Sewing distractions

I was all set to sew with my Japanese fabric this weekend. In fact, I sewed a practice dress to almost completion during the week. On Saturday, I actually cleared off the entire dining table in order to cut out my fabric somewhere other than the floor. This is a very unusual occurence. I not only cut out the dress, and lining (cotton voile), but marked all the darts with tailor tacks. Then I made gorgeous purple piping from a luscious silk/cotton. I was about to clear the rather large remnants from the table when I thought the remaining fabric pieces were ideally suited to the making of a pursible or two.
I have not made a pursible before, nor do I have a pattern, but I have admired a lot on blogs too numerous to list.
I thought I would make a practice pursible for my niece, who is turning 5 next week.

I was quite happy with it, and put a little something inside for the birthday girl to find when she opens the present. However, then it occurred to me that the fabrics I had used for the pursible had possibilities as a birthday outfit.

That is what happened next. It may be a slightly garish colour combination, even for a 5 year old, but I think she can wear it as separates - I can see that little bishop top with jeans. I added the empire waist sash and keepers as the top looked rather art-smock without it. I have bonus points for using up the very last skerrick of the cherry print (last years pick by the daughters for summer pyjamas)
Finally I returned to the Japanese fabric dress.

I am quite pleased with it so far. However, not finishing either of these dresses has made me realize how much I rely on daughter the first for my sewing. She was out all Sunday, and I felt unable to mark the back zip placement or attempt hems without her. This does not bode well for the future. Maybe I need a duct tape dummy.

Big Plans

My sewing lately has been deadly dull. This is very bad for my mojo. I have made several knit tops, but can hardly be bothered taking photos. My children are requesting summer clothing. They want pyjamas, t shirts and shorts. Dull, dull, dull.
However, my wonderful friend Sharon has come to the rescue.

She has just returned from a trip to Japan and bought me this gorgeous fabric. Do you remember the horrible scratchy green scarves I knit for the dance concert? Probably not, they are better forgotten, but the darstardly non-knitting mothers had to pay costume co-ordinator Sharon a small fee for the knitting. I got this instead of a small fee (Chinese factory workers earn more per hour than slow knitting-for-other- people's- daughters- for- dance-concert mothers). The fabric is much better than a small fee don't you think? Sharon knows me well :). Sharon also bought me some other fabric at my request but this is the best (and a present, so does not count as stash according to my internal accounting system).
I plan to make a simple sheath dress, darts, not princess line to avoid interrupting the pattern. The fabric is beautifully textured cotton. I am currently debating with myself whether or not it should be lined, or left unlined and saved for the hottest days of summer. I admit, the actual sewing and shape of the dress will be dull and undetailed, but the fabric is so fabulous there will not actually be a hint of dullness about the process.
The children will just remain pyjama - less for a few more weeks. There is nothing wrong with wearing their Dad's old t-shirt to bed IMO. No sleepovers until I have finished my dress.

In other non-sewing news, I just recieved this parcel from Michael's. That is real Burberry raincoat fabric, black on the rainproof side, stripey inside. I have a rare attack of brand name smugness. It was $7 US per yard, if I don't factor in the horrible postage (Um that would be another $US5 per yard, still a bargain)(Michael's only charges the actual postage, I love this fabric shop). One day in the far future, it will turn into an almost Burberry trench coat for my husband. The other is a small piece of orange and brown wool tweed that leapt into the box thinking it was for a straight skirt for me next winter. We will see what happens.

Vogue 8096 men's shirt #2

I made this shirt in July. My husband promised (before I handed it over) that he would model it for me, and here he is, half way through a work day. I did point out that the shirt looked much smarter before it had been worn once a week over several months, but he did not seem to care. He also allowed me only two photographs and stipulated that he should be posted headless. This is a long winded apology for my not very good photos - but at least you can see that it sort of fits.

I am not entirely happy with the neck, and may make the next one bigger here, but as he never wears a tie, I will not fuss too much. All the modifications to the current pattern are the same ones I made to his first shirt which I posted about in November 2008. I just looked back at this post, and I said nothing at all useful in it, so here is my review at pattern review.

