Hello everyone! Just a little note to let you know that I won’t be able to post anything until the 17th of July. Sorry for any delay and thank you for your patience. 🙂
Helen Hobden
Behind the scenes – making a raggedy fairytale pirate pastel goth fairy dress!
I don’t know if you knew I have a YouTube channel?! Over there I post videos two or three times a week with vlogs and a variety of videos including sewing ones where you can see how I make the clothes I sell in my Threads of a Fairytale Etsy shop. This one is continuing my recent series of pastel goth dresses, but it would be perfect for women’s pirate costume or a fairy dress. Ideal festival fashion!
If you like watching how I make the dresses, please click the subscribe button so you don’t miss more sewing videos!
#MarchMeetTheMaker on Instagram!
Hello everyone! I hope you’re keeping warm! I’ve decided to join in the Instagram challenge for #Marchmeetthemaker. My Threads of a Fairytale Instagram is just a feed of all my outfits I’ve made, so I’ve decided to do the hashtag prompts on Instagram Stories.
If you’re not familiar with this sort of thing, I should explain that crafter Joanne Hawker set up a series of ideas for makers to share their stories on Instagram. It’s a lovely way to find new like-minded people to follow and connect with. Here are the list of prompts for #Marchmeetthemaker 2018:
Please follow Threads of a Fairytale on Instagram, and keep a look out on my stories for everything for #marchmeetthemaker. I’ll be doing my best to keep up with it every day! And keep a look-out because on one day this month I’ll be revealing a discount code for the Threads of a Fairytale Etsy shop!
You’ve only got a few hours left to purchase from Children of a Fairytale!
A message to all members of the Threads of a Fairytale newsletter: Look in your inboxes and check your folders – you should have received a 25% off discount code for Children of a Fairytale this morning! I don’t want you to miss out on your favourite items, so please be quick as the listings will start to expire later today.
How I made a pastel goth fairy dress
Hello everyone!
I’m actually away at the moment, which is why I can’t start any made-to-order dresses until February, however, here’s a video of a pink and black kawaii fairy dress I made last summer:
Please subscribe to my YouTube channel for more of my sewing videos and behind-the-scenes at fashion photo shoots!
Thank you!
The fairytale wedding dress – behind the scenes
It has been on my To Do list for some time to make a fairytale wedding dress from scratch, but I think I was subconsciously putting it off as I knew it would be a big project. However, I’m so happy and proud of the finished dress, I wish I had made it sooner! Hopefully I’ll have chance to make another one soon as this is an example of a fairytale boho-style wedding dress that can be made to order to your measurements.
As usual, I filmed the whole process and here’s the video:
Please get in touch with me at helen@threadsofafairytale.com if you’d like your version of this handmade bohemian fairytale wedding dress. Take a look at the listing on my Etsy shop, ThreadsOfAFairytale for more information about this particular dress, and I’ll update this post tomorrow with a link to the listing for the made-to-order version!
And before I go; a quick apology for not updating here much recently – I’ve been very busy over on my YouTube channel with editing, posting and filming a video every day for Vlogmas! Two weeks exactly till Christmas!
Exciting news – children’s clothes are back for sale online + their shop has a new name!
Hello everyone – I hope you’re having a lovely day! As you may know if you’ve been following me for a while, I’ve been phasing out my old Oshun Etsy shops and continuing with just the one, now called Threads Of A Fairytale. Although my handmade children’s clothes and fairy costumes sell well at festivals, they don’t seem to sell well online, so I decided to let that shop die out. (I may eventually have them available on facebook, but as you can imagine, the task of uploading photos and details of nearly fifty items is quite a daunting one!) Anyway, Etsy have just offered me some free listings, so with nothing to lose, I decided to re-list everything that was already sitting in my ‘expired listings’ folder. If you don’t sell on Etsy, you probably won’t know this, but a listing expires after three months and then the seller has to pay again to re-list it. So for that reason, after three months it is likely the children’s clothes will all disappear again. (I don’t want to say they will definitely disappear just in case a celebrity buys one for their daughter or something and all of a sudden they become really popular!) So now is your chance to buy a handmade child’s dress from me for a limited time only. By the way, the fairy dresses make lovely Christmas presents!
Oh I nearly forgot to tell you the new name! It’s Children Of A Fairytale. I love the name so much, I’m half tempted to start making children’s clothes again!
I will be sending out a discount code for the Children Of A Fairytale Etsy shop with my next newsletter which I will send out in a couple of days. If you’d like to receive that, please sign up with the link in the black box below!
How I made the woodland fairy wedding dress
Hello! This is just a quick news update to tell you about my latest post I’ve written over on my blog, When I Grow Up. Hopefully it will be a little less controversial than the Oshun one! It’s simply a post about how I made the dress as several people I met at the New Forest Fairy Festival asked me how I make my fairy dresses. Hopefully it will be helpful if you’re thinking about making your own if you have a special event to go to; or interesting if you’re thinking about purchasing the woodland dress from the Threads of a Fairytale Etsy shop.
I can’t wait to get sewing again! Unfortunately I’ve been busy stuck in a vortex of housework and admin since getting back from holiday!
A bit of a hoo-ha over cultural appropriation in fashion
Hello! I’m back from holiday and had a wonderful time exploring the Acropolis and other ancient remains and ruins around Greece and Albania and have come home full of inspiration. Three new goddess dresses influenced in design by ancient Greek attire will be appearing in the Threads of a Fairytale shop very soon – one in pink, one gold, and one in a mottled green and grey – all pure silk chiffon. I will continue to be inspired by religions and cultures from all around the world; ancient and modern, because that’s the way art grows, develops and nourishes one’s soul and interest. The term “cultural appropriation” seems to be more in fashion than fashion itself at the moment, and there’s a bit of a hoo-ha going on over at my personal blog in the comments of a post I wrote in May last year, entitled OSHUN – THE STORY OF MY CLOTHING BRAND, AND THE YELLOW DRESS INSPIRED BY BEYONCE’S IN LEMONADE.
If you’re a regular visitor to this page, you’ll know that I changed my clothing business name from Oshun to Threads of a Fairytale a couple of months ago and explained my reasons here. And no, the change had nothing to do with cultural appropriation because I’m sorry, I simply don’t agree that it’s a problem here. I’m currently working on quite a long blog post to reply to all the comments and to give my point of view to the subject in detail because I don’t want it to be misconstrued. Â (edit: my blog post entitled Cultural Appropriation in Fashion. Does it really matter? has now been finished). We have been influenced by our neighbours of all colours and heritage since time began and I think that’s a wonderful thing. Segregating oneself and not allowing this to happen comes from a place of ego, not from a place of good.
Anyway, I just thought I’d make a little statement here so that those of you who aren’t happy with me at the moment know I’m not ignoring you, I’m just taking a couple of days to word my response carefully for my blog, When I Grow Up, and debate can continue over there. This here is my Threads of a Fairytale page about my business of fashion in all its frivolity and I will not be approving any negative comments here.
Ase Ire; Namaste; Peace; Have a good day! x
Time for a little break!
Hello everyone! I’m absolutely exhausted after the wonderful New Forest Fairy Festival last week, and now I’m taking a break for a few days so the shop will be closed. I’ll catch up with any queries and re-open on the 1st September with renewed energy for making lots of new dresses!
In the mean time, if you’d like to take a behind-the-scenes look at having a stall at the New Forest Fairy Festival, here’s a little video I made of the weekend: