High-waisted apricot skirt

20/02/2015 5:31 am \ 63 Comments \

I’ve made a new skirt; a high-waisted, knee-length straight skirt, with a self-belt, long double belt loops and in-seam arrow welt pockets.  This is skirt 114 from the Solo in White collection from Burda style magazine 04/2014.  I’ve waxed lyrical about this collection previously just because of the dreamy colour palette, but a closer perusal of the design lines had me lost in admiration anew for the designs themselves.  This is now the third piece I’ve made from the collection; others here and here.  May not be the last either, because all pieces are quite lovely; classical but still with their own interesting little twist.  Honestly, it has to be said; Burda magazines are simply the hands down best value for money around.
The fabric is from the Fabric Store in Melbourne, bought during my last trip there with Mum and Cassie.  I think it’s a linen/something mix, woven of various thickness fibres, stiff-ish and almost like thin upholstery fabric.  I didn’t think it too thick for the slightly more complex sewing required of those arrow welt pockets, and think they turned out ok.  I got the skirt pieces cut out of my piece with the barest of scraps to spare.  Honestly, my wastage was less than a scrunched handful of fabric.  Win!!!  After cutting the pieces I overlocked all edges before doing a single other thing, because it frays like a madman.

Changes: I cut a size 40 at the hips grading into a size 38 at the waist.  In fitting to myself I ended up taking a little bit more off each edge at the waist.
I cut my pocket pieces to be substantially bigger than the pattern piece.  My one gripe with Burda patterns is that the pocket pieces are nearly always laughably small.  Or do I have giant flipper hands?  Ummm, probably the latter!
Another small gripe I have with this style of skirt is that the in-seam pockets are frequently situated too close to the CF for my liking, and so when you’ve got your hands in your pockets you end up feeling like you’ve got your hands sitting coyly and weirdly right over your crotch.  Hate that!  So I cut my skirt pieces so the front piece was 4cm wider at the CF, and folded 2cm down the centre of each side front piece.  This moved the seams 2cm further out to each side, which is just enough to make hands-in-pockets feel not so weird to me.

I fully lined the skirt with cream coloured polyacetate from Fabulous Fabrics, mostly because my fabric has some stiff and sharp fibres in it that I could imagine over time would become scratchy and super annoying against soft tummy skin.  Lining pieces are not provided with the pattern, but it’s easy enough to make a lining; by splicing the front pieces together along the seam lines, cutting from the facing allowance down; and folding the width difference in along the top as a pleat.  The back dart allowance can also be folded as a pleat in the lining.

I cut the facing and pocket pieces from pale yellow polycotton, and pieced the pocket with a strip of the self-fabric at the opening edge, so that is what shows if the insides are glimpsed during wear.

The instructions for the in-seam arrow welt pockets, contained in those for skirt 113, are quite difficult to follow; I was thinking vaguely of doing a little pictorial here to illustrate how they are done.  Maybe.
Anyway, that’s it!  It’s still too hot for this skirt yet, but I’m happy to tuck it away in the wardrobe, awaiting some lovely cool weather.  I bought some perfectly matching fabric to make a top to go with it too, so should get on to that thing next.  Ever onwards!

Details:
Skirt; Burda style 04/2014-114, apricot/cream linen/cotton woven
Top; adapted from the loose drape top from drape drape, by Hisako Sato, cream jersey knit, details here
Sandals; Zomp, from Zomp boutique

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Red dress; 6 different ways

19/02/2015 3:40 am \ 25 Comments \

It’s been a while since I did one of these!  I don’t really have deliberate dress-up sessions to test out my clothes’ versatility any more, but it’s still interesting for me to look back and get a general overview of just how well my self-made wardrobe mixes and matches and whether everything works together.  This red cotton dress has been an absolute beaut!  it’s been worn a tonne and proved itself to be quite a versatile year-rounder too.  I made it late 2013, using an adaption of dress pattern M from the Stylish Dress Book by Yoshiko Tsukiori.
I think its usefulness has lain in several factors: firstly the cheerful tomato-red colour is supposed to be one of “my” colours, as well as a shade equally at home in both hot and cold weather, and also the style of the dress is quite plain and simple, lending itself very well to mixing and matching with a bunch of other clothing pieces and stylistically not fighting with anything.
Some of the highlights in its life:
At left, its raison d’être was for me to have something for Wildcats games … I wore it to just about every single one and fitted in fine with everyone else!  At right, during a long hot summer it was fabulous to wear just all on its own, sans any adornment.

