Finally, a space to call my own..
“Speaking of new beginnings, I want this place to be a focussed and beautiful start to what is yet to come. I’ve organised my website into four main spaces of my creative ventures... ”
Making a dress out of thrifted gold fabric.
Welcome to the first blog post and video on my website! I’ve been looking into this for a while now and came to the conclusion that this is everything I need to get to where I want. Something I can pour my creativity and love into and it will give back to not only me but also the community that is reading this first post of a new beginning! I’ve always loved blogging and making videos and I really want to share the effort I put in to make every project wonderful and something I am proud of, from a thrift with me video to a painting an illustration photo journal blog post and whatever else I produce and make. I’d love to share more with you all. So I started this website to do just that.
Speaking of new beginnings, I want this place to be a focussed and beautiful start to what is yet to come. I’ve organised my website into four main spaces of my creative ventures. Skye Chrystal, Skyes Thrifted Wardrobe, Haus of Wolf and Swallow and Bean Planted.
Skye Chrystal is going to be where the weekly vlogs are and also a few other subjectivities where I can play with creativity and share what I’m up to in the process of creating. This blog will be an all rounder covering all of the spaces of creative projects and it is probably going to be updated at least 3 or 4 times per week. This blog will also include design work for Wolf and Swallow and all the subjectivities I want to share with the community including a monthly post of Skyes Illustrated Review. I’ll be starting slowly and working out some sort of schedule and routine so that I can post more efficiently and continue working on all that I love and share the creative process with you all. It’s exciting.
Skyes Thrifted Wardrobe is where the majority of the styling videos are going to be and I’m going to attempt to film more with natural daylight and go on adventures to share my outfits that I love to style and definitely repeat. So as well, let’s talk hauls. I have to admit after my previous love of collecting clothes and being so into it i overwhelmed myself and realised I needed to down size multiple times, I am trying to limit myself to hauls and focus more so on what I already have in my wardrobe. I found myself with 8 pairs of black jeans and asked myself “is this really neccessary” and after a long look at what i’d accumulated, I concluded that for me, it isn’t. So for the first blog post for Skyes Thrifted Wardrobe is my actual thrifting rules I set myself and try and keep to so if you’re interested in reading about that its there in that blog. But back to hauls, I’ll be posting every so often for those but for styling videos and photo journals I will definitely be posting at least one per week.
Haus of wolf and Swallow is where the crochet and knit wearable art pieces are going to call home. From idea to final piece I will be posting something as soon as I can and I am genuinely delighted that it’s coming up to winter and we are sneaking into autumn so I can finally start making them all again but this time with a new approach. Not only that but also the pieces I will eventually make from sustainably sourced fabrics. There is the first blog post being written and by the time you are reading this it will be live in the blog for that with more details of what’s happening behind the scenes for Haus of Wolf and Swallow so feel free to wander on over there and you will find everything about Haus of Wolf and Swallow there in the blog.
Bean Planted is where the coffee and plants and art for the coffee and plants will be. There will also be a blog post explaining more about Bean Planted in the blog but its the start of one day having a coffee shop, art space and plant & art shop. My barista soul will eveer leave the industry that built me, so expect some groovy stuff for this one. So check out the blog for Bean Planted and the first post should be what you can expect over the next little while.
I know in my soul that I am more than capable of pushing myself to produce at least 3 videos per week and my aim is to have this up and running by December 2026. I won’t typically post on the day I finish it like I had been doing with social media and youtube, and the reason for this is simple; I burned myself out and couldnt really be as creative or in a routine as I wanted to be. So the best route for me is to create a few videos and schedule my posts about two or three weeks in advance. For special occassions and other posts it might be a bit different so I can be a little bit flexible with posting with being mindful of keeping it structured to the needs and requirements I set for myself and also for the community.
“I won’t typically post on the day I finish it like I had been doing with social media and YouTube, and the reason for this is simple; I burned myself out and couldn’t really be as creative or in a routine as I wanted to be. ”
Autumn is here and the gold on this dress with the accent gold floral details within it warm my soul. I have a love for the warmer shades of gold that only my heart can explain and with making this dress with pockets, yes I make pockets for the first time, I am much proud, thank you. I do love this dress, but after finishing it I know a little bit more about how I would like to approach working with this type of fabric and how much I really need to be best friends with bias binding.
I actually wore this dress around the house and the way I bent over I managed to rip the side seam enough to notice that I had made an error in not using bias binding. I guess it would be a bit different too if I had an overlocker at hand too but that will come one day and I. Can. Not. Express. My. Love. For. Overlockers.. I will show you the much excite that will come with buying one one day. Wew.
I got sidetracked sorry, but what I do want to do is practice with bias binding and fabrics that are on the softer, more fragile and shinier side sometime soon. I have a few on the shelf though I’m not 100% certain what to make with them as I have been playing with the design concepts and I am really wanting to hold out a little bit longer so I can practice with the other fabrics that are a little easier to work with such as the cottons and heavier fabrics I have right now.
“I do love this dress, but after finishing it I know a little bit more about how I would like to approach working with this type of fabric and how much I really need to be best friends with bias binding.”
What I really love about this dress is how different it is to what I would usually wear, it’s a little bit ‘cutesy’ and a whole lot of dropped hem giving 1920’s flapper that probably can’t let go of the victorian pouf ( I had to google pouf and i mean pouf but not the ottoman variety okay) and I am not exactly sure of this timeline but the dress has pockets and I actually think this is what worked the best out of the whole thing. I love it. I want to wear it more, but I also am scared of seams ripping and a well an accident in the wild so I’ll remake this dress again one day but better.
What could be better is fitting the pockets better so that they don’t hang out at the bottom of the hem.. This would of been fine but it’s definitely not fine now since I made the dress shorter to compensate for it removing some of the length of my legs, it looked weird and i didn’t feel right so i raised it by an inch and I prefered it so that’s good, but basically will make the pockets higher in the next one.
I love this outfit and will definitely venture out into the actual wild with it soon instead of just popping to the park to take some styling photos. I would like to style this dress a bit more to be fair, so I’ll most like make a post on skyes thrifted wardrobe for styling this dress in multiple ways as I have a few pieces that might work with it so I’ll make a video styling it and take some stills for a styling journal post in that blog.
Outfit styling details -
Dress: Thrifted fabric made into this lovely little piece inspired by a dress I saw someone make on Instagram. The fabric was £5.
Coat: Gifted to me from my friend, an absolute queen <3 and vintage behbeh!
Shoes: Thrifted for around a fiver for the perfect pair of black simple sandals that give me pure joy vibes.
Bag: I thrifted this bag for £5 and I love the texture and shape of it. It’s also cosy and comfortable to wear.
Scarf: Thrifted this and I love wearing this scarf. The colours are so vibrant.
Accessories: All thrifted for the jewellery apart from the watch maybe? I might have bought it from Amazon.
Thank you all for being here and I send you all the love & light
Stay groovy