A new year...

As I sit here on this cool, (18C) rainy, new years day (it's supposed to be Summer here) pondering the last couple of years and asking myself why I haven't been indulging in any creative activities I've come to the conclusion that I just haven't had the time.  Well, I've decided that 2017 is going to be different.  I've decided, that this year I'm going to revive by little blog here, I'm going to 'make' time for sewing and I can't wait to get started! In fact I have already started and you can get a sneak peek on my instagram.

Now... I don't make new year resolutions because lets be honest, who keeps them after the first couple of weeks anyway. I know I don't. That's why I don't make them!  So putting all that aside I will tell you that I do have a plan, and that is to 'SEW'!! I'm not going to make plans like, for example that I will make 3 tops, 2 dresses etc. using specific patterns. I'm just going to go with the flow and see where my journey takes me and I hope you'll come along for the ride.

And to finish off, I just want to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy and creative 2017!

Remembering...

What I'm working on

I thought it was high time I dropped in to give you an update of what I've been doing since my last post.  I didn't realise how long it's been.  I've been so busy starting projects but unfortunately not getting any of them finished.  Note to self; I must try harder to complete projects before starting new ones. One of those was a project for Jungle January of which I had everything ready to go, but got busy with extra hours at work and some health issues and it got put on hold and now I'm thinking it will have to wait until next summer.

Workshop sample - Whitework

I've also been working on an embroidery project from a workshop I did at the beginning of March and that's still a work in progress.  Slow and steady wins the race, right?  I've been working on a cross stitch as well.  Please tell me I'm not the only one who works on several projects at the same time.

With our Racing Carnival coming up in May I need an outfit to wear and I'm currently working on that.  I decided I wanted to make a coat this year from a pattern I purchased in 2009 but haven't made up yet.  This is my first time making a coat; surprising really since I've been sewing for so long.  I guess it's one of those things that scare me.  I'm not sure why but it does. Anyway, I figured if I'm going to go to the effort of making a coat I wanted to do it properly. I often have issues with fit because I'm lazy and don't do all the adjustments and make a muslin like I should before I cut my fabric but I really want to do this right.  I've made two muslins and think it's a pretty good fit.

I selected a nice jaquard fabric and washed it according to the instructions on the bolt.  I never pre-treat my fabric before sewing but there's a first time for everything and boy am I glad I decided to do it.  The result...

I cant believe how much it SHRANK!  15 cm!! Yes you read that right. 15cm across the width.  I don't know what I lost in the length.  It never occurred to me to measure it, not being something I usually do and all that, until I had cut half of the pieces out at which time I realised I didn't have enough fabric.  OMG what do I do now!  Maybe there is still some left; at the very least I have to let the store know about this.  I raced back to the store and yes they had some left.  Phew!  Breathe a sigh of relief.  They gave me the rest of the bolt - 1.8 meters, at no charge.  I hope there wont be any more problems like this to give me more reason to be scared of making coats, or maybe that's part of the challenge I have to come to terms with. 

Do you have a fear of making certain garments?  Are your fears justified?  Do share what they are in the comments.

We shall remember them...

On the 11th Hour 

of the 11th Day 

of the 11th Month

We will 

Remember 

You

I give thanks to those who fought and died for me that I may live in peace and freedom.

 

"Lest we forget..."

OMG!!

How crazy is this!!

I started this cardigan quite some time ago and I'd been happily knitting away for a while so you'd think I would've noticed but, nooooo I just kept knitting quite oblivious to my mistake. 

Here I was, wondering why this fitted style was coming out so large especially when I was making a pattern with negative ease.  It just looked wrong.  It was too loose.  What was I doing wrong?  I kept checking the pattern and thinking to myself it must be the tension.  (I've never made a tension square in my life - maybe that was the problem.)  I put it away for a while to ponder.  When I picked it up again and started the next piece it became immediately obvious.

Can you see what I was doing wrong? 

Like a complete fool I had knitted two fronts and the back using the wrong. size. needles.  Duhh!!

