Long n’ skinny scarf

10/05/2010 6:10 am \ 7 Comments \

Today is the first time I have showcased this scarf on the bloggeroonie.
I made this about two years ago when big woollen loopy scarves made a small splash on the fashion scene.  I bought three balls of lovely soft black wool, cast on 23 stitches and simply K1 P1 rib stitch until all three balls had been finished.  Sorry, can’t remember the brand of wool.  I think it could have been Debbie Bliss.  The result is a marvellously long affair that wraps easily three times around my neck, with plenty to spare for artistic looping and draping and for the ends to be left hanging loose (as here) or to make a loose knot if desired.
I’m also wearing in my new winter shoes.  They actually only “sort of” new; I bought them last October in the post-winter sales, always the best time to buy good quality winter shoes.  Since I’ve got very big feet I’m often lucky enough to find my size in the after season sales… well there’s got to be one advantage to having gigantic feet…   This morning is the second time I’ve worn them this season, and my poor feet are now a little tender; ouch!  Hate wearing-in new shoes; well I did fall in love with the witchy vibe of these little booties and plan to wear them a lot so this painful early stage has to be borne…
Has anyone got any tips for a non-painful wearing-in of new shoes?

Details:
Skirt; my own variations on Vogue 7303, lined, python print satin
Top; Morrison
Cardi; own design, snakeskin printed rubber coated jersey
Scarf; knitted by me, no pattern
Shoes; Django and Juliette, from Zomp shoes

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Mother’s Day

09/05/2010 4:13 am \ 2 Comments \

I know Mother’s Day is celebrated on different days in all the different countries of the world, but here in Australia we celebrate it on the second Sunday in May: which is today!  
My parents kindly had sent me a few photos of some of the items I’ve made for them over the years so I thought it a good day to put up a photo of the Goddess bag.  I made this for Mum ooh, probably about six years ago? I think?  Not sure…  (I’m getting shocking with remembering stuff like that…  I also think this could have been a birthday gift, not a Mother’s Day gift; again, memory not what it used to be and I’ve lost track in my own head of fine distinctions such as these… sad, no?)
This is a knitted bag with a sewn in lining and was made in a class at Ivy and Maude, now part of Calico and Ivy.
Mum looks gorgeous in colours such as these.  All of the jewel and green-y blue colours.  These are “her” colours.  This bag is composed of a mix of eclectic yarns; including some lurex, some mohair, some feathery type yarn, some chenille, some wool.  My favourite section has always been the shredded ribbon yarn around the bottom of the bag, in divinely smudgy and faded hues of putty, indigo, lavender and aqua, reminiscent of a watery undersea vista of a meadow of seaweedy tendrils…
I sincerely wish all the mothers reading this a perfectly looovely day, and I hope your offspring think to remind you of the wonderful person you are in their lives.  If they are teenagers, good luck with that one… (;D) however if they are little you are sure to be presented with lukewarm tea and toast on a tray in bed, and a beautiful handmade card.  I have all my children’s handmade cards safely tucked away and they always make me smile at their cute little designs, hand-drawn decorations and funny salutations.  My youngest son, even up until quite recently, always signed his cards to me with his full name, including his surname, ie.  Dear Mum, Happy Mothers Day to the best mother in the world, lots of love Samuel Smith.  So sweet, as if I would confuse him with another Samuel!
So, Happy Mother’s Day to all of you yummy Mummys out there!!

