Pantaloons? Yes please!

Pinned waistband on the pants

Less pants, more chinos.  But not.  Inadvertently, I took a pattern for chinos, bought suiting material and ended up with pants for wearing out to dinner.  Only.  But that's ok, they're for the husband!  Perfect excuse to take me out for dinner more!

I previously was a subscriber to a UK magazine called sewhip, thanks to my parents for a lovely birthday present.  And I loved it....for 10/12 mags.  You see, they changed editors.  They were more based on things and clothing patterns....and somehow more random crafty shite slipped in.  Let's be honest people.  There are only so many weird oddly specific craft items you ever need.  I.e. sewn banners, or felted headbands, or finger puppets.

But, back before the editor changed, there was a pattern for mens pants....and I thought...why not?  I completely ignored the sewing skills required, and began to plan....

Pants prior to zip

There were a number of times when I should have realised this project was possibly above my skill level.
1.  When I had to ask what to use as lining.
2.  After I bought lining, it just looked way to hard and I ignored it.
3.  When tracing the pattern was really difficult. Extending the legs?  Bah.
4.  Right now when it's time to put the zip in.

But...to be honest, aside from little hiccups, they are actually coming together quite well.  While it probably made sense to not make a difficult project, I've learnt a lot more than  I've mangled.

Huzzah!

Pant pocket topstitching

Now they are almost finished...but it would be unlike me to finish a project in a timely fashion.  Therefore, onwards with a new project, I'll be back to you in a few months pants! 

Lady grey sewalong

I'm doing the lady grey sewalong!  Using the lovely pattern from Colette Patterns for the lady grey coat,

I probably went the wrong way about buying my fabric.  1.  Heavy duty calico for my muslin.  2.  Red lining from alannah hill.  3.  Blue wool crepe from the oddest fabric store I've ever been too.

As a result the muslin will be too heavy, the wool might not go with the lining, and I have no idea what it will look like when it's finished.  Why did I get blue crepe?  I wanted purple.  Fabric regret?  A little.  4m at $20 a metre?  Definitely. Have. Fabric. Regret.  

So, the question is, continue in with an almost Navy coat with red lining, or sell the wool crepe on ebay and start again?  OR, do I make the lady grey with the Navy lining, maybe put some red and white trim on there and make it a shipshape with a naval theme?

Ballet skirt for a little ballerina

 Making a basic ballet wrap for  little girl, I used a silk crepe from an old dress..making everything do double duty!


1.     Measure your ballerina around the hips in inches.   This measurement will be known as X. 
2.     Draft two copies of the template piece on paper.

3.     Fold silk in half in line with the selvedge.  The two pattern pieces will be places apart, with the measurement of Y between the top and bottom pattern edge.  To calculate, perform the following calculation.  Y = X – 15”. 
4.     Mark pattern pieces on the silk and cut out.  You should have two silk pieces.

5.     On the long edges fold over the edge by ½ inch, and use small pieces of sticky tape to hold them in place.  You will be stitching through the tape while this holds in the edges in place.
6.     Sew a narrow zig zag stitch along the long edge on both pieces
7.     Trim along close to the zig zag stitch.
8.     Place the short edges together, with toilet paper inbetween to stabilise the seam, pin and sew with a short straight stitch together.  Ensure the hems are facing outwards as per the diagram.  This ensures when you complete the French seam they are both facing the same way.

Ballet wrap seam stabilised using toilet paper

9.     Trim ¼ inch from seam
10. Turn over one edge over and straight stitch ½ inch to enclose the seam
11. Hand sew on the snap fasteners 4 inches apart

Ballet wrap finished detail

Opportunity shopping (indeed!)

Since have moved out to the burbs (see lazy blogging excuse number one) I have notice a high number of op shops.  Rather pristine un-hipster raided op shops.

I wasn't much fussed...until one day walking home from work was this dresser in the window.  After some husband wrangling (i.e. but even if we don't like it in a year we can sell it on ebay) I arranged to buy, and pick up this lovely dresser.  It needs some work, some of the drawers are damaged from so much use...but can you believe it actually came with the key for the door?  This is a one owner only dresser.

In addition, in waiting for someone to talk to about buying it...I found this awesome dress pattern (uncut) for the extortionate price of 50 cents.

So, 67.49 later..I'm very very pleased.  With two new projects.

Puppy coat

This weekend I had planned on finishing some pants and starting a dress and so forth...when somehow after taking our dog Misty for a walk, we ended up at the RSPCA.   Not leaving Misty there of course, but getting suckered into a new family member.  This is Hamish.  Hamish is a 4 month old german shorthaired pointer.  He's a smooch and remarkably (for the first 24 hours) not much trouble except for the upset tummy, which has meant we've gone through 2 rolls of kitchen paper today.

However this Melbourne winter is still a little cold for a pup, so I set about making a dog coat for Hamish out of an old cat polarfleece blanket.  If you're looking to make one of these, go to here for a fantastic pattern.  I didn't use the pattern directly, but as a guide to what shape the pieces needed to be, and then literally threw the blanket over the top of Hamish and started marking it for cutting.  

Being a whipped together sunday night project I'm pretty happy with the result (and the model), but I had to leave part of the neck unbound as to have some stretch when getting it on him.  I only had a polycotton to use as bias binding, which didn't have enough give.   Seeing as he will grow out of it pretty fast, it's not the end of the world.  

My current excuse for being lazy

Ok, I haven't blogged in a very long time.  And I've prepared a very long list of excuses...but will only share the top 3.

1.  Husband and I bought our first home, and moved in.  Which is very time consuming between signing and reading documents, cleaning things and carrying furniture.  I'd easily allocate two months to this kerfuffle.
2.  I've spent all of my time since moving reading design magazines, and blogs...and thinking of plans for our home with no correlation to reality.  Load bearing walls, budgets, time blah blah blah.  The second story devoted to the library is my favourite dream feature (it is complete with bookshelves with ladders).  In addition this library would have conceptual art from LOTR, Tim Burton and the Dark Crystal.
3.  I haven't done much sewing and in guilt, therefore no blogging.

As the weather warms up (I hope) I'm venturing into my sewing room more, and will have more projects complete.

And the last dirty secret....Katies quilt still isn't complete.  And Katie's been married for a couple of months now.  3 actually.

But, just to help understand why I might spend so much time on point number two, here is a picture of what I'm working with.  Oh, i mean the curtains, not the evil looking cats.

Not getting much done

And that's for two reasons.

The first being that Kate's wedding is next week, therefore I'm sewing like mad trying to finish the binding.

The second being we're moving houses this week, and the I'm surrounded by boxes and the sewing machine is all packed up:(  The real challenge will be this binding, when I'm about to run out of thread to boot!