Category Archives: Sewing

bunny tails and lots of pink fluff

18/05/2019 8:43 pm \ 11 Comments \

So in a bit of a tangent from wedding sewing; the weather has turned super cold, unseasonably so actually, for this early 🙁 and my old winter pj’s had got drastically thin to the point where I’ve accidentally poked a finger nail through the fabric in several spots lately, ahem.  I was desperate!  Oh, and since I mentioned it? the wedding dress is basically finished!! but obviously I will not be sharing full shots until after the Big Day, though I am sharing a few details here and there over on my instagram account.  And I’ve sort of gone as far as I can on the other wedding sewing duties, for a short while, anyway!

I’d found this adorable bunny print cotton flannelette at Spotlight…  I love their little round bums complete with fluffy cottontails!  And the ones with little pink paw pads are even cuter!  btw I am fully aware that as an Australian I am honour bound to despise rabbits, and on an intellectual level I do, honestly.  But also, look how adorable!

For patterns; I used the eponymous Carolyn Pyjama pattern by Closet Case patterns for the bottoms of course! and for the top I used a plain Burdastyle T-top pattern I’ve used a few times before, Burda 10/2009;121, with minor modifications – story of my sewing life, hehe.

To enhance and pick up the pink of the bunny paws, I found a small scrap of pink jersey in my stash, leftover from this T-shirt I made for Cassie, and cut strips to inset in the joining seam of the top, and then I cut the bottoms off the pj bottoms and inserted a strip in each of the pj legs too.

My old brown bathrobe was also long overdue to be replaced; the kids gave it to me for Mother’s Day about 20 years ago?!!  I’d seen a pink bathrobe advertised in the Spotlight catalogue which looked promising, however when I checked it out it actually wasn’t pink at all, but more of a greyish-mushroom pink.  Quaite hideous and tres disappointing!  As luck would have it though, right beside the offending, not-pink bathrobe was a bin of fluffy throw rugs – oh excuse me, cuddle blankets, and one was the most perfect shade of cherry-blossom pink a girl could hope for.  I was instantly rendered powerless to resist and bought it with rose-covered spectacles and in a loveheart-pink daze.

And so I whipped up my own bathrobe!  I’m so much in love with this, it’s not even funny.  In fact I’m wearing it right this second.  It’s so flooffffy!! and soft, and as light as a pretty pink cloud.  And warm!  I’m super happy with how it turned out.  I made it to have a shawl collar, deep deep patch pockets, and belt loops for the self belt…

… and a hanging loop tucked under the collar facing…

The blanket was already hemmed on all sides when I bought it, obviously; so I resourcefully utilised these hems in the lower edge, the sleeve lower edges, and the tops of the pockets.  The belt is also cut from one long side edge, and I simply folded over the raw edge and zig-zagged it over the ready-finished hem.  Funny thing; the huge loft of this fluffy fabric meant I could hardly see what on earth I was doing while sewing this, seam allowance accuracy?  HA!!!

Also, there was FLUFFF EVERYWHERE; all over the table, the floor and flying up from the sewing machine too… could hardly believe it was producing so much and with still plenty of massive fluffiness remaining, thank goodness!  Of course I was wearing something dark coloured while sewing it.  Murphy’s Law.  I looked like I’d been through the wash with a tissue in my pocket…!

I’m gonna pop some caaaash, only got twenty dollars in ma pocket…

All raw edges for both pj’s and robe are finished inside on the overlocker, and the pink-inset seams are further topstitched down in a sort of faux-flat-felling effect.

Details:

Robe; my own design
Top; Burdastyle 09/2010;121
Bottoms; Closet Case patterns Carolyn pyjamas

Winter?  I am ready!

Oh! almost forgot…. I had a big enough portion of the fluffy blanket leftover to make a new cushion cover too.  Now I just have to keep it safe from The Marauding Doggie; whose favourite evening activity is to select a fluffy cushion and sit sucking and gently kneading it for ages.  This might be a losing battle!

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jasika blazer

02/03/2019 3:44 pm \ 22 Comments \

Remember in my 2018 end of year round-up I mentioned briefly I had made a Big Thing?  Well this is it! A tailored blazer… this is the Jasika blazer, the newest design by Heather of Closet Case patterns.

Well, what a project!  I really really enjoyed making this; sinking my teeth into my most involved and meaty project in ages! since I’d pretty much fallen into the lackadaisical habit of quick and easy “ordinary” things for quite a long time prior.  I was very ready to take on something a bit more contemplative, careful and slow-fashion-y, and this was a really nice thing to ease back into that…  I’m so glad Heather asked me to test for her again!