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Bottle green Basic

08/05/2010 2:36 am \ 10 Comments \

I made a new skirt!
This latest is the result of wanting a little quick and easy skirt that I could just throw on for any occasion, something like my olive green corduroy skirt that is such a staple in my wardrobe.  Plus my desire to incorporate a little more green in my wardrobe.  I used to have a lot of this colour once upon a time, but my green options have dwindled somewhat over recent years, suffering from my obsession with neutrals.  Plus I had seen this skirt at right in the Celine parade and thought how great the bottle green looked with all the other creams, whites, beiges, caramels and other light neutrals in the collection, and as I have such an overabundance of aforementioned neutrals in my wardrobe I thought it was high time for a return to an old favourite.  Thus, green.
Having said all that here I am wearing my new skirt with no such light neutrals as displayed so gorgeously by Celine but with the wintery shades of teal and my new air force blue scarf…. ah, paradoxical, no?  But I like the look of the green so much with these “dirty” blues just as well, so this is how I am wearing it for today… no doubt when spring starts to sprung (spring?) then I’ll be pairing this little skirt with my beloved neutrals as planned…
Sorry for the old chestnut Vogue 7303 rearing its head once more on this blog.  I only bought 70cm of fabric and needed a pattern that could cope with such a small amount.  This trusty old pattern is getting kinda fragile and is patched together with sticky tape in places, and its envelope is dog-eared and tattered, but still I keep turning to it.  Besides its economy with fabric, another plus is its sheer simplicity; it took less than an hour to run this number up.
I am constantly vacillating between wanting to source new and exciting patterns for my wardrobe, and then when the time comes reaching for the same old basic tried and true patterns…  I like to do both and don’t have a set formula when it comes to choosing my next project but just work on whim and fancy…  What do you do?  Do you use a pattern once and then move on to the next exciting challenge, or do you keep returning to the favourites in your pattern collection, or is it a bit-of-both?

Photo above from Celine Spring/Summer 2010

Details:
Skirt; Vogue 7303, bottle green cotton velveteen
Top; Metalicus
Scarf; refashioned from an old tank-top, here
Boots; Fornarina, from David Jones

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Blast from the past

07/05/2010 1:28 am \ 6 Comments \

This is good for a laugh.
I found this old photo of me in an outfit I made for myself.  I’m not exactly sure how old I am, but I’m guessing about thirteen.  I am clueless as to the pattern I used here, but I do remember the outfit quite well; the shorts were high-waisted with a fly front and button-up waistband and had inset side pockets with slanted front openings.  They were made out of a lightweight denim.  The shirt was of a light floral cotton and slipped over my head.  It had self fabric drawstrings set in faced casings that could be pulled up to gather the shoulder seams, and a faced V front opening.
What really makes me laugh about this photo is how there I am, posing in front of a tree, just like I still am today!  Obviously my preferences in settings for my outfit shots were set back then…

Details:
Shorts; made by me
Top; made by me
Sandals; favourite sandals I wore everywhere, even to school

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Knotty blue scarf

06/05/2010 6:56 am \ 8 Comments \

It’s been an embarrassingly long while since I did a re-fashion.  My big bag of toss-out garments is still sitting there, taunting me.  And this re-fashion is so … trite, it’s barely worth the label “re-fashion”.  Still, in my defence, there was not a lot of fabric to play with in this one, meaning, not a lot of re-fashion options.  But I like scarves.  And, bonus, I’m making a start on incorporating some air force blue into my wardrobe for winter.  Win!
So, starting with an old tank-top of my husband’s.  This is actually the top half of a pair of summer jammies, from a men’s sleepwear range brought out by Ian Thorpe the Aussie Olympic swimmer, that I’m chopping up here.  Sorry, Thorpie…

I simply cut off the top part of the tank-top at underarm level, and the bottom seam, for a raw edge.  The side seams were cut out also to get the raw edge, and the front and back remaining rectangles cut into three roughly equal width pieces.  (OK, very roughly…)

  
These were overlocked together, right sides facing.  When overlocking I also cut out the remains of that logo….  I didn’t use matching overlocker thread, but it doesn’t matter as these seams are to be hidden by knots.  

Where I’m knotting the sides are folded in slightly, just to hide the seam stitching, and simple knots positioned to hide the seams.

Et voila, a new air force blue scarf…

Details:
Skirt; Vogue 7303 lined, winter white wool crepe
Top; Metalicus
Cardi; Metalicus
Boots; Enrico Antinori
Scarf; refashioned from old tank-top
Bag; Gucci

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Birthday bag

05/05/2010 3:28 am \ 4 Comments \

Do you remember me posting about a top secret project I was working on last weekend?  Well today is my sister-in-law S’s birthday and I was making her a gift.  It’s a little bag she can use to hold make-up, or some such…  I met her for lunch yesterday and gave it to her then; since she looks at my blog from time to time I couldn’t post about it earlier!
Happy birthday S!

