black Clementine

12/08/2019 10:52 pm \ 12 Comments \

Oh my gosh, I am so behind!  I’ve made this new dress … and have worn it and why have I not blogged it?  I used to have quite a strict rule about not wearing something until I have written a blog post for it, but things have been so hectic and complicated lately.

So I received a length of beautifully soft, perforated black suedette fabric from Minerva, and also the Clementine dress pattern, the inaugural pattern from a new pattern company, Forget-Me-not patterns and the marriage of these two items bore the most satisfactory fruit; this delightfully witchy-chic and I think rather elegant little number…  I only had 2m of the suedette fabric which was technically not enough to make the dress I wanted to, but somehow I made it work! with some sneaky patching together here and there.  Specifically, the side front and side back panels have a waist seam, and the back panel has a centre back seam.  Not that you’d ever know that wasn’t completely intentional if I hadn’t pointed it out, right?!

The Clementine is a terrifically versatile pattern, a fit and flare style with princess seams, designed for a stretch knit, and includes a top and dress variations, with either a scoop neck or a cowl neck option.  Also three different sleeve lengths marked too.

I went, very predictably I’m afraid, for the dress option, with the cowl neck, and the three quarter sleeve length…

My suedette, being perforated, is actually a little bit “peekaboo” close-up, so I chose to underline my dress completely with some very thin, beige/greyish-ivory knits I had in my stash already.  Two slightly different fabrics, of an annoying length each of which wasn’t really enough on their own to be useful enough for anything much so I was mighty pleased with myself when it occurred to me I had “just enough” of each combined to cut out my underlining!  I clean cut the suedette and the beige knits using my rotary cutter and left them unhemmed, since the fabrics are all non-frayable and quite stable; however I did opt to hem the sleeve hems since these areas are subject to a bit more stretch and strain.  Each of the underlining pieces was cut to be 5cm shorter than its corresponding outer shell piece.  I stitched each seam, before overlocking the raw edges in a second pass.  The pattern is reeeeally economically designed for minimum fabric wastage, with a 6mm seam allowance.  Highly approve of such thriftiness! although it doesn’t leave any wriggle room, should one wish to indulge in a bit of post-cutting size-fudging/alteration, ahem!  fortunately I went with my recommended size and feel like the sizing is just right.

I am completely in love with that s0ftly draping cowl neckline!  It’s my favourite feature of the dress!

At the back neckline I overlocked the raw edge of the suedette shell self-facing, turned it down over the underlining, and simply topstitched it in place…

I was quite pleased with myself when the front facing/underlining turned out quite clean and neatly done; I cut the front underlining the right length so as to stitch to the lower edge of the front self-facing, right sides together, and then when I stitched the shoulder seam I sandwiched the back shoulder edges in-between the front and its self-facing, so all raw edges are neatly hidden inside.

I liked the idea of the dress being middy length, so lengthened all pieces by 15cm at the lower edges… this is the very maximum I could get out of my metre-age!  I was actually kicking myself I had not ordered more fabric, but was rather chuffed I managed to make it work, yay!

And that swish factor!  I love a dress with a bit of swish!

I have to say; Clara was being so sweet the day I took these pictures!  I was down south alone with her on this particular week, and setting up to take photos of my new dress and she just snuck over and plopped herself down loyally at my feet, without even being asked… I was so touched!  although the little nose touching my hand in the first picture make me suspect she thought a treat might be in the offing; poor girl, it was not!

I am wearing the dress here with my self-made tights – think I might need to make a new batch of these before winter ends!; and the boots Craig gave me for my last birthday.  It’s funny, I didn’t actually think these would get a tonne of wear since I have several pairs of black booties/boots; but I’ve enjoyed wearing them so much this winter.  Maybe even my most worn pair of boots for the year?… maybe?!

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box of socks; the July edition

31/07/2019 9:43 pm \ 8 Comments \

Dotty socks?  Socks with the pox? Poxy socks? A pox on socks!