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At left; the colour looked good with just about every colour cardigan and scarf that I own; and at right, I’m wearing it here inside out! for Fashion Revolution Day.  I chose it for that day mostly because it had patch pockets and not inseam bag pockets, making this the least weird-looking inside-out option in my wardrobe.   Hehe and yes, I was brought up that the insides of a piece should look presentable enough for them to be worn inside out without embarrassment, but not that I purposefully make things with the actual intention of wearing them that way very often!
Speaking of that; the mission statement of Fashion Revolution is a comfortable fit for those of us who sew… after all; the question is “Who made my clothes?”  If you can give an answer, and by that I don’t think they mean just “Brand x” then you are making a difference.  Albeit a small one, but still.  If your answer is “me”, then that can only be a very good thing!  I am planning to do the inside out challenge again this year on 24th April, please join me!

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At left; on cooler days I liked wearing my red dress with my paprika tights because they were such a good colour match, note to self; having matching tights and dresses/skirts is actually an excellent wardrobe idea, I must plan for this more!  At right, I really liked this winter outfit a lot too.  I know summer dresses can be kind of a weird choice for winter, but if the style is loose enough to enable wearing with lots of layers under and over for warmth then I think it can be done very successfully.  I was perfectly warm in this wintery ensemble.  Wintery for Perth, that is.

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Sadly, at its last wearing I decided that this red dress was now just a bit past its best *sob*.  It’s faded soooo much and has developed a noticeable seat in the bottom-al region so out it’s gone to the rag/”potential refashion” bag.  Leaving a giant red-dress-shaped hole in my wardrobe 🙁 but I’m hoping my recent red gingham dress is going to step in to fill that.
We shall see, we shall see….
Later edit; I just couldn’t do it! throw it out, I mean.   A stint in the refashioning bag, and when I next took it out for a look-see it didn’t look nearly as bad as I remembered.  I’ve re-instated it back into the wardrobe again…  🙂
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dress of plastic splattered linen

11/02/2015 4:46 am \ 45 Comments \

I’ve made a summery little dress for myself.
This is dress F from the Japanese pattern book Stylish Dress Book, by Yoshiko Tsukiori.   I’ve made this pattern up once before here, and that polka dot dress is still in my wardrobe and remains one of my perennial favourites.  I don’t know if this new one is going to topple its big sister from my favourites list, but anyway, it’ll still be a goodie and bound to get worn a lot in this long, loooong, very hot summer we’re having!
I made a couple of teeny changes, adding inseam side pockets and also leaving off the sleeve ties.  Instead the sleeve opening has a button sewn on to close.  Still looks quite cute and meant I didn’t have to try to sew and turn out those skinny-binny sleeve ties in this lovely but rather challenging fabric.
I know… it doesn’t look particularly challenging in my pictures; it appears from a distance to be a quite ordinary duck-egg blue, handkerchief linen.  Only closer inspection reveals random dots of what appears to be clear plastic, splattered all over it.  This has the happy side effect that in the sunlight it appears to sparkle like diamonds, *squeals, oooh pretty!* and the less than happy side effect that it was quite difficult to actually sew the splatters and they don’t fold well at all; also it, how shall I say this? presents an Ironing Challenge, to say the very least.

 See, obviously linen requires the hottest setting on your iron but the plastic splatters turn into soft and sticky, glue-y spots that stick to your iron and everything else when they’re subjected to heat.  I’ve pondered it for four years; four! since I bought this lovely stuff from the Fabric Store in Melbourne! wondering what I could make with it that would do it justice, finally hit upon this.  Also, reflected all over again upon how super silly it is to leave lovely fabric languishing in le stash when I bought it for the fun of making it up and wearing it, what the heck.
Happily, I think it did work out!  🙂

sleeves finished with buttons in lieu of the ties; and pockets
I finished the neckline with a bias-cut strip, but it was nearly impossible to attain neat looking top stitching over the splatters! so I ended up unpicking all attempts and just hand-stitched it down with invisible fell stitches along both fronts.  I kept the double row of machine stitching on the back neckline, where it miraculously turned out kinda neat-looking.

During construction I pressed either using my ironing cloth or on the wrong side of the fabric, and had to peel it off the cloth or the ironing board each time! and wondered if the splatter dot situation, while a cool concept and I visually I loved it! was in practice going to be a massive pain to iron.
Well I’ve washed and ironed it once now and fortunately I don’t think the dots are going to be a problem.  I ironed the dress inside out and even though it does stick together it’s no biggie to just peel the layers apart while turning it right side out again.  And the plastic does cool and dry hard again pretty quickly. Thank goodness.