I pulled it all out and started again only to discover that this time around the sleeve was going to be too long, so once again I started over adjusting the pattern for a shorter sleeve.  Let me tell you, I'm not a very fast knitter and it's beginning to feel like the never ending cardigan but perseverance will prevail.  I am going to finish it 'one day'!!  :)

Have you ever done something like this or had a project that seems to go on forever?

Experiment in dyeing

I've been toying with the idea of dyeing some of my clothes.  The ones that I like but for one reason or another I don't wear, like this RTW top.

I love the design and I also love that it's a plain fabric not a print, making it a great basic.  What I don't like is the colour.  Well, that's not entirely true - I do like the colour but the colour doesn't like me; it washes me out and makes me look sick.  So a date with the dye bath was in order.  Choosing a colour was difficult because I didn't know how the underlying colour would affect the outcome of the new colour.  Eventually I decided on blue.  The fabric label said it was made from Lycocel so I chose the iDye Poly thinking it was a man-made fibre as opposed to a natural fibre.   I didn't want it to be too dark so I used only one teaspoon of dye.

As you can see it turned out a bit duller and with a slight blue tinge than before the dye bath, but the result was not entirely unexpected as I had no idea what this fabric was.

See the blue undertones remaining from the dye

Pretty blue stitching and label

I thought the iDye poly would be the correct dye to use.  Clearly that was not the case, however I did get some lovely blue stitching and labels, so I turned to my good friend "Google" and did a little research.  Turns out Lycocel is a man-made fibre made from wood pulp.  Now I'm thinking that's more natural like cotton or linen so back into the dye bath using iDye for natural fibres.  After all what can I lose except that the info said it has a natural reluctance to take dye.  I went with navy this time expecting it not to take again.  I couldn't have been more wrong!

Same pretty blue stitching and label

With only one teaspoon of colour again it came out so dark it's almost black.  Totally not the colour I wanted but still, I like it and I still have blue stitching and labels which I kinda like too.  It will work with my wardrobe but not as well as a lighter blue would.  At least now I have a top that will be worn instead of languishing in the wardrobe.


So in conclusion to my experiment in dyeing I learnt that I need to research what a fabric is made from when I don't know in order to choose a colour and the correct dyeing process.  However, I do  know that when dyeing over a base colour the resulting colour will often be a surprise.

Have you had anything like this happen to you or were you clever enough to know what fibres you were working with beforehand?

Before it's too late

I'm sure by now everyone knows that Google Reader is closing on Monday.  What! You didn't know!  How could you have missed it?  It's being talked about in all corners of the blogosphere.  Seriously, where have you been?
 
There are several readers to choose from but two good choices are Bloglovin and Feedly; just in case you haven't already made a decision.  My preference is for Bloglovin.  It has large images in an easy to read format, you can sort blogs into groups and even find new ones with easy search options.

It's easy to import of all your favourite blogs from Google Reader just go to Bloglovin or Feedly, click on the link and it happens in an instant.

Lastly, thank you to all my followers, it's nice to know that I'm not just putting myself out there and talking to myself.  I appreciate all your comments and encouragement and I don't want to loose any of you, so this is just a timely reminder to make sure you can continue to follow me.

However you choose to stay informed about what your favourite bloggers are up to don't forget to act now!

Spring Sewing Swap

Knock knock!  I open the door and there's a delivery man standing there with a somewhat large box.  Is that for me?  OMG, my parcel has arrived for the Spring Sewing Swap.  Ooooh, I'm getting a little bit excited now!  What can be in such a large parcel? 

Upon opening it I can see some wonderful goodies sent to me by my lovely swap partner Katrina.  The first thing I see inside are all these gorgeous McCall's patterns.  Great job choosing them; I can't believe with all the patterns I own that there are no double ups.  The dress in center front is one I have been coveting for a while and I mentioned this to Katrina when she recently made it for herself.  I've also had my eye on the shirt pattern as well.  The other patterns are new to me and there are some very nice choices for dresses here.  I wonder, which do I choose first?