Squeaking in under the wire at the very last minute for the month again, I present this month’s pair of socks… kinda fun, huh?  I absolutely love them retroactively.  While I was actually making them, hmmm, not so much!  I really struggled to get into these ones, funnily enough.  I liked the turquoise yarn with colourful flecks very much at first, but it rapidly became quite blah and too subtle to my eyes.   I felt it really lacked a certain necessary “something”, and I discovered some of that something when I laid the ball of bright yellow yarn against it.  Drab to fab in one fell swoop!  I experimented with several different ways of getting the yellow in there somewhere, but (obviously) in the end settled on embroidering random dots of various sizes here and there.  This gave exactly the fun and quirky look I craved, but was surprisingly difficult to get them looking neat, owing I think to the fact that the yarns were of completely different gauge.  This discrepancy can be seen most clearly in the heels and toes, where the yellow looks quite “puffy” and plumped up compared to the much finer turquoise yarn.  Yeah, it’s funny-looking but still, I love it.

I only had time to embroider a sprinkling of the dots around the top few inches of sock; but if I get some more time -which seems very unlikely – I may add some more “pox”…

Pattern; my usual plain Jane favourite, from a Patons 60s pamphlet with my own modifications

Yarns: flecked turquoise is Opal “Relief” sock yarn, colour 9494; with a yellow Piccolo multi-purpose craft yarn, made in Japan.  Both yarns purchased in Japan during our recent holiday there

oh hey there my lovely little photobomber… must be close to dinner time, mmmm?

The box of socks is looking a bit squished, but pretty!

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funsies with onesies

30/07/2019 2:05 pm \ 9 Comments \

I’ve made another little onesie!  Looks a bit goth, you say??  well, there’s a story…  🙂

The sewcialists blog had this fun, little mini-challenge last weekend; you spun the wheel to get a colour and then you had the weekend to whip up something with your colour.  I spun and got:

 

I’m sorry to say I felt very uninspired at first, and just left it for a few days.  And yes, it did say you could spin again and again, in fact as many times as you like to get the colour you want! but that’s just not me… I’m a stick-with-what-you’ve-got, kind of a person, and spinning a second time would have felt like cheating.  Stubborn? oh yes, but you know, gotta own what you are!

Then it occurred to me… make something else for the new baby!!  Now if that’s not a fun motivation I don’t know what is!!  So, you know I’ve got a huge bag of the family’s old clothes that are still very good quality fabric, and I fished out this old T-shirt of Tim’s…

I had this idea he might like for his new baby to have a little something of Dad’s when he gets here… pretty cute idea, huh?  Well, I thought so.  🙂  No sooner did I post a picture on instagram, than Tim sent me this one picture of himself wearing the T-shirt.  The grim-looking persona here is all an act, honestly; he’d dressed as a rocker for a dress-up party, haha.

Pattern; I again used the pattern Tim and Kelly had given me; Burda 9434, the 1 month size, except this time I cut the front as one piece, so as to maintain the cool tree/crows motif on the front of the T-shirt; and put 3 snaps in the crotch for closure.

I also made the little ivory beanie; using part of an old dress of Cassie’s.  No picture of that one in its original condition sadly; and it’s already been cut up in the past for a heap for other things; in any case, this is totally a very recycled and eco-friendly outfit for the new bub!

Just some boring construction thoughts:  I did have to cut and piece a little bit near one shoulder, because for some reason the motif had been placed super high on the T-shirt; so close to the neckline edging that you couldn’t possibly cut out the narrow baby onesie piece AND keep the motif intact otherwise.  You’d think the manufacturer’s would consider that people might want to cut out a baby onesie when they print their T-shirts, wouldn’t you; sheesh.  So inconsiderate!  Really, in retrospect I should have pieced BOTH shoulder pieces, which would have centred the motif better, but oh well; you live and learn.  I think it’s super cute, and honestly, I can hardly wait for Tim to be holding his new baby wearing this onesie! seems like full circle, you know?  That is; the baby wearing the onesie, not Tim, obviously!

addendum; aaaaaaaaand, I’ve just finished another shortie onesie… and matching beanie. Reason number one; Kelly and Tim really did buy SO MUCH of this fabric! and reason number two; because I’ve made a salient discovery; you can never actually get tired of making baby onesies.

