A dress for the weekend

Wednesday was our 9th wedding anniversary! To celebrate we are going away this weekend to the Southern Highlands and I thought a new dress would be nice. I had Simplicity 2584 in my stash for a while and the coral colored cotton sateen I bought over a year ago. Yay for stashbustin!

I didn’t muslin this dress I figured that because it was loose fitting it would be fine. I cut a 14 and then took about 3cm out of the centre back seam, and I also didn’t add the detail along the bottom. I quite like it, though I don’t know if I’d make another, maybe in a black linen blend with a modified front slit would be nice for work.

Rachel

Why sewing room doors should be closed?

Or

Why cats should be supervised around sewing?

 

Or even

Why messy people shouldn’t leave pattern pieces on the floor?

 

Muslining and Craft overactivity

Hi there,

You might wonder about the strange title of this post. It relates to the number of mid way through sewing projects I am currently working on.

The Cynthia Rowley yoked dress is hopefully going to be ready tomorrow for our weekend away. I am making it out at of a coral colored cotton sateen.

The Colette Peony dress has been muslined and the bodice is half made. I have had quite a bit of trouble with this one. Initially making it too big then dropping a size and doing a full bust adjustment, I have had to move the darts which seemed oddly to far towards the middle.

The vintage Simplicity dress muslin is coming along nicely though I have to let out the waist a bit. I have a very pretty piece of Liberty fabric that it might get made out of.

My Colette blouse needs work. The top is a little firm, and I think I’ll need to go up a size and grade down at the waist. I have a gorgeous black voile from Tessuti which will be lovely.

My Colette Ginger skirt is already cut out and ready to sew I expect it to come together quickly. I usually wear something handmade to work every day and this skirt will fit the bill nicely.

Why I have 5 half-finished projects I don’t know, but I need you all to keep me honest. My plan is to finish at least three of these before starting anymore projects. This is going to be hard since I have so many other projects I am keen to start.

I was very lucky to win Gabrielle’s giveaway. I won Simplicity 2922, which I can’t wait to make. That may become project number 6.

Rachel

My new partner in crime

Look what arrived yesterday…

My new friend named Dolly (partly named in honour Dolly’s current Australian tour). I adjusted the chest for a 36 bust then padded out the bust, as I found when the bust was adjust to 38 the upper and lower ribcage area were too big.

Here she is wearing my Rooibos dress, showing that she is pretty much spot on with my figure.

 

Other than that there is no sewing happening here. My sewing machine is at the repairer, hopefully it will be back next week because I have big plans for my Colette Peony dress, especially after seeing Lladybird’s lovely version.

Rachel

6 months of making

Have you noticed I have been away from the blog for 6 months? There’s been loads of sewing in this time.

The last six months I have focused on sewing clothes and I feel like my skills have come a long way. I have made plenty of skirts, though that’s no challenge as I alway found them pretty straightforward. I have made a few tops which I have been very proud of. You see due to my ample bosom I always thought that they would be too hard. I also have made a couple of dresses, a Wiksten Tova dress and most recently a Colette Rooibos dress.

I really enjoyed making the Rooibos dress and am loving the finished garment. It took two muslin to get the bodice right but then the final version only took a couple of hours and fits beautifully. I cut a size 10 and had to add a little ease under the arms and at the top of the shoulders, but graded it to a 8 half way down the midriff piece. The fabric is a navy Japanese slubbed cotton from Boqinana.

I adore this dress and see more in the future, perhaps I’d make another summer version with a different neckline, and a winter version to wear with tights and boots would be cute too.

 

 

At the moment I working on a Colette Peony dress with a full bust adjustment and another vintage pattern, alas my sewing machine is being repaired so they might be a while away.

Rachel

Mothers Day Quilt

I made this quilt a couple of weeks ago, it was intended to be a couch quilt, but my Mum took a fancy to it so it got bundled up for her for Mothers day.

It was made almost completely from scraps, including the batting (which was pieced together) and the binding.  It turned out slightly brighter than I had anticipated but the binding tied it all together, and my Mum loves bright colours.  Would you believe that the Echino and Parisville prints were “scraps” gifted by a very generous friend.

Rachel

Homespun

At the moment I feel like I am behind in everything.  My softie progress has slowed significantly, housework has been neglected, and I have been behind with my blogging.  What have I been spending my time on?  I couldn’t say really, the days fly by at present.

Anyhow the other day I received a copy of Homespun in the mail, and would you look at who’s inside….

You can find Moby the Whale in the current “Go Green” issue of Australian Homespun.  It has loads of other fantastic patterns inside including a very cute apple lunch tote by Meredith Harmer.

If you do make Moby the Whale I’d love to see a picture!

Rachel

Oh the glamour

Well just to prove that I have actually been sewing lately I thought I’d post some pics of my recent makes.

