Thursday 23 August 2012

In the post

Don't you love it when you order a book before it's officially out and then you forget about it and it arrives? 
Excitement! 



Monday 13 August 2012

The Saffron Cross-Over

Lately has been a knitting bonaza. I've been feeling in a bit of a sewing funk so have been knitting my little wrists off. Have you noticed how this season has been all about the orange? Not the food....the colour! Or perhaps more of a tangerine, pumpkin is a better way to describe it. Anyway, I've been keen to have an item this colour in my wardrobe but being completely disheartened with the quality and variety of cute jumpers out there in this colour I decided to make something myself.

Tangerine?


I saw this Purl Bee Short Row Sweater a while back and had it on my list of to-make patterns. I made it up in the recommended Blue Sky Alpaca Melanges in Saffron colour. It didn't actually take too long at all, perhaps because there's barely any back to it!

Cross-over back
I'm fairly chuffed with how it turned out. It's a bit shorter than I imagined, particularly in the back but I think once spring sets in it will be nice to wear with a singlet top underneath. At the moment I'm finding it a bit hard to match any colours or outfits to it. The other thing that confuses me about this pattern is the sleeves. They're not singlet top nor are they cap sleeves....odd.



Apologies for my lack of photos outside, it was FREEZING cold here on the weekend, I'm not sure when the weather's going to change but I'm getting sick of all this winter weather. Bring on spring! 

Directing the photographer. "Don't forget to get a photo of that bust area, you know...here"







In the background here is my muslin of a new creation...the cause of my sewing funk. What is it with me and excess back material? I seriously have to cross over the back by about and inch and a half at the top for it to fit. Anyone else have this problem?


Sunday 5 August 2012

Dye-tastic

Cough,splutter, hack. Sorry I've been a bit MIA lately in blog/sewing land, I managed to catch a flu cold thing that's going around at work. So my weekend's mostly consisted of watching movies, eating takeaway and lying on the couch. But that's nice in it's own way. One exciting thing I did get onto was dying some fabric.


Everything and the kitchen sink.

I bought this creamy woven fabric at Flemington markets quite a few months back. Flemington markets are like these giant trash and treasure markets on a Saturday morning. I saw the flowers poking out the side of a mound of fabric and thought it would make a cute dress so I tried to pull out all the fabric.....and pulled.....and pulled..... there was about 6 metres of fabric! Anyway the guy gave it all to me for $5 which was brilliant but then I realised cream and my skin really don't go together. I've never dyed fabric before and was a bit concerned that the colour of the flowers would change but thought I'd just cut off a few metres and give it a try.

Volia!



The old and new
The plan now is for this to be made into a dress. I made a muslin of the pattern I'm using the other day and now just need to iron and cut out this fabric. Lately I've had a bit of a sewing lull, just haven't felt like sitting down and putting my brain into it. I think partly it's been such gorgeous weather I've just wanted to lie around outside and soak up as much vitamin d as possible!

On a completely different note, have you ever played this game called Puerto Rico? Holy banana, it's amazing.*

Growing my indigo

Here's some delicious garlic prawns made on the bbw. om nom nom.


* not because I've won twice, although that perhaps helps.