So, the beanie matches the very first “long-ie” onesie I made, obviously, because it’s from the same fabric; and this onesie also matches the above, ivory beanie; because I used the ivory fabric for the binding… I stitched on miniature sew-on press-studs for the closure on this one because I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with the hammer-in ones, and am currently residing in the hate phase…

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pretty turquoise lingerie set

28/07/2019 4:36 pm \ 6 Comments \

Oh hai!  So I’m suddenly and frantically trying to blog things I’ve made in a month WITHIN the month.  Something I am lately failing at dismally!

However, not much to say really.  I made a bra and two pairs of matching undies.

Bra pattern is my standby MakeBra pattern 2610, now renamed DL 03; and the two pairs of undies are both my favourite cloth habit Watson briefs.  I used a lovely aqua-turquoise stretch lace from Minerva crafts, and a cream coloured polyester from Spotlight, the latter has been in my stash for yonks – also used for this set, actually.  Pretty pink ribbon and all matching cream elastics from Homecraft Textiles.  Foam for the cups from the MakeBra basic kit I purchased years ago.  Rings and sliders recycled from an old, also made-by-me bra.

I did some slightly different with the cups this time, and instead of piecing the lace to cover the cups, I stretched it over the foam cups that I’d already covered with the cream polyester, pieced in the usual way.  I did this because I didn’t want to break up the pretty design of the lace with obvious seaming.  Always an issue with a pieced bra cup!  When you seee bras in the store they don’t really have this pieced cup thing going on and I wanted to see if I could make it happen with my own homemade bras too.   I had to very slight gather the bottom edge of the lace in order for this to work, but I think it turned out ok.

I didn’t have quite enough of the lace to cut the bra band out in one, single piece, so there is piecing towards the back of the band.  However I think this is subtle enough that it’s not a problem.

Extremely eagle eyed observers might pick up that the hook and eye closure are on the wrong sides here!!  Now this is the reason why I usually haul out an existing bra every single time and check FOR SURE before adding these, because the one time you don’t?!!….  Of course I only discovered this when I went to put the bra on for the first time….. DOH!  I managed to get it on ok at the time, but before wearing it again I unpicked them and swapped them to the correct sides.  My hands are like old dogs, and are not used to learning new bra-wrangling tricks like this anymore!

I made the bra and one pair of knickers to be total lace; but didn’t have enough lace for another entire pair of undies… but well I like to have the undies different from each other anyway.  In fact, I decided I liked the half-lace undies more in the end!  I carefully cut and appliquéd to get them all neat and nice.  After my wedding dress adventures, I now consider myself a lace-applique expert, actually

 

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dog treats

19/07/2019 10:57 am \ 12 Comments \

Recently I made a large batch of dog treats for Clara and she’s completely obsessed!   And I, unlike many bloggers, do not use that word lightly!  She would do absolutely anything for these, and what’s more they cost roughly a third of what we’ve being paying for dog treats up until now… so I thought I’d record my recipe for posterity…

this is her “super attentive and totally focused on me” face…

We’ve gone through a metric tonne, give or take, of dog treats in our quest to train this adorable, but quite feisty little wench… I must say I don’t remember Sienna ever being such a handful but maybe like having babies, you forget.  Anyway,… she had a definite favourite treat, that’s proven quite difficult to lay our hands on because it seems to be perpetually sold out.  This elusive treat is like a rusk; it’s made with real beef, and sometimes has cranberries and rosemary in it too.  It’s also pretty expensive.  Anyway I decided, how hard could it be??

I made up my own recipe and it was staggeringly successful!  I’d googled “dog treat recipes” and the options that came up, well WOOF; and I don’t mean that in a good way.  Most of them didn’t even have meat in them, while still claiming to be a tasty “treat” for your dog.  I mean, Clara likes not-meat things too, but meat is definitely her very favouritest thing in the whole wide world to eat!  In the end, I got inspiration from a baby-rusk recipe, of all things.  This one to be specific; although if you look at it you’ll see it bears zero relation to mine here.

Without further ado!

