone here was really shy! Quite a few people later sent me messages saying the were too shy to say hello and I kind of felt the same way, there were so many other wonderful people there that I wanted to talk to but it was hard to get the courage up to make the first move. I think maybe because everyone was there to learn and take notes that maybe the tone of the event was different than the meet ups and awards I’ve been to in the past. Who knows, I still had a great time! If you wanted to say hi but were too busy/couldn’t find me/were too nervous, say hi here! I finally got to meet Lori who writes one of the most heartfelt blogs that I have ever come across. She has so much strength and determination and she has been one of my role models for a long time.
She gave me my most treasured item from the day: a wrist band with her url and the word SPEAK. I can’t explain the motivation behind it as eloquently as she does but the message is clear: if you are in trouble please SPEAK.
I spent most of the conference live tweeting and taking notes on my ipad which is funny considering by doing that I kind of failed as a blogger by not taking more photos! Enjoy staring at the stack of business cards I didn’t hand out XD
After everything was done there was a two hour gap between the conference and post drinks party so a group of us went out to dinner. Ming had a craving for lobster so we went out searching for a place. Group of bloggers catching the tram= hell of a lot of fun camwhoring and falling over in inappropriately high shoes.
It was pretty rainy but that made it an even more fun trip!
Lobster was found and I was pretty excited because I had never eaten it before!
As it turns out, I love lobster! Sorry bank account!!
Of course there were some mishaps, Grace even had a lobster related injury. Don’t worry Grace, it matches your manicure 😀
We headed home afterwards because I was too tired to do the after party but not without one last photo!
We happened to bump into Tim, Ming and Arnold again on the way and showed them our favorite bubble tea place. AWESOME night full of awesomely yummy things! So sleepy by the ends and very glad to be home!
So thank you again to everyone who made the day awesome, thank you to Nuffnang (especially Lynda) for holding the event, thank you to my hilarious friends for keeping me laughing and most importantly… thank you to YOU for continuing to read!
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