The hem line has a tuck around the bottom.  This is actually a crafty fix of a cutting booboo.  You see, when I made my first dress F I had screenprinted my own fabric and I forgot to note that I had actually lengthened the pattern pieces to fit my print.  Actually I find it good practice to add by default like, at least 10cm in length to any dress from a Japanese pattern book.  Anyway, this time I carefreely cut out the pattern as is… result; scandalously short dress.  Darnit.
Fortunately I had enough fabric to cut extra lengthening bits and sewed them on to the bottom, hiding the joining seam up inside this tuck.  You can’t see the join on the inside because I turned up the hem long enough to enclose everything.  The hem is hand-stitched using invisible fell-stitching, and I caught the upper fold of the tuck in the same stitching to secure all the layers together.
Problem solved!
In fact, I have to say that this is a very simple dress which belies its unexpected difficulty-factors! but I am so pleased that it all came together quite happily and satisfactorily in the end.  🙂

Details:
Dress; dress F from the Stylish Dress book, by Yoshiko Tsukiori, plastic splattered linen
Hat; Vogue 8844, ivory corduroy, details and my review of this pattern here

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Carolyn pyjamas

09/02/2015 5:51 am \ 56 Comments \
I was supremely flattered when Heather of Closet Case patterns contacted me to ask if it was ok to
name her latest pattern after me… wow, seriously?!
!!!!!  
*deeply flattered moment*
So the Carolyn pattern is for pyjamas, hehe. 
Yep, I inspired pyjamas!  Honestly
I’m not sure why I find that borderline hilarious, but there it is!
I have to say though; it’s amazing that Heather totally has her
finger on the pulse of what everyone is currently needing to wear and sew.  
Loungewear.
Very astute.  I mean, I love Vogue patterns for their smart
little fitted designer dresses, and have often thought that the working woman can do no wrong
by sewing up nothing but little Vogue dresses for her office/working wardrobe…
so smart and stylish and absolutely perfect for a businesswoman’s life.  but here’s the thing, the number of people
working from home has increased significantly over the last few years and
comfortable loungewear is definitely a thing that work-from-home peeps are
stocking up on for their working life, not just for their after hours life.  A few years ago, who’d have thought it? But
now totally this is a real trend.  I
mean, I work from home myself. And although I need and want to dress up smartly for many things in my life, my real wardrobe workhorses lean towards the easy-to-wear and casual.
Enter stage right; stylish and smart loungewear.
The things one would actually wear to bed are generally loose-fitting to enable
minimum chance of ripping or restraint while one is unconsciously flailing about, but Heather’s new
Carolyn (pinch me!) pyjamas have a slightly sleek and tailored air to them; a body
skimming rather than blouse-y line, that in the right fabrics one could happily
wear outside the house if one so wished. 
Without looking like one is wearing pyjamas!
With that in mind, I chose to make my test pair in luxe-ish, not-bedwear but daywear like fabrics; namely silk hessian for the body of the top, poly organza for the sleeves and
a silk/cotton for the collar and cuffs. 
The little shorts are in a soft, lightweight polycotton.  These were all from the remnant table at
Fabulous Fabrics.
I chose to make view C with long sleeves on the top and leaving off any piping.  I love piping as much as the next person… however I felt piping in this shirt/shorts style IS going totally “pyjama” and I’m serious about wanting to wear my outfit out and about.  In the streets even!
The shirt is a classic, sleek, unfitted style, with notched collar and a gently curved hemline.  I felled the seams in the body of the top and French seamed those sheer sleeve seams.  The armscye seams were overlocked before stitching down to the shirt body to finish; faux felling, if you like!
The shorts are super quick and easy things to whip up, with satisfying huge
pockets.  The pockets are the same fold-back design
that Heather used in her Ginger jeans, which was the
very first time I had come across pockets like this in my 40+ yrs of sewing .  Yes, really! 
I’m starting to think of them as her signature pockets.
I made my shorts with the cuff as per the pattern, but sans piping and with the cuff invisibly stitched in place from inside the fold, so it appears to be a folded-up cuff.  I like this cuffed look on the bottom of shorty shorts like these  🙂

So… do I love the Carolyn pattern, well heck yes!  The shirt especially is an easy classic shape and tres chic, in my opinion.  I will definitely be making both pieces again, maybe even as actual pyjamas!
As for my fabric choices for my test sample here… well, I was using all remnants and my favourite part is the sheer and floaty, leaf organza sleeves, and I also love the strength of the black accent collar and cuff details.  However while the roughly textured, stone silk hessian seemed like a good idea at the time, now I’m not so sure if it’s letting down the rest of the ensemble.  Hmmmmm.  I’m gonna wear it for a while and sleep on it – by that I mean figuratively not literally, of course!   but don’t be surprised if a dye job or small subsitutory type of refashion happens on this bit in the near future!