Dog treats:

500g minced beef
2 cups plain flour
1 large egg

Cook mince in a frying pan, stirring constantly so as to keep it all broken up and no lumps.  If mince is very lean I sometimes start with a little water to keep things moving and avoid the mince sticking to the pan; but usually the meat’s own juices are sufficient…  When cooked let it cool to lukewarm.  Tip mince into a food processor with the flour and blend thoroughly… it should end up with a mealy/breadcrumb-y texture.  When thoroughly “crumb-y” add the egg and pulse again, the mixture should form a good dough-like texture that is not sticky and can be rolled out easily.  If it is a bit sticky, knead in a touch more flour.  Roll out, cut into shapes, and bake at 180C for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown and quite hard.  The length of cooking time depends on how thick you’ve rolled it… I rolled to about 4mm, and this yielded a HUGE quantity of bikkies.

Obviously you don’t need to cut fancy shapes, because this is the time-consuming bit really; you could just cut into a grid of squares and separate them for baking.  Also, this is quite a basic recipe; I just wanted to sound her out to see how it all worked out before getting into gourmet territory.  For the next batch I plan to try some variations:

To be added at the same time as the flour and blended in::

1/4 cup of dried fruit, such as apples or cranberries,

and/or 1tsp dried herbs, such as rosemary, sage or parsley

My only regret? That I do not have a dog-bone shaped cutter.  I do though, plan to address this awful travesty…

obedience!!!!

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a new baby in the family!!! plus something for Mummy too :)

12/07/2019 7:07 pm \ 24 Comments \

So, I have some extremely exciting news… !!  I am going to be a granny!!!!

Last week, Tim and Kelly announced they had a “souvenir” from their honeymoon to give to all of us and gave each of us a package… I unwrapped mine and what should I find, but a length of this adorable fabric and a pattern for a weeny little onesie and beanie…! everyone else had suitably themed pressies too; Sam had a T-shirt with “world’s best uncle”, Craig had a book “Grandad jokes”, and Cassie had a “World’s best auntie” Tshirt… oooh, such an incredibly lovely surprise! We were all stunned and then excited; and of course completely over the moon!  We all cannot WAIT to welcome the newest and littlest member of the family next year…!! the first one in our next generation!!  In the meantime of course I’ve made up the baby fabric immediately! Such fun to be making baby clothes again!   #itsbeenawhile

So this is the pattern they chose; Burda 9434, and the cotton jersey is from Spotlight.  I’m like, haha, first time parents; they bought a full 1.5m of fabric!  Enough for two babies, lol!   Wait, what?!!  but no no, before we all get too excited Kelly has had a scan and there is just a singleton in there  🙂

I immediately traced off the one month size and ran up a onesie.  And a beanie.  Eeeee so cute! and it was such an absolute joy to be making these!!  By the way; I had to trace the pattern in full, and will need to do so again and again, and probably even again! because obviously all sizes must stay intact since we’ll be needing those down the track too, that’s life…   babies GROW 🙂  The pieces are all so tiny though it’s not exactly an unduly cumbersome chore.

I forgot to mention, the beanie is made from navy blue merino from the Fabric Store; I bought in in Melbourne during one of our girly jaunts over there and previously made this T-shirt/sweater using it too.

Kelly also mentioned that she needed to buy maternity clothes, and daa da da daaaa!  (bugle call to arms) mum-in-law to the rescue and all that.  Well, I do love sewing and have SO MUCH time on my hands now I no longer have a wedding dress to make, haha.  I thought this a perfectly good excuse to buy the Closet Case Ebony tee pattern.  This is one of the few Closet Case patterns I hadn’t got my hands on already … I had eyed it up a number of times but not pulled the trigger.  Anyway, I finally did!  And immediately printed out two copies; one for Kelly and one for me.

I know this isn’t a maternity pattern but I also knew it could easily work as one!  I sized up from Kelly’s normal size, just in case; and you know what? it fits her perfectly!  Pregnancy boobs, you know.

now this is a nice touch!  personal.  I like.  I wonder if I can do this for our patterns?!