Next I see some lovely black and white knit fabric.  I lift this out and there's more fabric underneath.   A beautiful chocolate and red boucle knit fabric.  Wow!  How special am I feeling right now.  A little fabric petting going on here.  Come on, fess up!  You do that too, don't you.  Please tell me I'm not the only one who does that... Please!  I'm not sure how I'll use these yet - maybe a jacket or cardigan style with the boucle knit but I'm always open to suggestions.  Any ideas?

Now, I'm thinking to myself, 'this is so generous to send all these lovely things'.  But wait there's more!  I see some sewing notions, a twin needle and some fusible web both of which will come in very handy, and a magazine still inside the box along with a lovely note..

Then the 'piece de resistance' was a beautiful jar of strawberry and champagne jam made by the hands of Katrina herself.  How thoughtful and very yummy (I've tried it already.  Mmmm!)

This was my first swap amongst sewing bloggers and I want to thank Kerry for organizing this little bit of fun and Katrina for being such a wonderful and generous swap partner.  I'm absolutely delighted with the gifts I received.  Thank you so much!  I'm a nosey parker and like to get a little insight into other peoples lives, so it was fun getting to have a snoop around the blogs of other participants as well.  Thanks again everyone :)

The postie's been

Look what arrived in my mailbox over the past week!  I'm pretty excited about it too.  Some new patterns I can't wait to try.

I have long admired the Sewaholic patterns and every time I see one of them made up I just love it.  Tasia designs styles that I think are great basics and suit my fashion personality.  There have been so many great versions of all the Sewaholic patterns popping up around the blogoshpere that I finally decided I really did need to get me a couple of them to try (like I need any more patterns - not!!)  They appear to be well worth making too 'cos most of you make more than one version as Winnie has with the Renfrew top.

Trousers are something that I've never attempted before and the Thurlow trousers really attracted me as they are designed to sit below the waist.  I hate pants that sit on the waist; they feel really uncomfortable on me.  It could be that I'm short-waisted and they feel like they are choking me :)  Again there are many examples to showcase them such as Lauren's.  She has made both the trousers and shorts a few times as well.

Then we've got the Tofino pants, the latest pattern in Tasia's range.  Now who doesn't want a great pair of pajamas.  I know I'm always on the look out for that perfect pair and Karen is currently hosting a Tofino Pajama Party to help us along but I think I'll wait until summer to make this pattern though as I've recently made a couple of new pj's for winter.

Another pattern I've seen a bit of lately is the Tiramisu dress from Cake patterns.  You can see some terrific variations here, here and here and a wonderful maxi version here.  I love the wrap style  of this dress, it's such a flattering style, don't you think?

I'm sure you've noticed, I know I certainly have, that our sewing community seems to be growing with quite a few independant pattern designers/labels popping up and they do a wonderful job helping us pursue our hobby so I decided to join Kat and many others and show my support for these designers and try out some of their patterns.

I don't know why it's taken me so long to add these patterns to my collection.  I've got my eye on a couple of others as well like the Robson coat and the bombshell swimsuit but first I want to sew the ones that just arrived.  I think I'll start with the Renfrew top.  I've got plenty of fabric to choose from to satisfy my stashbusting pledge too; I just need to decide which style to make.

What do you think of the Indie patterns, are they as good as they seem?

What's on my sewing table?

A sneak peak...

Just so you can see that I am actually doing some sewing.  I know there hasn't been much recently but I am doing something.

What's on your sewing table?

Do I or don't I

You may have noticed the recent slump in my blog posts.  I thought I was getting back on track with my sewing and blogging. By joining in with the Stashbusting and the Sewlutions challenges and blogging about it I had hoped to stay motivated.  But as luck would have it, I did the most reckless stupid thing and tore a muscle in my leg back at the end of February which left me out of action for over a month.  (Wow! As I get older I find it's so much harder to recover from injuries, especially silly ones like this)  Turns out sitting on the sofa for a couple of weeks with my leg elevated not being able to do anything was just plain boring and there goes all my good sewing intentions, but I did have plenty of time to think whiling away the hours, and came to wonder whether I really wanted to continue blogging.  I mean, after all I've been awfully inconsistent lately to say the very least - not just with my blogging but my sewing as well.  It's hard to write a blog post when you've made nothing to blog about.