The Jasika blazer is described as a classic tailored jacket, made utilising modern speed tailoring techniques, with fusible interfacing and minimal hand-stitching, but rest assured, purists!  there is still hand-stitching where it counts!   And I do really appreciate that the process for making this blazer is nicely catering to the modern-day maker that still wants to sew timeless classics for themselves but might be time poor, and so might prefer to do as much by machine as possible.

Materials: I used a length of lovely raspberry-rusty silk/wool tweed given to me by my friend L when she cleaned out her garage, and it was perfect for the job!  I love the luscious colour; I think it’s a good one for my colouring, and of course the texture is totally divine…   I lined with black polyacetate lining fabric, another longterm resident from my stash; and mostly used the tailor-made (ha!) interfacing/notions package that Heather is stocking specifically for this project.  This kit contains fusible woven and knit interfacing, horsehair canvas, padded sleeve heads and shoulder pads and cotton stay tape.  Boy, but this is a really fab little kit too and I SO appreciated this!  It’s not always that easy to get quality tailoring bits and pieces like this in Perth so it was just brilliant to have them at hand, to help me get a really nice finish to my blazer.  Because you really want this to turn out as good as you can get it; a tailored blazer is quite the time-consuming project and it would be nice for the materials to be worthy of your time!

I dithered on whether to use my own label, or the Me-Made from Closet Case patterns.  Cassie said why not use both, why not indeed…

I honestly can’t remember now whether I bought the perfectly matching button from Fabulous Fabrics or from Spotlight now.  I scouted through both shops, and bought candidates from both shops too! so much agonising!… and now its provenance is lost in the hazy mists of time…  I did really take my time with the buttonhole though, and made a mini double welt one, so as to match those pockets.

Oh! Pockets… I LOVE all the pockets in this blazer!  I jammed every single one of them into my blazer, in order to test all the pocket options for the pattern of course!  Not that I’m a complete pocket-whore or anything, o no!   There are three; a single welt breast pocket, a double welt hip pocket, and a double welt with flap hip pocket.  I’m actually toying with the idea of opening out the lining and adding an extra, internal welt pocket to the inside of the jacket too… but that will have to wait until I get a few more, ahem VIP’s; and by that I mean Very Important Projects, out of the way! #drowninginweddingsewing

We’re not supposed to reveal a project before the pattern’s been released, which is sometimes so hard to do…  I did however sneakily wear the blazer out for real, once, one coolish day (below).  Fortunately for me, it’s been quite summer-y and not conducive to blazer wearing, and I felt sorry for all the northern hemisphere testers  who have no doubt been dying to wear their splendid new blazers!  The pattern has been released just at the right time for us in the southern hemisphere, yay…  how often does that happen? not very often!  Though, it was 35C when I was taking all these photos… my husband thought I was bonkers putting on tights, boots, woolly top and blazer in this heat.  I was like, but it’s a winter thing, I have to look the part, even if I’m legit dying! Aah, the things we do…

Not only did I thoroughly enjoy making my new blazer, I’m really quite proud of how it turned out, and am very much going to enjoy wearing it too.  I might even be… dare I say it?  looking forward to winter??  Going too far??  maybe!!

    

Details:

Blazer; the Jasika blazer, Closet Case patterns, raspberry/rust will/wool tweed
Skirt; Vogue 1247, purple denim dyed brown, details here
Top; modified Nettie, Closet Case patterns, ivory wool/mix, details here
Boots; Roberto del Carlo, from Zomp boutique

White dress; the Inari by Named patterns, in white ultra-bobbly stuff, details here
Caramel leather sandals, from an op shop years ago

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a celestial dress, and some other things

26/01/2019 4:42 pm \ 7 Comments \

So, I made a dress… or something?!  I’m not 100% sure about this one.  Is it a dress? or a nightie? or maybe a choirboy/celestial angel robe?  The jury is out!

One thing I am sure of is that it’s delightfully floaty and breezy to wear.  And very comfortable.  Another thing I’m sure of is that on its own it’s scandalously see-through… ! so if I’m going to wear it out of the house it requires at least a petticoat or something.  Fortunately, I made a beautiful Ruby slip once upon a time, a few years ago, from ivory crepe.  I actually wear this slip TONNES, and once again it’s come to my rescue.  Thank you Ruby slip!  maybe I should make some sisters for you!  Take the pressure off!