This is me here, modelling it for ye olde blog, before I hand it over to Kelly.  Maybe I’ll get a shot of her wearing it, one of these days, maybe not.    I’m not feeling very strict about blog photos for this one, because it’s essentially just a wearable muslin to check for size.  It’s all leftovers; the body was from the leftovers from this top (Fabulous Fabrics) and the sleeves leftover from this, old favourite dress (Spotlight).  To be honest, even though they’re both stretch fabrics, I don’t think they had enough stretch actually, but it still worked out, um; reasonable? I think?!  And it’s just a muslin, but I still had to obsessively pin each and every stripe, grrr.    This is a pretty silly thing to do, but it does result in great stripe-matching so *shrug* it’s worth it? I guess?

One thing I can guarantee; I am going to make lots more of both these patterns, and SOON!!!

Details:

Baby clothes; Burda 9434, cotton jersey and merino for the beanie
Tunic; the Ebony tee by Closet Case patterns, striped stuff, probably not enough stretch
Skirt; Vogue 1247, striped drill, details here
Tights; my own custom fit pattern, details on how to make your own here
Booties;  Officine Creative, birthday  present from Craig last year  🙂

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black and cream Eve dress, dp studio

30/06/2019 7:23 pm \ 17 Comments \

Not very long ago, I was contacted by dp studio, a pattern company whose offerings I’ve always found super interesting and intriguing… I bought a few of their patterns last year but am still yet to find time to make them up… eek!!  Anyway, they wanted to know if I would like to review one of their latest.  Would I?!  Omigosh, yes!!  They have recently brought out a new thing… something called a “kit couture” that is a collaboration between dp studio and Hamon, a fabric and haberdashery store in Paris.  The kit comes in a rather beautifully packed box, and includes the sewing pattern, fabric, and all notions and bits and bobs you needed to finish making it.  Very luxe.  I was so excited to try it out!!  They didn’t have my first choice, but I did like the look of the kit they offered me quite a lot and I anxiously awaited its arrival.

Did not disappoint!!  The kit I received was for Le 912, the Eve dress, described on the box as “Robe effect portefeuille a manches longues”  Oh, how I wish I could speak French! everything sounds so much lovelier and more poetic than in English…  the translation is “dress with wallet effect and long sleeves”

The fabric from Hamon is absolutely lovely; a 100% viscose with a beautifully soft and floaty hand to it, and a loose flowy, silk-like drape.  Divine!!  Even better, the print is super pretty; black flowers and leafy tendrils on a creamy background.  I think this creamy ground suits me quite well, my “white”, so to speak; so I was very happy with this.  The kit also contained a lightweight, fusible interfacing, a stable, fusible stay-tape for the bias cut opening edges and the shoulder seams; and length of perfectly colour-matched satin ribbon for the belt/tie.  Oh! and a reel of perfectly colour-matched, cream coloured thread.  This was actually overlocking thread rather than all-purpose thread, but I found it quite nice, not woolly; and to be absolutely fine for the purposes of sewing this very delicate fabric.

I really enjoyed making up my dress.  Lately – well I mean, once I’d got my mad, rough knitting bag project out of my system; I’ve been more in the mood for careful, quietly lengthy and dedicated sewing projects; something that takes time and effort, and maybe even requires unpicking and re-doing things over and over until I get them right.  I think it’s the process of making Kelly’s wedding dress that has brought this new mood for meticulous perfection upon me.  Will this be the case from now on?  possibly not! but it is right now so I’m contentedly riding that wave in serene and unhurried happiness.

I initially made long; bias cut ties, seen above; using the black/cream print for the waist tie, which is actually what the pattern instructions tell you to make.  Ultimately though, I didn’t like these so substituted the included cream coloured ribbon tie instead, which is really much nicer in the end; prettier, softer, and easier and more comfortable to wear too.

Craig heartily approves of the dress which I found slightly surprising.  After all, the dress is quite “covered up” and not figure hugging or the least bit “sexy”; and Craig usually prefers this sort of thing…  #husbands  However, he really likes this one; called it “classy” and “really nice”.  Well OK then!!

One thing the kit did not include was a required button; but I’m perfectly ok with that since I have about a billion buttons and absolutely zero need to ever buy buttons again in my lifetime.  I used a tiny, “pearl-with-a-shank” button for the closure.