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Denim, lace and burnt orange

04/05/2010 7:10 am \ 7 Comments \

Being a casual-ish, friendly sort of a day today I’m dressing to suit.  I had to do some work in the office (groan) but managed to squeeze in a quick morning tea with some friends and also a lunch with some other friends.  And the weather has been bliss.  So a perfectly looooovely sort of a day!
Today I’m wearing a necklace cobbled together by my daughter from bits and pieces, which I’ve borrowed in the past.  It includes a voodoo doll, given to her for Christmas present, a ballerina charm which I think we found somewhere, and her dog tags, from when we lived in the US.  She was awarded these dog tags for participating (they weren’t given a choice, btw) in the DARE programme running at the school.  DARE stands for Drug and Alcohol Resistance Education.  I should mention she was ten years old at the time.  Yeeah…  I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions from that one…
We are into that slightly awkward time of the year when the mornings are briskly cold, meaning boots and a jacket or cardi of some sort are necessary, but so warm in the middle of the day one is roasting in the aforementioned boots and jacket.  And this little orange skirt has been such a winner.  It’s amazing how such a bright in-your-face sort of a colour can turn out to be such a good mix-n-match item.

Details:
Skirt; Vogue 7303, burnt orange silk hessian
Top; Morrison
Jacket; Ezibuy
Gold necklace; had since teenage years
other necklace; put together by my daughter
Boots; Enrico Antinori, from Zomp
Bag; Gucci

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Lounge suite re-cover

03/05/2010 5:04 am \ 5 Comments \

My primary sewing interest is in fashion… obviously as this blog has leant heavily in that direction!!  However I shouldn’t lose sight of my initial purpose of this blog, which was to document all of my sewing efforts over the years.  And I have sewn up my fair share of mundane practicals like home wares in my time too.  One of my regular jobs is to recover our lounge suite.  We bought this lounge suite new from Freedom back about eighteen years ago, and it’s been such a goodie.  It’s been solid and sturdy enough to cope with three babies, grown into toddlers, grown into children, grown into teenagers and all their friends, as well as our four pets.  
One of its biggest pluses has proved to be its simple square shape which has leant itself very well to easy recovering, so that even a rank amateur such as myself has had no trouble in fashioning a new cover with my little old sewing machine…
The original cover of this suite (which is still there underneath, its only fault is that the colour has faded in patches) is navy blue canvas.  The cover in these photos is the third re-cover I have made for it; it has previously had a pale blue/grey corduroy cover and subsequently a chocolate brown chenille-y type of fabric cover before this one (I should hunt for some photos of these).  This mustard-y, moss-green chenille cover has been on the suite for about two or three years now and you can see it’s wearing a bit thin on the corners of some of the chair cushions.  What you can’t see in these photos is that one of the back corners has been used as a scratch post by one of our darling (said with gritted teeth) little pussy cats, so is becoming a mite shredded at the back.  So I’m thinking it may be time to source some new upholstery fabric and make up a new one soon.
Although recovering one’s lounge suite may seem like a daunting task, when you have a nice simple square shaped suite like this one it’s actually very easy.  I kept parts of the first re-cover I made so now I have a pattern to work from each time I have to do it.  It’s a simple matter of measuring, cutting out the pieces and sewing them together, just like any sewing project… absolutely no difference.  The only difficulty factor is the sheer size of fabric pieces you are working with, so I usually haul the sewing machine over to our dining room table to make use of the larger working space when I’m tackling this sort of thing… When the cover is sewn up, they are just slipped over the lounge suite and I flip it upside down and either staple it or tack it to the wooden frame underneath.
This suite has a two seater and a three seater, and I find it takes 19m of upholstery width fabric, that’s without having to match any patterns.

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