The pattern I used for the new dress is dress R from the Stylish Dress Book by Yoshiko Tsukiori, and the fabric is a lovely ivory/cream coloured micro-pleated silky stuff from Fabulous Fabrics.  For the yoke, which needs to be more stable and “solid”, I used a small scrap of old jeans, leftovers from the small stack that have previously been harvested to produce this dress and these jeans too.  To keep up with the recycled jeans vibe, I added double rows of topstitching to all the joins etc, using the same coppery-brown Guttermann’s upholstery thread that I’ve used on previous jeans like my beloved Morgan boyfriends.  The yoke lining is the striped shirting cotton that I used for Sandi’s Perth blouse and for Ms Summer’s summer frock.

I’m also wearing with it my matching denim shoes, also made from old jeans #oldjeansfanfromwayback

oh hey gorgeous girl!

I actually had quite a bit of leftover of the pleated silky stuff, so at the same time I traced out the size 8 of the same pattern and whipped up a quick top for Cassie too.

looks a bit small here but it’s far more oversized on my petite little daughter

Actually, this top started out as a dress too, but surprisingly she wasn’t into it as a dress.  I’d gone to great lengths to find a piece of matching cream-coloured fabric for the yoke for hers, and was very pleased to unearth an old cushion cover of a really nice cream coloured cotton damask from my stash.  Normally, Cassie prefers, nay demands! cream- or ivory-coloured tops, so I was a little nonplussed when she suggested the yoke be dyed!  Who is this person and what have you done with my daughter?!  However I could appreciate that the all cream number as a dress was a little, um choirboy, thus the snap decision to lop off the bottom to make it a top.  Fortunately she was satisfied!

 

Soooo, what else have I been up to?  Well, my friend L had requested that I whip up a simple little dress for her, a replica and replacement for a favourite that had worn out.  She bought the green floral from Fabulous fabric, and I found some black silk for the tie.  I really enjoyed making this for her, though the silk I used for the tie was, no joke, the worst stuff I’ve dealt with for a looooong time.  It was so hideously fray-tastic, and just that little bit too grippy to slide right side out very easily.  It took me almost as much time to turn out the tie as it did to draft the dress pattern and make it up!  Exaggerating?  not by much!

I don’t have a picture of her wearing it, but she did have it on for one of our recent morning teas and she looked gorgeous!

again, looks way better on L…

What else have I been up to??

Well, I’ve been wanting to do this for a while…. my pale grey Acton dress has been worn a lot, but I’d been starting to eye it lately with a jaded, “meh” eye.  SO I took the plunge.  Or, I should say, my dress did.  In to the dye-pot it goes!  Et voila!!  Now I’m newly enamoured with it all over again!  It’s just like having a new dress!!  It’s interesting to me how the different components either took or didn’t take, the dye… For instance, the linen shell of course took up the dye superbly, but the grosgrain ribbon shoulder straps did not.   The zip pull even took on a shade of pink, but the zip itself; well, zip.  The body part of the lining dyed up very intensely, but the bodice part did not!

who is that short-haired doggie?!!   she loves her new summer ‘do!!

Is that all?  Finally, I believe it is!

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unicorn

15/01/2019 11:32 pm \ 10 Comments \

So I’m knee deep in wedding-dress biz, which I LOVE, of course! but I took a little time out just to make something fripperous and frivolous and quick and easy, just for me.  Think of this as like a tiny serve of sorbet in the middle of a lengthy degustation…

Cassie bought this adorable rainbow unicorn printed cotton canvas from Spotlight for me for my birthday last year, and there was just just enough to squeak out a cute and totally age-appropriate little skirt, yay!!

I adapted Vogue 8363, an old favourite that comes with great pockets…  I didn’t have enough fabric for the pockets so I cut those pieces from a small piece of white cotton canvas from le stash.  Basically the pockets are this pattern’s saving grace for me since I rarely make use of any other of its features.  In fact, now I’m wondering, have I ever used any of the views in the pattern in the purest sense even once?? and I think maybe NO!  I’ve always tended to make a sort of cobbled together version that incorporates various bits of several views.  I like for mine to have; a) those fab deep pockets, b) a one piece front, and c) to open with an invisible zip along a centre back seam… and this skirt pattern allows for all of these things, with a bit of swift and sneaky pattern piece finagling.