Details:
Set; the Carolyn (eek!) pyjamas by Closet Case patterns, shirt in silk hessian, poly organza, silk cotton; shorts in polycotton

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red gingham

26/01/2015 3:37 am \ 73 Comments \

… new dress!
I feel like I’ve been wearing the same little summer dresses over and over and over.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that! because I like them all   🙂  but a few of my standbys are getting on their last legs and the wardrobe needed new blood.  And there’s still a lot of summer to go.
I’ve been eyeing off dress E from the Stylish Dress book by Yoshiko Tsukiori ever since I got the book, in fact it was my Sew Bossy dress of choice for Reana Louise!  I loved hers and alway wanted to make one for myself too… one day.  The book is chokka with patterns for cute and practical little summer dresses that are absolutely perfect for our hot Australian summers, and this pattern is yet another goodie although I ended up making quite a few little changes.  Some due to my fabric;  a red/cream cotton gingham with a very slightly crinkly, seersucker-y texture, from Spotlight.
The front of dress F has five box pleats in the bodice and I was determined for the gingham pattern to match perfectly on the front.
Please excuse and/or feel free to skip the following; where I boast obnoxiously about my perfect pattern matching.  Yes, there are five box pleats up there *insert smug self back-patting*

There’s only one way to pattern match to that degree, and that’s to pin the flippin’ heck out of it.  I pinned at each and every check intersection, basted each pleat and inspected for flaws obsessively before the final sew.  I’m pretty pleased, even to my eyes I can’t see the joins at all.  And I’m pretty fussy  😛

Matching the pleats into the gingham weave like that necessitated cutting the front piece to a different width from the pattern piece.
It’s not hard to work out how to do this, the only criteria is that the front fits onto the front facing piece once pleated.  A little quality time with the tape measure and some mental calculations to exercise the ol’ brain cells a bit.  Each box pleat is 6 checks wide, with 4 checks in between each one and it turned out that the overall width of my front piece is slightly narrower than the pattern piece.

Other changes:  gathering looked terrible in this bouncily textured fabric, so I cut the back skirt straight, eliminating gathering into the bodice.  The sides were slimmed down considerably, tapering out to 10cm off each side at the hem, I added in-seam side pockets instead of patch pockets.  I did put the little cap sleeves in to start with but they just felt a bit too “busy” in gingham, so I unpicked them off and finished the armholes with a bias-cut strip inside instead.  The pattern is quite short so I lengthened my dress by 10cm, with a little tuck at the original hemline, just for fun  🙂

So yeah, I have nothing much more to say!
I’ve made a cool and breezy, simple and uncomplicated little summer dress.  I love it already  🙂

this one made me laugh… hmm; terrific maternity dress! 

Oh, and Gabrielle and I are twinsies today!  I had nearly finished this dress and was amazed when Gabrielle posted a picture of her red gingham dress on instagram!  great minds thinking alike, of course  🙂  check out Gabrielle’s gorgeous gingham dress here

Dress; dress E from the Stylish Dress book by Yoshiki Tsukiori, red cotton gingham
Thongs; Havaianas

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#hoodie

22/01/2015 6:29 am \ 35 Comments \

I love hoodies.  And I love dark browns, crinkly linen and loose relaxed-fit comfy loungewear.  Despite all those loves, it’s taken me a ridiculously long time to finish this hoodie.  I started it before I left for Melbourne last year! woops!
I used Burda 09/2014-115, a tunic/hoodie pattern; and this lovely deep, deep, burnt chocolate linen, that I bought from Tessuti’s in Melbourne on our previous, 2013 trip there… extra woops!  Sometimes I hoard lovely fabrics for forever and feel guilty about it, but really it’s only because I can’t think of the Perfect Project which it would like to become.  Some fabrics tell you straight away, whilst others sit there and taunt you with their loveliness while never giving any hint of what they want to be.