First up patternless pajama pants

I traced these off a pair of store bought pants that I have had for a few years.  I’d love to claim some design reason for the contrast cuff, but the real reason is that I only had 1.5 metres of flannelette.  The flannelette was from Spotty last year and the contrast fabric was in my scrap bag from Hawthorne Threads at Sew It Together, I’m not sure what designer it is but it seemed to match well enough.  I know some people like pictures of  ironed clothing, but for pajamas this just isn’t going to happen at my house.  They already been worn and washed a few times, and are the perfect roomy but not too baggy fit for pajama pants.  I’ll be making these again in my Anna Maria Horner

Then we have my first pair of homemade tracksuit pants.  You are either for or against them.  At home I live in yoga style pants (the tracksuit’s slightly less daggy cousin), but mostly mine are all light fabric and not warm enough.  These are from the Burdastyle Corrine pattern.

I didn’t get a shot that included the legs but basically from the thigh down the fit is perfect.  I cut a 40 but I think could have gone down a size in the bottom and waist.  Already when I was making them I took about 2 cm out of the centre crutch seam, and 1 cm on either side of the top hips as my hips are quite round.  Also they are really high on the waist, I didn’t want to show a pick of my tummy on the blog but there is one here, where you can see that the waistband is only about 1cm or even less lower than my belly button.  I would prefer that they sat lower.  They are ok and I wear them, even on the kindy run (yes I am a “haus frau”) but next time I’ll make the smaller size as I think the crutch and hip are still a little baggy.  The fabric is low pill fleece from Lincraft and is quite okay.  The boys will be getting pants out of the same colour as the friendly lincraft lady threw another couple of metres that had a imperfection.

I love sewing stretch… these pants came together so quickly (despite the lousy instructions) and I really enjoyed just sitting down to overlock most of the seams, rather than the back and forth between the sewing machine and the overlocker.  In a day or so I’ll have a pic of my ponti de roma dress.

What do you think?  My sewing has been rather practical lately… pjs, curtain lining, tracksuits, I’ll sew something pretty soon though  I have some  gorgeous Anna Maria Horner velveteen to make a lovely wintery skirt beckoning me, and I think we need another couch quilt.. so stay tuned.

Rachel

Long weekends at our house

mean renovation… remember when we bought a fixer upper with rodent issues.  Well we are still chipping away at it.  Hence the lack of photos.  This weekend’s projects involved digging holes for the back deck footings, and converting the former bathroom to a storeroom/ office.  Of course I’m rather useless at that kind of stuff, so my role was cooking for the workers and for a birthday celebration for my mum.

Smoked salmon quiche for the workers with homemade shortcrust pastry (none of that store-bought pastry around here thankyou), homemade bread, and potato salad with lots of spring onion and parsley, and golden syrup puddings.  I realised that though I have my Kitchenaid’s for a few months I’ve never blogged them.

Before we moved our old food processor died, it was a 30 year old Kenwood that was my grandmothers and it saw a lot of use.  I don’t think a lot of appliances are made as durable as that these days.  We knew that we wanted to get a very powerful processor, as we tend to cook a lot of meals from scratch because of Dan’s health condition.  We ended up buying ours from the US and got a Kitchenaid mixer at the same time.  They are both brilliant, and I use them very frequently.   They make hard and yucky jobs like kneading bread and cutting onion super easy, and I wouldn’t be without them.  Plus aren’t they pretty.  When we get our duck egg blue splashbacks put in they will look even better.

Dan and my Dad got loads of work done, and the back deck and storeroom should be finished next week.  I have had a terrible headcold which meant that I only got the tiniest bit of sewing done, I’ll blog my makes once they’re washed though.  Otherwise Easter was good, chocolate was consumed, and we enjoyed spending lots of time together.  We even had an Easter tree with decorations that the kids and I made.

Peanut got a trip to vet today for his immunisations and I finally got a picture of his face (humour me…  my family are all joking that he is the new baby in the family).

Hasn’t he got the most perfectly imperfect face!

Rachel

Sewing success and failures

So I have been promising pants….  It feels like at the moment that’s all I am making pants for kindy, pants for home, pajama pants…..

First up a lovely pair of Oliver and S Sandbox pants for Cadel.  I just love this pattern, the details really make it.

As you can see they are a little roomy, I think they are the perfect fit for running and playing.  Cadel is quite happy with his robot pants and is wearing them today.  I actually finished them a week ago, however they were waiting to be hemmed.  Hemming is my least favourite part of sewing garments.  The only detail  I left out is that I didn’t put the buttons on the back pockets as I feel it wasn’t necessary for kindy pants.  I made the boys some much loved shorts from this pattern back in January.

I also made pants from this vintage pattern Style 2557.  They turned out very cute, exactly as in the picture, only one problem… they probably wont fit Cadel till he is 6, the pattern sizing is way out.  That said though the finish is nice and I think they will be quite cute.  They are made out of a lovely soft brown pinwale cord.

So pant making will continue, pajama pants for Cadel and I, Corinne yoga pants for me, and some owly pants for Hamish.  What are you working on right now.

Rachel