Lining; normally I probably wouldn’t line a summer skirt, but in this case while I was trying it on in the process of making it I discovered the wrong side of the fabric had an almost indiscernible rough texture that somehow caused the skirt to stick to my undies and ride up slightly … yes! very VERY weird!  So I decided to line, and super-luckily I had the perfectly sized piece of mint-green lining in my stash already, inherited from my grandmother’s stash  …  my tips on making a lining for a skirt here

  I agonised over what button to use! this one seemed cheerful and not twee

Oh, and I made a new little T-shirt too.  I’d seen this rather gorgeous apricot-y pink, slubby cotton jersey in Spotlight too, seen it on several occasions actually and staunchly resisted it because… well because I have a rather, shall we say, substantial stash already?!  But it was soooo pretty!  and well one day they happened to have a cheap remnant sitting there, cut for another customer who changed her mind…  so in a weak-willed moment I snaffled it up!  Ooo so naughty.  But it was just such a pretty colour!  I assuaged the guilt by cutting and making it up immediately.

The pattern; my own, if you can give such a grand title as “pattern” to cutting out a few vaguely T-shirt-shaped pieces and bunging them together. I very much like the high boxy collar and the slightly curved hemline.

 

Now it’s back to the wedding dress!!  I’m posting progress shots in my stories on instagram, if anyone would like to follow along… 🙂

Details:

T-shirt; self-drafted, pink cotton jersey
Skirt; adapted from Vogue 8363, cotton drill
Sandals (above); ariel, from an op shop years ago
Thongs (below); fipper, bought in Bali on our holiday

When one wears one’s sparkly rainbow unicorn skirt, then obviously one must go for an elegant and graceful unicornly leap over some puffy cottonball clouds… 😉

So, if I am taking my own picture using my remote control and the timer I can time my jumps to the shutter click perfectly! I’ve got the whole process down to a fine art!  However, when I ask Craig to take the picture, this happens…

faaaaaail!!

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the A-line Perth dress; a short tutorial

08/01/2019 2:04 pm \ 4 Comments \

Perth dress/blouse

So, I popped on my original Perth dress today and I realised this post is way overdue and I’ve been owing it for some time… I’m sorry for being so slack!

I have to admit that a reasonable number of the requests/comments I have received vis-a-vis our Perth dress pattern is that people like my “bouffy” brown prototype, above; and wish to know exactly how this one was made as opposed to the more streamlined final pattern version … I’ve generally taken to just describing it on a request-by-request basis since it’s really quite a simple modification ; but obviously a visual is preferable.

  1. basically; you take the lowest point of the side seam of both front and back, and pivot it out from the armhole point, adding 8.5cm (3 1/4″) to width at the lowest point.  Keep the pocket markings in the same place.

not to scale

2. the other thing about the prototype is that the collar is a little smaller, which I think visually is a good balance against the much more flared-out “skirt” part of the design.  In the final version of the pattern, I thought a more dramatically pointed collar was a better look with the more streamlined silhouette.  Collar stand stays the same.

again, zero scale considerations, sorry.  About 1.2cm (1/2″) is taken off the collar point itself and the difference tapered off to meet up with the seams on each side…

3. finally, I decided to tame some of the bouffe in back by extending the box pleat down from the yoke and top-stitching it down at about my waist level.

All of these modifications are, of course, optional and open to even further alteration if desired.  I love it when I see people adapting the design and making it their own! For example, just recently I saw @thesewingsociety had adapted the collar to be a club collar, which is super cute, oui?!

Anyway, I’d like to thank everyone who asked! I hope this helps a little, and maybe also gives everyone a few ideas for making a different version of the Perth for themselves!

It’s funny; because I personally didn’t like the brown version so much at first, thinking it just WAY too voluminous, to a fault; its only saving grace to me was the top half/neckline which of course I preserved exactly in my pattern.  However over time my brown version has very much wormed its way into my heart after all.  Yes, it is voluminous, but lots of volume in a summer dress has a certain charm of its own which I really really appreciate in very hot weather.  I like being able to “flap” my dress about to create a bit of a cooling airflow as I’m walking.  And of course the covered-up-edness of the top half is great for our full-on sun, meaning less of a need to slather on the suncream and less chance of getting sunburnt too.  In short, I’m really appreciating all my Perth dresses all over again!

the full bouffe!

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2018; a retrospective

31/12/2018 8:38 pm \ 27 Comments \

Ah, it’s the 31st December, when I look back over of my year of making and wearing and do a little analysis… to kick off, some of my favourite pictures/outfits, one for each month.  Several of these pictures are not even “blog pictures”; by that I mean have never appeared on my blog, but may just be an outfit or picture that I particularly liked, or may be because of a particularly lovely memory of that day or something…

January

just a particularly gorgeous day and in my happy place…

February

… because I love this outfit so much

March

…the prototype of my first sewing pattern!

April

… the day of Tim and Kelly’s engagement party which is pretty special I think; so I made a special skirt just for the occasion

May

… in Bali for our friends L + L’s wedding; so much fun!

