I’ve been making things! btw I have to apologise profusely for my terrible blogging lately, I feel like I’m neglecting my poor little blog so badly.. the thing is that Cassie and I are working like mad on our newest pattern and we are so so close now that I can taste it!! well, ok I did nibble experimentally at a corner and it tasted just like paper… but you know what I mean. It is going to taste a billion times sweeter when it is finally out in the world!
I’ll discuss that a bit more in a minute, but in the meantime I’ve made a few things other than samples….
item 1:
a little skirt, to match this jacket I made fairly recently… I had a scant 50cm or so of leftovers, just enough for a little mini. The fabric is the wide wale cotton corduroy in colour vanilla, bought in Potters Textiles a few years ago. I utilised my skirt block, and a closure method that I wrote a tute for once before on my blog; a button closure over a pocket so you don’t need to do a zip.
And this time I got creative and added a full lining too. Bias binding to hem because of the severe shortness of the skirt otherwise! You may or may not recognise the bias binding as being cut from the last leftovers to this robe I made recently…
It’s not perfect on the inside but I’m pretty confident I can polish up the method to be very neat and tidy for the next time. I’m also quietly working on this one as a pattern for our company too.. shhhh!
item 2:
a sweet little onesie for a new baby; our friends L & L welcomed their darling new little baby, and of course I had to make something sweet… I used my own pattern, developed for my own grandchildren, and a short length of cotton jersey from Spotlight. It’s beautiful stuff, isn’t it?
item 3:
a robe, for my dear sister in law for her recent birthday. This lovely periwinkle raw silk was in my stash, I’m about 80% sure it was from Mum when she cleaned out her stash; but honestly when and where I got some of my older fabrics is sometimes a bit of a blur. Anyway, I washed it up, measured it and had just enough for another Closet Core patterns Veronik robe.. I just had to run into Officeworks to print up a new pattern in her size. I gave it to her just before the long weekend, and she seemed very pleased!
So where am I with the whole #use30 challenge….? Well, the little vanilla skirt used 50cm of corduroy, plus another 50cm of lining; the onesie was about 50cm, and the length of periwinkle silk was 3m, and I used every single scrap. That’s 4.5m of fabric.
And guess what?! That’s my 30m of stash fabric… DONE and DUSTED!!! Actually 32m! As per my own rules for the challenge, I am now “allowed” to buy new fabric if I want to… but now I’ve started down that path I really want to sew up as much of my older stash as I possibly can. And actually; I did fail a bit, since I bought a small amount of souvenir fabric when we were in Melbourne recently. Whoops!!! But I HAD TO! It’s Melbourne. Yes, ok I am a little upset with myself for “failing”, but not too much. At least I did use up that 30m eventually, even if I jumped the gun on my “reward” a bit early.
One thing I’m relieved is that I can (legally) buy new fabrics to sew up the samples for our new pattern though! I thought I’d mention a little more about our newest pattern, since we’re this close! It’s a skirt and top… the skirt is one Cassie designed, and wore; to her cousin’s 21st birthday last year. The one I made a cake for here, and I made a dress for myself for the occasion too… well Cassie’s skirt was so lovely we both decided it had to be a pattern. And it has a matching top, one that I’ve already made several for Cassie, that have all appeared here on my blog before; plus a few for myself that have not yet appeared here on my blog yet! The skirt and top look really nice together, so we’re releasing them at the same time as each other, but they can be bought separately, to add a bit of flexibility and choice to our customers. I’m so excited that they are about to get out into the world, and cannot wait to share more very soon!
Item three; a little mini skirt for winter. This is an old favourite pattern; the Paprika pattern Jade skirt. I think I make one of these every year?! This one has no zip at the back, and this time I fitted it quite carefully to myself first, removing a good two inches of width at the waistband from each side. This means I have to squeeze into it head first, but that’s ok!
I made some pretty new underwear… I bought this super cute Snugglepot and Cuddlepie cotton jersey from Spotlight at the very end of last year. Such a beautiful print, yes? Slice of my childhood, right there, I just could not resist!
While I had the yellow raincoat leftovers from Theo’s raincoat (previous post) I also cut out a 
O hello! I made a new dress… this is a pattern that I’ve had for years, and have only just got around to finally giving it a whirl. It’s the dp studio Le 905, or “dress with sporty details” and it’s pretty fun I think! Quite unique in all its details, and you really don’t see many of them in the sewing community. Since a major reason I sew is to have a unique wardrobe then I further reasoned that it was a good choice.
Oh, one last thing; someone on instagram asked me about the dp studio instructions, and I would have to honestly say they are minimal, at the best! If you have been sewing for a while and do not need exact and unambiguous direction then you’ll be fine. Otherwise, maybe not!
I made a new jacket 🙂
Here’s something I made recently… a rather lovely, if I say so myself – slip dress that I feel is perhaps almost too pretty to even wear!
Anyway, it’s certainly turned out quite lovely in my opinion 🙂 and of course the satin is beautiful to wear; so I’m very happy with this useful edition to my wardrobe. I’ve already worn it a couple of times underneath other things; which feels like a very swish thing to do! I always feel like this when I wear my ivory Ruby slip too…. maybe I should make a few more!
Oh! my #use30 pledge came into play again, hip hip hooray! I managed to polish off another 1.5m with this here lovely bit of frippery; so I’m up to 17m down, and with 13m to go!