Image Source

Sooooo...I'm thinking, do I or don't I?  I began to carefully consider all the reasons I do blog and all those reasons that keep me from being consistent and came to a very gratifying conclusion.

As selfish as this sounds - I do it for myself!

I love to sew! It gives me so much joy when I sew but I find it hard to allocate time for sewing when there are other things to be done (like housework and such) without letting it take over my life and become my sole purpose, leading me to neglect my home duties.  I like that there's a record of what I've made even if that doesn't amount to very much; after all that's why I started this blog - to keep record.  I love that I can see where my journey has taken me, how I've grown as a sewist and how my likes and dislikes have changed over time.  I like that I might be encouraging others to start sewing and making things for themselves.  But you know what the absolute best thing about blogging is - it's the camaraderie of the blogging community.  The feeling of belonging and encouragement of like-minded people; people I've never met but somehow feel I've known forever.

In a nutshell; that's the reason I blog.  That's the reason I will continue to blog even if it is spasmodic.  (Note to self...must try to organize a routine/time line for blogging, i.e. set days to post, it might help.  Making something might help too!)

Why do you blog?  Do you ever feel that it's too hard and not worth the effort?

In remberance

Lest we forget...

Jumpin on the bloglovin bandwagon

I'm not sure why Google reader will shut down but I guess the inevitable has to happen and so like many of you before me, I have now moved over to Bloglovin and this post apparently is necessary for me to claim my blog.  Not sure what that's all about but anyhoo, I'm just doin' what I'm told.  Now that's got to be a first. hehe!

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/2623598/?claim=rbed3ukwb5n">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>


So now I've posted the said link, hopefully it works.

Sharing some lovely blog awards

Last week Faye of Faye's Sewing Adventure gave me an award and having family staying over it's taken me a little time to acknowledge her generosity.

Here are the rules:
1.  Thank the person who nominated you.
2.  Add the One Lovely Blog Award/The Very Inspiring Blogger Award to your post.
3.  Share 7 things about yourself.
4.  Pass the award on to 10 other bloggers that inspire you.
5.  Include the rules.
6.  Inform your nominees.

I know I never really tell you anything much about myself so I will have to give this a bit of thought... OK, thinking over.

So... Seven Things About Me

1.  Fashion is my greatest weakness love.  It's been a part of who I am for as long as I can remember.  I've always enjoyed clothing; looking at and admiring it, wearing it (well, of course I wear it!), sewing it.  I have long thought that I should have been born about 100 years earlier because the fashion and lifestyle back then was fascinating to me and I wanted to be part of that.  Mmmm... I guess that explains why I love vintage fashion so much.

2.  I LOVE strong coffee.  This is quite strange as I never touched the stuff until about 10 - 15 years ago.  I was strictly a tea drinking person.  Now I do both.

3.  I'm the fourth child in a family of six which would explain why I love to be around other people. Don't get me wrong though, I also enjoy having a quiet house with time to myself where I can reflect on life or just concentrate on my sewing.  I don't need noise e.g. music or TV to feel content.

4.  I'm very tall 6' to be exact - well, in my mind's eye I am.  Ha ha!! Actually I'm vertically challenged at 5'1" (155cm).

5.  My favourite colour is blue.  Mmm... hang on, let me think, no... it's pink.  No. Wait, let me see; it's purple!  But then lately, I've had a penchant for red.  Oh, and then there's all those yummy shades of teal and turquoise, and black, and white, and chocolate brown, and navy and raspberry...  So I guess you could say, my favourite colour depends on the season, what I'm sewing or whatever happens to take my fancy on a particular day.