June

… just because of this gorgeous cockatoo fabric! unfortunately also the day my trusty old camera nosedived into the sand and died, and the beginning of several months of annoying “photo improv”

July

… made a raincoat to commemorate the wettest year we’ve had for like 50 years, or thereabouts…

August

… just had a really nice hike, that’s all….

September

… love first “bare leg” day of the season…

October

… luscious lace, and cheers to a lush, rain-engorged garden…

November

…  our daily constitutional…

December

… my most recent creation!  Thoroughly enjoyed this, and the whole fun experience has sewn some fertile seeds for a new project I’m dreaming of for next year  🙂

What did I make?

So, it’s funny; this year I didn’t feel so productive and could have sworn I didn’t make as much as previous years, and yet when I added it up I made 77 things, including 22 items for others, 2 prs of shoes, and our 2 sewing patterns.  Surprised! and even a little embarrassed?  This is on a par with last years’ production levels, though to be sure some items this year were definitely on the quick and easy side.  Breaking it down: 13 tops/shirts/blouses, 6 skirts, 4 prs jeans/trousers, 9 prs sockettes, 2 prs tights, 2 prs shoes, 6 hats, 1 baby romper, 12 dresses + 2 wedding dress muslins, 3 coats, 1 jumpsuit, 3 sets of lingerie, 2 knitted cardigans/jumpers, 5 bags, and 4 dolls complete with wardrobes.  I know, right?!     In fact, now I think about it, I actually made 3 further items over and above than this, but those things have not yet been blogged since they are all patterns still in the testing phase and I’ve been sworn to secrecy until their release. One of them is a Pretty BIG Thing, though.

This year I also started making our soap, and think I’ve made enough for several years’ supply already, lol.  Luckily, we really like using it, and I also gave several bars away during the year, as little gifts for friends and family too.

What did I wear?

I still keep my OOTD blog up to date and tally up the things I wore and frequency thereof.  Documenting one’s outfits is a pretty obsessive thing to do, I realise that, but I still really like doing it.  The clothes I wore the most frequently this year can be summed up in the following:

This collage comprises more outfits than I’ve posted in previous years for this category, but I have an explanation: keeping an outfit tally has opened my eyes to the fact that I tend to favour certain wardrobe items and ignore others… and I’ve been making an effort to “spread the love” around my wardrobe more.  This might seem like an artificial thing to do, like why force yourself to wear something you don’t love as much as another thing? Why not just wear the things you love the most?  But I’ve found that wearing something breeds a love for it, so pulling out not-quite-so-loved things, experimenting with them and finding outfits in which they can shine; is a means to the end of loving them more, thus loving ALL your self-made clothes, MORE; and so getting more wear out of everything.  I loathe waste, and particularly waste in clothing, so I don’t want for things I’ve spent care and energy making to be unworn and tossed out before their time.  So, I wear them.  Make sense?  Well, I know what I mean, anyway.

Apart from various shoes/boots and my self-made black tights, all of which are always worn the absolute MOST in my wardrobe; the most frequently worn item this year was my new mustard raincoat with a total of 31 wears, closely followed by my grey Sasha trousers at 30 wears, my trusty little paprika cardigan at 22 wears, and my pink Kelly raincoat and scarlet Miette cardigan both at 19 wears each…

Favourite creations?

Oooh, this one is always so tough… I mean, how does one choose one’s favourite child?? of course it is impossible.  Having said that though, I think my favourite creation(s) for the year are something a little bit different; our sewing patterns!  Because, yes; of course, during the year Cassie and I released two sewing patterns; our Perth dress/blouse, and our Kimberley rag doll.  The response has been fantastic, for which I am so SO grateful.  We’re fully immersed in plans for TWO more patterns too!  It’s a LOT of work producing a pattern, and I’m eternally thankful to everyone who did support us in this new endeavour this year.  MWAH! to all of you.  Thank you xxx

   

As far as favourite made clothes;  well, if I really did have to pick… it’s nothing special, far from it! but I really enjoyed making, and I really love wearing my “piñata” outfit!  A little bit weird, all very spontaneous, the fabric was such an impulse buy, and I ran it up on my dinky, clunky, plastic-ky little holiday sewing machine, in our holiday house with the bare minimum of sewing supplies.   Maybe all that “wrongness” is what combined to give it a paradoxical rightness … and I have a soft spot for those orange pompoms too!

I also really really love my cockatoo outfit and also my floral trench coat…  I must be having a colourful moment?!

What are my plans for 2019?

