A new crafty meetup-Make It Collective

Tweet

If you're in Sydney this coming Wednesday night, come along to the inaugural Make It Collective meetup!

A new craft group for anyone who loves to craft, wants to learn or just wants to sit around and meet some new people.

The Saffron Cross-Over

Tweet

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?

The latest in sewing accessories

Tweet

I recently picked up three of these cute little strawberry pin cushions at my favourite Fabric Cave, Useful to string around the neck with the snippers (I'm sure there's technical name for these) and then I never loose pins or snippers!

The Green Hornet dress

Tweet

Photo time!
Excuse my recent absence, I recently finished up a TAFE course so I've spent all my free time knitting, sewing and sitting on the couch. Ah to be free again!

Today we went to the dog park (read about the awesome dog park over here) with Megan and Ben x 2. They have a small dog called Poppy. I'm not quite sure what breed she is, I think a mixture, but I do know she's fluffy and very very cute!

I owe you about 3 posts on various dresses (count 'em, 3!) and finally got around to taking some happy snaps today.

First up, the Green Hornet dress. I've had a recent attraction towards colour and love the colour of this fabric. It's this grassy green and a kind of stretch jersey, originally meant to be made into something else for my winter sewing plans.

Ok, this dress turned out nothing like the pattern.  It was meant to be Vogue V1257, faux wrap type dress. Now there was only about 1.3m of this fabric, I bought it on a sale roll at the Remnant Warehouse. 

I just managed to squeeze out enough pieces to make this dress and was all 'hurrah, what a success!' until I started the tricky skirt part and realised I had cut the one skirt piece on the fabric on the wrong side instead of right, meaning the wrap bit at the bottom linked to a non-wrap bit at the top. You with me? 

Anywho, I scrapped that plan and decided to just add some pleats on the other side so that it would all match up. This was working fine till I stuck in on my mannequin (still yet to be name, any ideas?) pinned it and place and sewed top to skirt. Uh oh. Now I don't have a tiny bust but I have a pretty flat one. So it was all 'hello ladies' when I tried it on. That really wouldn't work. Not even with a singlet underneath. So I painstakingly unpicked it (how much of a pain is unpicking zigzag stitch?!) and then re-adjusted. To make it work I had to not only pull the wrap over bits across but also down a bit. Basically I winged it. 

The improv-wrap.

 Despite all the difficulties and a bit of frustration (I may have flung it onto the floor at one stage), I actually really like this dress. It's comfy, a great colour and a nice style. I'd like to make another but perhaps in a slightly more organised fashion.

It covers the boobs! Success!

 

An obligatory  photo with Alexander the beetle for @Perfect Nose.

Here's some cute photos of Poppy, isn't she just a gorgeous fluffball?

Snuggle snuggle!

cutie wootie wootie, She really was loving these cuddles. Maybe not so much....

The world's slowest Indian dress

Tweet

Ta-duh!


 I finally  finished my Indian delight dress. I bought this hand printed block fabric in Jaipur when we were travelling around in January. I really wanted to make something I would wear often but that was slightly special.

 

 

The vital stats

Pattern:New Look 6824
Fabric: Indian block printed
Cost: about $10?
Time to make: a few epsiodes of This American Life. Including that Mike Daisey one and The Retraction. Have you listened? If not, I highly reccomend it!

Hanging out the washing in my fancy dress

To be honest, I'm not as happy with this dress as I would have liked to be. I had some major issues with the lining and just find this style/fabric colour doesn't suit me as much as I would like. The fabric was quite thin so I decided to line the whole thing. It was the first time I'd lined a skirt section of a dress and for some reason thought that I didn't need to keep the tucks on the lining (what was I thinking?!). So I eliminated the tucks and just sewed it straight up. Rooky mistake. Once finishing I'd finished it all I discovered it didn't go over my hips. Uh oh.


So I cut a massive line up the right and left sides and sewed in an extra section of fabric. Dodgy hey?
But it all worked out alright in the end.

This fabric has this gorgeous border print that I really wanted to be a feature on whatever dress I made. I managed to figure out how to place it so it ended up right on the edge of the cap sleeves. I am quite chuffed how these turned out.

This should get a bit of rotation during Me Made May, I need to maximise every handmade item I've got at the moment!

Ps. Sorry about the pictures in this post, blogger seems to be mucking up on me and having difficulty fixing it up tonight.

Come on baby light my lamp

Tweet

Ben built me this beautiful lamp stand a while go and ever since I've been looking for a nice round lampshade to put on it. Finally I found a decent priced one in the lighting store down the road (love discount stock!).

I wanted to jazz it up a bit so using a project from 'Printing by Hand' Ben and I set to work.

Ben traced out the stencils using his steady hand skills and I pasted them onto the lampshade. We sprayed it with light blue spray paint, waited for it to dry, peeled off the stencils and volia! Cloudy, blue-sky lamp shade.

Bundles of goodies

Tweet

Guess what arrived in the mail last night?

That's right! Three wonderful collette patterns. I'm so lookin forward to starting on these. I've discovered all the second hand patterns I've been buying recently require some major drafting around the waist and I'm not quite at that stage yet so excited to have patterns in the right sizing.

Speaking of Collette patterns, I recently whipped up a Sorbet with sleeves after being inspired by Mena on SewWeekly. Was so easy and quick!

Am very much in love with my new machine.

Baby it's so cold outside

Tweet

One of the lovely lady from my brown owls groups made this delightful Martha Stewart neck tie scarf a while back and I loved it so much decided to make one myself. I used Noro wool and 4mm needles.

Sorry about the weird face! Not used to having my photo taken!

Reverse Garbage pillows

Tweet

This evening I got home earlier than usual (yay!) so after finishing dinner decided to do a little crafting. I've had this gorgeous scraps of fabric from reversegarbage for a while and have been meaning to make some pillows with them.

So I quickly whipped around them with a sewing machine, stuffed them with stuffing and volia! Lovely colorful pillows for my love couch.

Welcome

Tweet

Welcome!
I've been meaning to start a blog forever and a day and as I craft more and follow more crafty types it's about time I get involved.
Might start by posting some older photos of previous crafty projects. Enjoy :)