Casino Royale party, with DIY necklace

25/07/2010 6:22 am \ 6 Comments \

Remember back in April I went to a fashion parade and mentioned a stunningly over-the-top necklace?  I had initially thought of a DIY but my jewellery making skills are not fabulous.  So I went back to the store with some friends a while back and had a closer look at the necklace; with a vague view of suggesting it to Craig as a future birthday gift and discovered it was a Tom Binn’s design and was selling for $1695, well NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!!  With my usual stingeiness selfless concern for the family finances (he he!) I decided to persist with the DIY after all.  And remembered this tutorial by the amazing Maegan, whose blog is heaps inspiring, she is very beautiful, stylish and creative too…  so every time I’ve been to op shops and secondhand stores I’ve checked out the jewellery selection, but I’ve come to the conclusion Australians just do not get rid of half-way nice jewellery at all but only truly junk jewellery…  so eventually I ended up in Diva where I bought five cheap new necklaces, and also supplemented with one I already had.  And here is the result!
Last night Craig and I went to a Casino Royale party and I decided the event was ripe for excessive bling and luxury and wearing the new necklace…   And I love my new necklace and it got lots of compliments!  And I want to work on it some more and make it even more OTT!
Below is the outfit I wore to the party; glam, no?  We certainly had heaps of fun…  All the guys were in tuxedos and all the girls were super blingy and I wasn’t the only one in a fur…  This fur coat was given to me by a friend of my sister-in-law’s who had inherited it from a great aunt and who wanted to get rid of it, can you believe it?!…  I wouldn’t wear new fur, but PETA-supporters rest assured this is a very old fur coat, older than all of us…
This kinda drab black velvet dress I’m wearing?  I did get this in an op shop with a view to altering it but haven’t got around to it yet and this is the “before” look.  It’s on my to-do list…

Details:
Dress; from an op shop
Fur coat; old old old, given to me
Shoes; Nina, from David Jones
Necklace; made by me from six other necklaces
Earrings; Sophie Kyron

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Australiana Alphabet cross-stitch

24/07/2010 9:14 am \ 12 Comments \

I stitched this during the year of 1993.  It was the year we were living in Adelaide, my eldest two were tiny, Craig was away a lot and I spent many evenings alone in the lounge room with this on my lap and a very strong lamp positioned to beam over my shoulder, concentrating on these tiny stitches.  I can remember I set myself a goal of completing one letter each week, and managed to stick to this schedule successfully; I find I always work better to a deadline than to any other motivation…
I had a good friend over there doing one of these same cross-stitches for herself at the same time I was doing mine.  I can still remember it took me over an hour to sort out the embroidery threads that came with the kit; to give you an idea the colours included brown, light brown, very light brown and very very light brown, dark brown, very dark brown and black/brown, and very light mushroom brown, dark tan, tan, light tan and very light tan.  Not to mention grey brown, light grey brown, very light grey brown and very very light grey brown!  Laugh!  And that is just the browns!  I’m not even going to start on the greens…  I still have the thread cards on which I’ve carefully printed out all the colours and also copied the letters needing each one alongside.
It has a different native animal/bird/flower for each letter.  I’ve included a couple of close-ups of some of my favourite letters; I always loved the colours of the Urchin and the Goanna, my husband favoured the Numbat and Tim like the Australian flag.
Gee, it’s been a long time since I did any cross-stitch, and I once enjoyed doing it but now I’m completely over it. Still I’m pretty happy I’ve got this concrete reminder of what was a very content time for me, when I had a very domesticated life at home with my kiddies.