So, BIG THING….  the first part of this year I will be making Kelly’s wedding dress! yes that’s pretty huge.  I’ve made two muslins so far… the second one is nearly perfect so with only one tiny adjustment and one further fitting, I hope to actually cut into the real fabric early in the New Year.  Scary!!

muslin number 1

muslin number 2

I am also beholden to make two bridesmaids’ dresses; one for Cassie, and one for her’s and Kelly’s mutual friend G.  I’m going to tackle those after I’ve got the bare bones of the wedding dress all done and dusted though.

For myself, well of course I want to make a mother of the groom outfit for myself!  Yup, pretty excited for that too!!  I know exactly what I want, I have my pattern all ready and lined up, and I just need to find the perfect fabric.

In other, more ordinary, sewing plans; the smalls drawer! I did not make much this year and now find myself in need, so there will be more lingerie this year.  I am also in a very sad sock situation at the moment, my old socks are all darned and darned and even then darned some more.  So my plan is to knit 1 new pair of socks per month.  A dozen pairs of socks!

And, yes, I have plans for two new patterns this year.  The groundwork has been laid, and I just need to get in and on it; and tidy a few things up.  Well, there’s a LOT to be done, to be honest, I only hope I can get enough time together to do all this… obviously the wedding dress is my number one priority.  🙂

Anything else?

Well, finally and of course most importantly of all, I just want to say THANK YOU! to everyone who reads my blog and who takes the time to leave a comment, I am so grateful for each and every kind thought.  Thank you all so very much, and I’d like to wish all the best to everyone for a safe, happy, peaceful and wildly creative 2019!  Mwah!  xxx

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rope market bag

27/12/2018 2:41 pm \ 7 Comments \

< So this is embarrassing… I made this bag in October… last year!  It has sat up in my laundry, only awaiting the handles; and the following draft post has been sitting forlornly in my drafts folder ALL THAT TIME.  But no more!  I finished the handles last month, polished up the draft post and just bunged in some pictures and bammo…  DONE!  Finally! >

hehe, anyone who knows me knows that I don’t make bags very often… it’s the one luxury I BUY! but I saw this tutorial by Amy over at Heather’s blog Closet Case patterns and just thought it was super chic and cute!! Coincidentally, when I pinned it I found that a few years previously I had also pinned a similar tutorial written by Erica over at honestlywtf.com! Guess it was a sign… for me to get on and DO it!

 

I’ve been carrying my shopping in generic carry bags rather than plastic shopping bags even before the placky-bag bag came in, because I’m such a bag snob, hehe, and while I do have a quite a lot of perfectly serviceable plain ones stashed in the boot of my car I decided I wanted a nicer one for when I wanted to look more classy-like in the supermarket.  Probably just because I wanted to give this awesome tutorial a go more than anything else, to be honest…

I bought 3 bundles of this cotton rope/cord from Bunnings and just had at it… my first fold is 20cm, and I started sloping the sides after just 10 rounds, because I wanted my bag to be wide, but flattish.  The longer your first fold, the wider the bag, widthwise, and the more rounds you stitch before sloping the sides up, the “fatter” your bag will be.  My bag itself is two whole bundles of 25m, and then I decided I wanted leather handles rather than rope ones…. I had a small scrap of deep chocolate brown leather from when my friend V was cleaning out her stash.  I punched the holes for the stitching using the leather tool I bought from Skinhuset in Copenhagen during our visit there a few years ago, and handstitched using a leather needle and deep chocolate brown Gutermann’s upholstery thread.

 

I also wanted some little internal pockets inside the bag; one side has a zipped one for keys and the other has an open,  more accessible one for my phone… these are made from a stiff, cream-coloured cotton broadcloth, actually the same stuff I used to make my rag-doll Sally… and I just zig-zagged them down inside the bag.  Because there’s all the mad crazy zig-zagging going on on the outside of the bag already, you don’t really notice a little bit of extra zig-zagging for the pocket attachments.  The perfectly matching “rustic” chocolate-brown zip came from an old pair of jeans that I previously cut up for another project…

so that’s it!  I really really love it, and think it will come in handy not just for shopping, but just for anything and everything, really.  So far I’ve used it precisely once, when I took it to my local Australian Sewing Guild meeting, to hold my sewing stuff.  It worked!