6.  I'm an animal lover.  I love all animals especially the really soft and cute ones.  If an animal looks at me with big eyes I get all soppy and melt.

7.  I'm a perfectionist.  I like things to be straight and I can't stand it if things are less than perfect.  You know, crooked pictures on the wall - they irritate me; a pile of books on a table - I will straighten them, even if it's not my pile; when I'm in someones office I will straighten things in front of me etc.

Now, to pass on this lovely award.  This is a difficult task as you can guess.  I read so many blogs and admire and am inspired by them all.  So, please visit these blogs - you never know, you just might find another one to add to your reading list.

Gail
Elle C
House of Pinheiro
Caroline
Yoshimi
Elle
Nikki

And one last note, I am truly grateful and want to thank all who acknowledge and share on my blog... 

Past, present & future

I've been reading with much interest reviews of the past year.  Things you've made, how you've learned new techniques, the changes in your likes and dislikes and it lead me to think about my journey and where the year had taken me.

I've had many changes in 2012.  Firstly, I relocated.  I commenced a new job and lived separately from my husband for the first six months of the year.  These three things combined made my life extremely hectic, what with traveling back and forth to Melbourne and always being at work when David made the reverse trip, life just seemed to pass me by.  Where did this leave my sewing?  Practically non-existent!

Soooo... what did I actually make?

Liana's Christmas gift - not yet blogged

When I look at it like this I'm ashamed to say, a very poor effort on my part for a twelve month time frame but as they say 'life got in the way'.  Well, that's my excuse anyway and I'm sticking to it!  

So what now?  What lies ahead for 2013?  Well, I'm not one for making new year resolutions, I never stick to them anyway - do you?  What, really, you actually stick to them...

OK, I have made one resolution.  I have challenged myself to make at least one garment per month during 2013.  Right - that's 12 items for the next year.  Now, that's do-able isn't it?  Surely I can achieve that - well we'll see, remember I'm not good at sticking to new year resolutions.  So just to make sure I give it a really good try, I've put my name in the jar with Karen over at Did You Make That hoping to shame myself into submission and get sewing/knitting again.  I'm not sure where I will start but things I would like to make this year include:

A coat
Trousers
1 or 2 Vintage dresses
Knit a vintage jumper

I've found that my likes and dislikes have also changed in regard to the styles I want to make and wear.  Where I once wore mostly surf-wear I now prefer a more classic style and I feel very under dressed wearing sweats so I have decided that I will start to add some vintage styles to my wardrobe. I've also come to the realization that my love of vintage goes much deeper than just clothing.  I love all things vintage right down to the lifestyle and want to incorporate more of it into my everyday living.

What else?  Have I discovered, learned or realized anything during this time?  Yes.  I discovered learned that I need to make more time for craft in my life.  I will burn out without incorporating any 'me' time into my routine - to chill out and do something I really love.

So where will 2013 lead me?  Hopefully on a path to more sewing and knitting, delving into vintage history and more thrifting.  So watch out 2013 I'm here to stay!

Liana enjoying her first Christmas

On a final note - by far the best thing of 2012 was becoming a Nanna to Liana.

Twas the night before Christmas

when all through the house, and everything was running amok...

I thought I should take time out to raise my glass and thank everyone for reading my blog (even though it's been rather spasmodic this year).  I feel lucky to be involved in such a supportive and caring community.  So, I wanted to take the opportunity of wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas.  May you spend this wonderful time of year with those who are dear to you, indulge a little, but not too much and stay healthy and safe in 2013.  Cheers...

Merry Christmas

See you all next year.

Proudly Announcing...

Drum roll please...

...the arrival of my gorgeous granddaughter 'Liana'.

Isn't she gorgeous.  I think think so but then I'm biased.  She is just two days old in these photos sporting her brand new headband which her dad (my son) couldn't resist buying for her.