Anyway, finally I made something.
To be honest, this is version two.  
The pattern is actually for a tunic a good 6″ longer than this, and that is how I made it.  I had visions of those lovely chic European lagenlook-y ladies wearing long and loose flowing clothes in earthy neutral shades.  I started out with high hopes, made the hoodie/tunic.  Felt really good about it, all went together smoothly, happy with my decision, almost finished it; perfectly hand narrow-hemmed shirt-hem and all.  It was easily long enough to be a dress.
Tried it on, and was immediately struck by the fact that I had made myself a Friar Tuck robe.  Yes, in its long version I looked exactly like Friar Tuck. Do I want to look like Friar Tuck?  Emphatically, no.  Disastrous.  Dejectedly shoved it aside for, um; a few months.  Hmmm, how time flies!  
Anyway, I really did want it to work, and so just recently I drastically shortened that hem and rolled the sleeves up.  Massive improvement.  I left off the waist tie channel and tie.  I reckon that as a boxy, shorter tunic, with rolled up sleeves, it still had that relaxed, fairly oversized, comfy vibe that I was after… stylishly chic, I hope!
The dress has pockets and so I kept those, cutting and re-hemming it to just below that level.  The button placket is invisibly sewn closed, because all buttons just seemed either the wrong size or colour, or just plain wrong against the fabric.

For some reason that now escapes me, I felt allergic to the idea of self-fabric bands to hold up the rolled sleeves.  At the time I felt they would look unutterably boring and/or too match-y.  So I made some sleeve holder-up thingies from skinny metallic belts.  It felt like a good idea at the time, and luckily I’m still quite pleased with them, feel like they bring something interesting to the table, on what is otherwise a quite plain and featureless hoodie.  I’ve tried wearing the hoodie with a few other of my clothes and it’s interesting that that little bit of silver-y, pewter-y metallic on the sleeves really helps the hoodie to “go” with a lot of my other clothes far better than it would without.

The neckline/hood seam is hidden underneath a band, cut from the leftovers from this dress.  It felt quite fortuitous that the brown stripes were wide enough that I could do this, with barely a hint of cream pin-stripe to be seen!

Later edit: Inside the sleeve tabs, and thank you Jenna-Lynn for asking  🙂
I made the belt sleeve tabs by buckling the belts and cutting down to size keeping the buckle area intact.  Using a nail, I hand-drilled four little holes for stitching, two at each end. The outside holes are hidden underneath the belt overhang.  I put a little wad of folded fabric inside the sleeve between the belts to stabilise and strengthen the stitching area, and stitched through my drilled holes firmly and securely using thick upholstery cotton.

Details:
Hoodie; Burdastyle 09/2014, 115 shortened, of burnt chocolate-brown crinkly linen
Shorts; Burda 7723, grey/cream pinstripe linen, details here and my review of this pattern here

Disclaimer; this pattern was given to me by Burdastyle; however I chose it myself from the large range of patterns on offer because I liked it.  All opinions are most definitely my own.  There are no affiliate links on my blog and never will be…  I’m in it because I love sewing  🙂 

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“poison dart frog” lingerie set

16/01/2015 3:30 am \ 64 Comments \

Sounds like a weird inspiration  for a lingerie set?  Well this is my thing for prttynpnk’s Jungle January  🙂
I really wanted to do something a bit different, something other than big-catty.  I googled jungle animals and was immediately drawn to the splendiferous group of amphibians that are the poison dart frogs; there is a huge variety of incredibly hued, jungle- and rainforest-dwelling frogs, in the most amazing array of beautiful, vibrant colours!  The one that really leapt, or hopped? out to me was this little guy.  Meet Oophaga silvatica, a native of Colombia.  This colour morph is called “Koi”.  

I loved its pale blue/red colouring and immediately envisioned some sort of lace overlay to mimic the markings.
I did a certain amount of agonising over “what” to make, I was a little tempted to make a dressy cocktail number, but practicality won.  Keeping my new resolution to sew thoughtfully firmly in mind!
The pale aqua blue bamboo knit and red stretch lace are from Fabulous Fabrics, the baby blue shoulder strap elastic from Homecraft Textiles.  The bra pattern is my current favourite; MakeBra 2610, an underwired bra with a pieced foam cup lining.  I’m very comfortable with this style so I am super happy to have another one in my collection.  

I made two pairs of matching knickers using two different patterns; the boy leg hipsters above are a copy taken off a rtw pair and the bikini brief below are from my tried and true McCalls 2772.  This is the second time I’ve made the MakeBra pattern, the second time I’ve used the rtw pattern and about the millionth time I’ve used the McCalls… well, it feels like it sometimes anyway!  The McCalls bikini brief pattern is hands-down my comfiest and easiest to wear, but I do still like making a different one occasionally, just for some variety.