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the bumper Christmas edition

26/12/2018 3:19 pm \ 10 Comments \

So, every Christmas I like to make a small mountain of stuff for my loved ones; this year was a smaller mountain than previously, mostly because I embarked upon a sorta epic making-adventure of a more selfish variety, ahem … but more about that particular project in a future post!  But I did still manage to make some bits and pieces for others!  btw, I was too busy to take any photos on the day, woops!  but I’m hoping to get some modelled shots here sometime soon  🙂

Items 1-5; it’s always difficult to think of something for the boys, something “useful”, because boys are never just about the pretty things like girls are. Also, because I actually prefer practical and useful myself too, always.  I recently discovered elbe sewing patterns through instagram, and noticed that she had very kindly made a free pattern available; the Sorrento bucket hat.  Freeeee!  So generous! and I thought it would be fabulous for my guys who do wear hats all the time. Craig, for one, who has been wearing the same sad shabby hat for about a decade now, ahem. Yes, since I make stuff it has indeed been a point of embarrassment, hehe  ;D  A hat also seemed like the perfect gift for Cassie’s man D, notoriously difficult to buy/make for.  He loves fishing with a passion and was apparently in need of a new fishing hat, according to Cassie.  Great timing!

Tim’s hat

I had to measure everyone’s heads… awkward! but well, I guess everyone’s used to my strange stealth-measuring attacks by now!  Cassie helped me out by stealth-measuring D’s head… she said she did it while he was sleeping which made me laugh to imagine that!  Fortunately he says it fits him perfectly!

D’s hat…

The boys’ hats are all made from Spotlight’s cotton drill, it’s hard to find fabrics that are both masculine and interesting, but luckily Spotlight currently has these camouflage prints in a wide range of colours. SO AMAZINGLY LUCKY!!!

Craig’s hat…

I opted to interface the brims with medium weight fusible interfacing, and they are all fully lined; Cassie’s with a stiff white cotton, the drills I used for Craig’s and Tim’s both have an olive-ish cast to them so I used an olive poplin from my stash for them, and Sam’s and D’s are both more blue-ish so for them I cut up the trouser legs off an old pair of Sam’s navy blue work trousers.  It was exactly the right shade of navy blue, and also a really nice weight for lining a hat.

Sam’s hat…

And I found this old label in my notions basket! the very last one! leftover from when I used to sew their names in their school uniforms! I had a little giggle putting this in, and Sam too when he saw it in there on Christmas morning.

Cassie’s hat…

I also made one for Cassie using some of the leftover fabric from her Christmas dress for this year…  more on that later!  Cassie’s floral linen is very lightweight compared to the cotton drill that I used for the boys’ hats, so I fully interfaced all the pieces in this one, including the lining, with medium weight fusible interfacing.

This is a free pattern so obviously you can’t complain, and I’m not! because this is a fantastic little pattern! However one thing I want to note for if I ever use this the future… the pattern specifies 30cm for fabric and 30cm for lining. Yes, this is technically correct; but personally I prefer for the brim lining of a hat to be of the same fabric as the shell, because you can see it while you’re wearing it. So if you’re cutting out all 4 brim pieces from the outer fabric, 30cm is enough, but just barely! and only if you throw all grainline specs out the window and are super vigilant about miserly pattern placement! I did make sure to cut the band pieces on grain though, I think you have to for the hat to look nice.  If you want to cut the brim plus brim lining pieces all on grain then you’d need at least 40cm, or 50cm to be safe

I made all my paper pattern pieces full size, which I HIGHLY recommend; because when you are cutting out fiddly little pieces like these on the fold, and in multiples; then they rarely come out identical to each other.

Best thing; everyone seemed to love their hats! I might even get around to making one for myself one day 🙂

Items; 6-7; I was going to make hats for Tim’s fiance Kelly and for Sam’s lady L too, but when it came time for choosing prints for them, well I chickened out!  There were loads of gorgeous prints in Spotlight, pretty, feminine and cute and probably lots that they’d love, but well, you know, choosing a print for another girl is quite a personal thing, and I was nervous they wouldn’t like my choice. Eventually I hit on the idea of making a reusable shopping bag for them.  Yes, these are in a print too, that I chose, but a bag is definitely “safer”!

During the last year, it became illegal for supermarkets here to give out single-use shopping bags, and now everyone has to remember to take their own shopping bags for their groceries… of course there are lots of branded reusable shopping bags you can get but everyone likes a cute one to hang up in their kitchen, yes? Kelly and Tim have recently done up their kitchen and btw, it looks AMAZING!!! it’s all dramatically jarrah, black/white, stainless steel, and grey blue; and they also have a lot of indoor plants there. So I chose the above fabric for Kelly’s.

For L; well she loves baking, and she loves cute stuff, so when I saw this bright and fun doughnut print I knew instantly it was perfect for her!  