Yesterday, we went to the city and my reluctant-photographer husband Craig kindly took a few pictures of me, for my blog.  Well, that was an unusually nice surprise!  Hurray!!  Afterwards, I regretted a little that we hadn’d taken Clara, since she goes so nicely with the dress.  #dressingtomatchyourdog  #itsathing  #promise

So I couldn’t resist another picture at home, this time including my very worthy little accessory, hehe

Details:

Dress: le 912, the “eve” dress by dp studio, cream/black viscose
Shoes; Vitullimoda, from Zomp shoes
I also wore my hand-knitted cardigan all day, because it was a COLD day!  Jo Sharp Tweed Coat, shortened, in Jo Sharp Silkroad DK  tweed yarn in colour Peppercorn (col 425), blogged here

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box of socks; the June edition. plus a bag!

26/06/2019 6:54 pm \ 9 Comments \

Pair of no-frills socks, but look at those pretty stripes!  LOVE those bright pastels!!  Making these has dutifully used up some more of the leftovers from my advent jumper, from the Dingo Dyeworks advent calendar of last year…  pretty cute and frugal, huh? *self-back-pat*  and this yarn is so soft and divinely snuggly.

the box of socks is looking quite colourful!

Oh! and I also ran up a little bag, specifically for my sock knitting.  I’ve been using my pink bum bag for this purpose ever since Japan, which was… fine, I guess, but still not ideal.  It wasn’t really big enough, for one thing, and had zero pockets.  Hmmm, yes; ordinarily a zero-pocket bag would have its days very much numbered, except that I’m kinda sentimental about it since Mum and Dad gave it to me when I was quite a young teenager and it’s always been … well, one of those forever things, you know??  Anyway, I digress…  What I really wanted for my knitting bag was one identical to the one I made for Mum, blogged here.  So I rummaged through the old clothing chuck-out bag and came out with a pair of old chinos that I used to wear when the kids were really little. Haven’t worn them in decades and don’t really know why I kept these hideous things but probably for the usual reason, that the fabric would come in handy some day.

The new bag is terrible really; slapdash, ugly, just thrown together in a very uncaring way.  But man, it was so much fun to do a bit of rough, random, whatever sewing!  Quite a therapeutic project, in fact!   And/or cathartic!  Slicing, dicing and cutting on the fly, drawing straight onto the fabric, machine-stitching rather wildly, minimal measuring, if any.   FELT SO GOOD.  THIS HOUSE, IS CLEAN!!!

I used the back of the chinos, and gave the bag a “bottom”, so it can stand up by itself.  It is self-lined, using more of the same fabric from a leg of the chinos, and has five pockets including the two outside patch pockets with buttoned flaps, that were originally in situ on the seat of the chinos.  Inside, I stitched two new, rectangular open patch pockets to the lining, as well as the tiny and rather adorable coin pocket that I painstakingly unpicked from the chinos just because it was so super cute.

I slipped a few coins in there for … I dunno, just in case

The other pockets hold my kindy scissors, my notebook and pen, a wool needle, and my personal, basic knitting pattern.  Which is near-identical to the Patons one I’ve been using for years, but has one or two mods that I’ve developed along the way to make my own idea of the perfect sock.  Actually I recently re-typed it all into a new word document so I can print it out for myself any time, and now I no longer have to decipher the old photocopied one from the Patons pamphlet that is almost falling to bits from un-folding and re-folding, and has multiple crossing-outs and arrows and modifications and notes scribbled chaotically in the margins and on the back.  Hurrah!

The inside waistband of my old chinos had  a rather nice bias bound strip finishing, so I kept this and used it to edge the, also recycled zip for the bag,  Goodness knows why I once went to the trouble of ripping out and stowing away an old zip just in case, but hey.  I did indeed find a use for it in the end!

So, cute bag? or piece of trash?  completely rhetorical questions btw since I know that; yes it is a pretty rubbishy sort of a thing!  It’s nowhere near as nice as the one I made for Mum, which I did measure out, cut carefully, and sew somewhat meticulously, and also had really nice fabric going for it.  But it only cost me some thread and half a day, and it will do for now.  And I had a lot of fun making it!  Maybe I’ll treat myself to a proper one, one of these days.

couldn’t resist taking a picture showing my ever-present companion, wondering what the heck I’m doing…

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