 

For those interested in what the letters stand for, here goes:
A; the Australian flag, B; Brolga, C; Cockatoo, D; Dainty Field Mouse, E; Echidna, F; Flannel Flower, G; Goanna, H; Honeyeater, I; Ibis, J; Jabiru, K; Koala, L; Lorikeet, M; Magpie, N; Numbat, O; Orchid, P; Platypus, Q; Quokka, R; Rosella, S; Swan, T; Tawny Frogmouth, U; Urchin, V; Violet (native); W; Wallaby, X; (e)Xtraordinary frill-necked lizard (bit of a stretch, that one!) Y; Yabbie, Z; Zebra Finch
Later edit: Sorry, should have looked this out before, the design is copyright (1984) by Allura Design, PO Box 533, Artarmon NSW 2064, Australia

 

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TGl Friday

23/07/2010 5:09 am \ 3 Comments \

Today was meeting friends for morning tea, and another friend for a walk later (and afternoon tea afterwards, no doubt!)  It’s a tough life.  My office work can wait until tonight, methinks… and it would be a crying shame to waste a beautiful day like today.  Of course if I said that every day I would get absolutely no work done whatsoever…! but meh.
This is the “Weird Bodice” dress from last winter, that I love for its flattering olive shade, flattering for me, that is; and cute flippy skirt, but has a strange bodice design that needs covering up.  I went for some cheerful happy colours to go on over the top.  I’ve always had a thing about red, and have always worn a lot of it.  I think it suits my hair colour.  This winter it seems to have dropped off the fashion radar, apart from the currently all-the-rage LRD (little red dress for evening wear).  The shops are filled with drab putty neutral shades, and the ubiquitous BLACK.  Seriously, I was out with a friend a week or so ago, and we passed a boutique where everything on the racks was black, and I mean everything.  It was a marvellous thing, well, it certain had us marvelling, but not in a good way.  Are Perthies so boring in our colour choices, that an all-black shop would stay happily in business?  (bearing in mind it was in a high-ish rent area too)  Bizarre…

Details:
Dress; Burda 7897, olive bamboo/cotton mix
Cardigan; Metalicus
Scarf; Frangi, from Tie-Rack
Tights; Kolotex
Shoes; Django and Juliette, from Zomp shoes
Bag; Gucci

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“Plenty long enough” socks

22/07/2010 3:12 am \ 6 Comments \

So these are socks I knitted this winter, using leftovers.  The top part (my favourite part) is the leftover Grignasco yarn from here, below that is the last remnants of the Patonyles wool (the shrink-tastic one) and the lowest part going down to the toes is some new sock yarn I bought this year for this purpose; a brand called Koigu, 100% Merino wool made in Canada.  Up until I spotted this yarn I didn’t know Canadians were into Merino like us Aussies and Kiwis here, so there you go…. learn something new every day…
Like my twee little name suggests (and please accept my apologies for the weak humour) I made these socks easily long enough for my foot and then a little more some, just in case of a reoccurrence of the dreaded washing machine shrinkage.
Although this.  Will.  Not.  Occur.  (gritted teeth, shaking fist threateningly at washing machine)

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“Snow Bunny” beanie

21/07/2010 5:49 am \ 5 Comments \

I know, I know, the name I’ve given my new beanie is kind of ridiculous and inappropriate, given today’s weather you can see in my photo here; blazingly brilliant sunshine in clear periwinkle skies…  it’s OK, I’m happy to have the irony in my life.  I love the sunshine absolutely, but I can imagine those of you lucky enough to get snow in your winter must be hiding a chuckle at what our Perth winters are like…  When we do finally get some grey miserable days with storm clouds overhead (which we will) my beanie will seem more fitting, but I wanted to show it off for today since I just finished it the night before last…  and the truth be told I whipped it off for the rest of today because my head got too hot…
This beanie is a plain ordinary beanie, no bells or whistles, made with Patons Jet, a wool/alpaca mix.  I bought ten balls of this at the beginning of winter, so expect to see some more projects in this yarn before winter’s out.

Thankyou ladies for the sweet comments you left about my Mum yesterday, she is a beautiful lady and I consider myself the lucky one to have her in my life.