I made my own pattern, based upon the measurements of the little bag holders in Coles checkout stations. My own experience is that the stitched-on-strap style of handle is a weak point in shopping bags, the first thing to go; so I designed the bags to have cut on handles, and to be reinforced with a facing.  It is a bit of a fabric hog to cut it out like this, but I’m thinking it will prove to be a much stronger and robust design than separately cut and stitched on straps. 

  I found some pieces of stiff plastic film to line the bottoms of the bags, and for the groceries to sit on.

Item 8; Cassie specifically requested that I make a dress for her this year, and we went to Fabulous Fabrics together to look at fabrics. They had this divine pink hydrangea print in a cotton sateen, and Cassie wistfully fingered it and mentioned she would love this if it was in linen. We looked at a few other prints and she pointed out a few others, which I tucked away in my head for the future, mwahaha. But just imagine my joy when I went back in to actually buy something for her, and saw they had actually JUST got the hydrangea print in, IN LINEN! PERFECTO!

For the patten, I cut up an old favourite little tunic dress, that she had discarded a long time ago; it is a simple but very pretty little T-shirt style, with a high rounded neckline finished with bias binding, raglan sleeves folded up at the hem, and a centre back zip, and I always thought she looked gorgeous in it. The new dress did seem a tad short when I’d finished it, but otherwise I was very pleased with it. Then she tried it on on Christmas morning, and it was Super Short!  Turns out 26yr old Cassie likes to wear her dresses a little longer than 18 yr old Cassie did, haha. who knew?!  😉  Anyway, fortunately I had extra fabric, even after making her matching bucket hat, so I extended it with an extra piece attached underneath the hemline. This is a technique I’ve used on several of my own dresses in the past, I do think it makes for an interesting hemline detail, even if you don’t need to add length.  To make it look more like “intentional design detail” rather than “whoops, need to add length because it’s scandalously SHORT” I folded and stitched a series of tucks, and love how this looks!  A hidden bonus is that this adds some weight to the hemline… and I think linen dresses can often benefit from a little extra weightiness at the bottom.

Items 9-2000, might be overshooting the mark but just roughly guess-timating there; so I also like to make something both useful and fun for my extended family members, and this usually ends up being an edible something … this year it was gingerbread pussycats! So of course we have our own three darling little fluffykins, and I hit on the bright idea of icing the gingerbread puddycats to symbolise The Girls.

I’d made huge batches so this took quite a long time, but turned out pretty cute I think! The kids were tickled pink!

My recipe is adapted from a free recipe from Taste.com, and my own lemon icing is a sort of hybrid royal icing/ regular icing. Sophie has green eyes, so I painstakingly picked out the green cachous from a multicoloured jar. I couldn’t get black food colouring! so settled for dark purple-y/blue for Sophie, and sky blue for Zoe, who is a greyish blue point with blue eyes. Zoe was by far the fiddliest pussy cat to recreate!

Mischka is a mischievous fuzzy wuzzy ginger striped pussy with amber eyes, so I tried to capture her cute and perky nature with a riotous striped icing.

It’s funny; everyone immediately said, “but what about Clara?” and there were lots of jokes as to why she was excluded from the fun but of course the real answer is perfectly simple… I don’t have a dog-shaped cookie cutter! Maybe next time, haha.

I buy these airtight thingies to give them away in,  see, practical and useful are my middle names!  Each one perfectly fitted 16 gingerpussies.

So, I blog very very rarely about the meals I make; but this year Craig and I decided to cater for the entire extended family lunch, which is a BIG undertaking. We ambitiously planned for a rather (for us) long and involved menu and I’m so proud of us for pulling it off that I thought I’d share … we made all the various dressings and everything!

the makings of maple carrots…

pumpkin and couscous salad…

German-style potato salad…

BBQ asparagus, zucchini and snow pea salad…

veggie rosti with smoked trout; we doubled this recipe and made one with the smoked trout and the second one with smoked salmon

peach and raspberry trifle…

and cherry and nougat semifreddo

the recipes are all from the free Coles cooking magazine that they put out every month. Fair dinkum, this is hands down my favourite source of recipes at the moment… I love it!  We also had a ham that I forgot to take a picture of, and Vintage Cellars had high-end champagne going for half price so I bought a dozen of these… honesty, it all felt very special and went so well, we had such fun, and we were so chuffed everybody at our party had such a gorgeously happy day too!

So that was Christmas this year!! it felt rather epic and stressful all month leading up to it, but now it’s the morning after, and I’m feeling peaceful and relaxed with a happy post-party glow, the house is clean and back to normal; and most of all I am SO GLAD that I did go to the effort of making as lovely a day as I could for all my amazing family. It’s always SO worth it 🙂  Until next time!

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