I sewed the lace on the undies by machine but thought it ended up looking a little too… machine-y? so for the bra I sewed the lace on to the cups by hand, using invisible fell-stitching with the stitches hidden within the foam lining.  This does look much nicer, no surprises there.
I couldn’t find any blue or red lingerie elastic to match in nicely, so instead used regular 6mm braided elastic and enclosed it inside a once turned-under hem, topstitched on the outside in zig-zag stitch.  It doesn’t look quite as well finished on the inside as lingerie elastic would, but doesn’t look terrible.  And it works just fine  🙂

Those very long-tailed, decorative bows on all 3 pieces: I’ve seen several rtw lingerie sets decorated with much longer tailed bows than usual and liked how it looks, so I decided to cut my tails quite long too.  Hmmm, not quite sure now!  They do look quite romantic and pretty, but I’m starting to wonder how practical they’ll be in situ.  So these are currently on trial and may or may not get cut shorter.
Thoughts; ok I love this colour combination in theory, in practice it does feel a tiny bit on the flashy side for lingerie.  For me, I mean.  My usual style tends to run to the colourless and slightly boring, and this set is anything but! so I’m stepping outside of my comfort zone here.  But I kind of still love it anyway.  It’s not the obvious thing anyone would think when imagining “frog-inspired” but I’m totally going to think of frogs every time I look at it.  
*ribbit* 

Details:
Bra; MakeBra 2610, in aqua bamboo knit and red stretch lace, my review of this pattern here
Undies;  (L) McCalls 2772, and (R) pattern taken from a rtw pair

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2015 plans

10/01/2015 7:47 am \ 30 Comments \

Hello!
I’ve been thinking about my 2015 wardrobe requirements and sewing plans for this year.  To be honest I was kinda shocked at the sheer number of things I sewed last year, and not in a good way!  It wasn’t lost on me that my favourite projects for last year were also the ones upon which I lavished the most time and thought.  So I’m thinking that to slow down, take my time, be more mindful; would be both a rewarding and sensible thing to do.   I mean, I have clothes.  Quite enough really.  But I still want to sew.  So it makes sense to concentrate on making fewer, but more individually labour intensive things, with an eye to provenance, longevity and quality of finish.
You know that word of the year thing?  I haven’t had one before but it’s a fun concept, yes?  Anyway I’m giving it a burl.  This year I wish to be more thoughtful in my sewing.
My on-going pledge to abstain from RTW will continue, so there may be a certain amount of maintaining-my-basic-wardrobe kind of sewing happening too, but I still would like to stretch myself with a few new patterns and skills.  It would be cool to make a few more Pattern Magic things.  And shoes!  And some Alabama Chanin sewing, which is definitely an exercise in slow thoughtful sewing!


Also, and in the same vein, last year Nicki of this is moonlight contacted me about participating in her one Year one Outfit project.  You can read all about it on her blog; essentially the project involves making for yourself an outfit using all materials sourced and produced locally.  Obviously this does not mean simply visiting the local Spotlight store! but at a much more grass roots level.  So for me, finding Western Australian farmers and sustainable producers of their own yarns and/or fabrics, and making a high quality outfit using only these.  This also pertains to all dyes and finishing touches!  The only thing I think maybe we can give ourselves a pass on is thread, since I think the only threads we can get here are Gutermann’s.  I’m pretty excited about this project and my brain is already buzzing with opportunities.  This one should be quite a challenge!
I’ll just give one clue as to just one of my ideas, contained in an instagram I posted late last year from my friend J’s farm in Cunderdin… 😉

Also;
I was quite inspired by Lauriana and Sue‘s vintage pattern journeys of last year.  The vintage sewing pattern pledge is conceived and hosted by Marie of A Stitching Odyssey, and I only wish I’d thought of joining in last year!  Whatevs, this year I’m IN.

During 2015, I hope to sew up at least five of my vintage sewing patterns.  

So, I shall see how I go!  Some of these things might overlap.
Oh, and also this year, I will join in with Anne of Pretty Grievances‘ Jungle January for the first time; it’s in its third year so what took me so long?! and hopefully Zoe‘s Me-Made May, as per usual.
wrt the former; my Jungle January fabric is flapping on the line, drying, as we speak! um, should that be type? read?  anyway all I shall reveal for now is that it is totally different from the expected, mwahaha. 😉
To be appearing here, very soon…

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