Nanna's first nurse

Her parents are both so proud and that's not to mention how proud her grandparents and aunties are.  She is very alert even at this stage as you can see.  Born in the wee hours of the morning she weighed in at 8lb 1oz.  My, how fast time goes by, it was 4 months ago last Friday.  And it seems only yesterday that her father was born.  She still has all that hair but it's grown much longer now.

I made a few things for Liana which were received with many "Did you make that's!" and much appreciation.  The bunting previously shown of which the photo now eludes me, a bunny rug and a couple of bibs.  I also bought her a cute pink teddy bear but didn't get a photo.

After all this fuss with Liana's arrival, David was starting his new job a couple of weeks later and having to pack up and move here to join me finally. It's been chaos since!  Things are settling down now and I can get back to sewing.  The first thing on the agenda is a dress for myself to wear to Liana's christening next month.  I have chosen a pattern, bought some fabric and just need to get started.

Mother's Day

Wishing a very Happy Mother's Day to all mother's out there today!

Breakfast in bed?  Not today.  I had to work this morning and besides there's no-one here except me at the moment.  All my children did send messages while I was at work so I guess that's OK, especially since two of them live four hours away in the city.

My day out last week to Ladies Day at the races was my gift from my children.  Then this afternoon my daughter arrived and presented me with these lovely chrysanthemums saying I should receive something on Mother's Day seeing as how I'd already been given my present.  Jacqui also cooked me dinner. We had the most wonderful three course Thai banquet.

Getting presents is great and I absolutely love what I was given but y'know, spending time with family is by far the best present ever, don't you think?

I hope you all had a wonderful day with your families.

Room to move

I've spent the most enjoyable day trying to sort out my sewing space.  The morning started when I remembered I had a pair of my daughters trousers to take up...(yep, that's right she's short like me. Funny that, don't know how that happened. lol...)  Anyway, I walked into the room but I had so much stuff everywhere I started cleaning up, sorting out and taking anything that shouldn't be in this room out instead.

Suffice to say, I had a wonderful time rediscovering fabrics I had forgotten about but then wondering what it was I had in mind when I bought others.  Still, all in all I didn't find anything that said "what the..." 

I decided the best way to store my fabric was in colour groups.  This way I can see exactly what I have, after all, you never know, the perfect fabric could be sitting right here just waiting to be chosen.  As you can see in the pics, besides having a lot of neutrals I do have a large amount of blues but not much else and besides the whites nearly everything is a print of some kind.  I think maybe I should branch out and start getting some plains in there, don't you think?  After all plains are easier to work into your wardrobe, aren't they?

My new sewing room

Newly stacked shelving

Front view of shelving

As I said in my last post, this is a small room and and this is by no means the total of all my fabric.  I have some stored in tubs in the wardrobe (oh yeah, you can't see it, it's behind me) along with my patterns.  I have plenty more patchwork as well as dressmaking fabric not to mention any stuff for the other crafts I dabble in back in Melbourne waiting to be relocated.  Then there's also the books that are so essential to my creativity.  Wow, the list goes on and on.  It's making me feel overwhelmed just thinking about it, aahhhh....but what would I do without it?  (Insanity comes to mind. lol)

So... this is still a work in progress.  If you have any suggestions for storage in this small room I would love to hear them.  In the meantime, I now have some space to get some sewing done.  Yay!!

BTW, I did get DD's trousers taken up as well.  What a great day...

I'm still here

After receiving a few emails asking if I was OK, I thought I should thank you for your concern and do a quick post letting you know that I'm still here and all is well.  I've been having a very stressful time lately dealing with a few family issues and with Christmas knocking on the door I haven't had time to even think about blogging.  No...that's not true.  I have thought enough to wonder what's been happening here in the blogosphere but really haven't had the time to take a look and catch up with you all.

There hasn't been any time for sewing either so I don't even have a photo to post.  So please don't give up on me, I WILL be back after Christmas or before if I can get a few minutes to come and see you all.  In the meantime I will take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and safe New Year.

 

 

  

Merry Christmas 

 Everyone