Details:
Beanie; knitted with Patons Jet, colour 100
Tops; both Metalicus
Skirt; Vogue 7303, bottle green cotton velveteen
Tights; Metalicus
Boots; Fornarina, from David Jones
Bag; Gucci

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“Jewel” knitted waistcoat

20/07/2010 6:18 am \ 7 Comments \

Here is a waistcoat I knitted for my mother, ooh, probably about seventeen or so years ago.  Round about the time Kaffe Fassett was having a big impact on the creative textile world.  I took this photo of her wearing it the last time I went down to stay with Mum and Dad in the country.
The waistcoat is made up of about twelve different wools/cottons/blends in a variety of berry and jewel colours to a Kaffe Fassett “triangles” design I saw in one of his books, and the shape and knitting pattern of the waistcoat is my own design.

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Grey wool coat for Spring

19/07/2010 4:09 am \ 29 Comments \

I made myself a coat for spring, using McCalls 5525, view B and grey wool fabric, bought back in March on a whim.  So, it took some cutting magic to get this coat out of the small amount of wool I had bought because there really wasn’t enough for this pattern!  When I realised this and went back to the store to get some more it had all been sold and I needed to buy a small amount of a different grey wool fabric which I used for the under collar and front facings, you can probably see on the close-up pictures the different fabric on the under/in-side of the coat but I think it’s not so different as to stand out in an ugly way.  Actually I think it worked out to be a blessing in disguise, because the second fabric is a much stiffer and thicker felted wool than the outer woven wool fabric, so I decided there was no need to interface, and I think it was the right decision not to do so.  The weight of the two wool layers together feels quite thick and stiff enough…
I lined it with a purply-pink cotton poplin, which makes the weight of the coat perfect for Perth’s sometimes chilly but sometimes warm spring weather.  I’m looking forward to wearing it more!

Details:
Coat; McCalls 5525 view B, grey wool flannel
Skirt; my own design, charcoal stretch jersey knit
Shoes; Misano, from Labels

Pattern description
Semi-fitted, lined, double-breasted jacket and coat have collar, lengths and sleeve variations, princess seams and side front pockets.  Here I made view B with back vent, sleeves with button bands, topstitch trim and button closure
Pattern sizing
8-16, I made size 10
Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you had finished sewing it?
yes
Were the instructions easy to follow?
very easy
What did you particularly like or dislike about this pattern?
I loved everything about this pattern!  I like that it is fully lined, not half lined as some coat patterns are; the inset pockets are in a good position on the front, and the one-piece sleeves are an easy feature
Fabric used:
Woven grey wool for the outer, purple/pink cotton poplin for the lining.  Thicker felted wool fabric for the under collar and facings (because I didn’t have enough of the outer fabric)
Pattern alterations or any design changes you made:
I made the pockets slightly larger as I thought the ones in the pattern looked too small for comfort
Would you sew it again?  Would you recommend it to others?
I highly recommend this pattern, the variations mean you can achieve so many looks from this one pattern and I do plan to try some of the others
Conclusion:
This is such a stylish and versatile coat pattern.  The pattern is well designed; it went together very easily, all the pieces fitting together as they should with no difficulty.  The one piece sleeves make this a breeze to sew.  I made view B, and I particularly love the flattering asymmetrical collar, very “designer” and slightly retro.  I think this view would work beautifully in heavy satin for an evening coat.  I also particularly like the button bands on the sleeves of this view.  I hand-tacked these bands to the sleeve seams to lessen the risk of them “rotating” around the sleeve during wear.

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Birthday scarf

17/07/2010 3:05 am \ 5 Comments \

It was A’s birthday a week ago, my sister-in-law, and I’ve made her a loopy scarf for a present.  She has a lovely olive complexion and reddish and caramel highlights in her dark hair, so I’m thinking these warm strong colours will suit her beautifully.  I’ve held off putting the scarf up here because I think she reads this blog occasionally and I didn’t want to spoil the surprise of her pressie by her reading about it and seeing it here first! until I had a chance to go over to visit her…  I hope she likes it!
The pattern I used is the same as this scarf, using one ball of Colinette Fandango, a scrummy all-cotton yarn.

Details:
Scarf; knitted using one ball of Colinette Fandango
Top; Country Road
Cardigan; Country Road, found secondhand, originally oyster white and dyed
Jeans; Soon
Boots; Mina Martini, from Marie Claire shoes

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