The fabric is beautiful shirting cotton from Ewan Gardam's. I bought it in January, when they still had a shop in Adelaide St Brisbane. The inside collar stand is a quilting cotton print.

Brisbane retrospective

I am not in chronological order with my posts here, but work is so busy, I have time to sew a little (naturally) but not to take photographs, so I am back to talking about visiting Brisbane.
As I have undoubtedly posted too frequently, I went to a conference there in the middle of the month. Unfortunately, I did not do any fabric shopping. Ewan Gardams in the city has closed (a sharp pang hit me every time I walked down Adelaide St), I did not have time to travel out to Indooropilly, and I was in complete ignorance about a fabulous sounding shop in the Brisbane Arcade that Sue posted about mere days after my visit to the metropolis. Next time....
I did visit Lindcraft in the Queen St Mall Myer Centre, but spent less than ten minutes there. I was in search of printed swimwear lycra, which I had found there in January 2009, but this time there were no lycra prints at all, and the stock generally looked even more tawdry than during my visit earlier in the year. I felt sad about the demise of this shop. It was a mere 10 years ago that I could buy Liberty Tana Lawn there, in fact I still have some from their getting-rid-of-all-the-Liberty-sale (note to self, must sew this up)
However, there was a very interesting exhibit at the Museum of Brisbane. Touted as "For anyone who has ever dressed up for a special occasion"

I enjoyed this exhibition. I especially liked the thoughtful inclusion of a history of Brisbane transport exhibition in the other wing with which to distract my husband. There were some 19th century dresses behind glass - I was surprised by how clumsy and ugly the lace and trim on these dresses appeared. I had always thought lace from this period was very fine and beautifully made.
The most interesting part of this exhibition to me were the formal, fancy dresses worn by noteable women with a real job, such as Quentin Bryce the Governer General and Julia Bligh the QLD Premier. A dress worn by someone who has a serious position to uphold must require considerable designing skill. Juli Gbrac, the winner of Australian Project Runway had designed Mrs Bryce's dress - it looked terrific, with perfectly radiating pintucks as a detail at the hip. Lucky Mrs Bryce is such a slim and elegant lady! This dress was a complete contrast to a frock made for the Brisbane Mayor for a New Year Ball a few years ago - incredibly unflattering, I think the designer must have been a political opponent!

Another vaguely sewing related part of my sojourn in Brisbane was finding this book.

Purely a coffee table book, but such lovely photographs.

Last of all was a little snoop shopping. Unfortunately I was not able to actually enter the shop, but I walked past this dress twice a day in the window of Max Mara. I think one of my summer dresses will be inspired by this one.

McCall's 5039 or The Grass is Always Greener

Last week I made a dress each for my daughters. I used McCall's 5039. This is one of those really annoying patterns that seems to take up an unreasonably large proportion of the McCall's and Simplicity pattern books -"Available in U.S.A. and Canada only". To be fair, these are generally licensed patterns - Hillary McDuff and the like, and this particular one is a Laura Ashley branded pattern. I believe I bought it simply because I could not purchase it locally - and very kind Karla Kizer on pattern review not only offered to send me a Pantone shopping guide after I whined about local unavailability (another company that will only ship to the U.S.A and Canada - nasty North America commercial exclusiveness!) but to visit a Jo Anne's pattern sale on my behalf so as to be economical with shipping (good excuse hey!)(lovely North American kindness)

I am not terribly excited about this exclusive pattern. Frankly it was almost unbearably boring to sew. However, it was super easy, and I managed 2 versions during a work busy work week. The girls each had a new dress to wear on a visit to Noosaville.
The ease was excessive. My daughter's measurements indicate a size 8 on top (both) and a size 10 at the hips (daughter the 2nd) or a size 12 at the hips (daughter the first). Fortunately the finished garment measurements are published on the back of the envelope. Ease for size 8 is 27cm(9.5 inches) at the bust and 17cm (nearly 7 inches)at the hips. I looked at the 13 reviews of this dress on pattern review. 2 reviewers mention that the dress runs large, and one reviewer mentions that the dress has plenty of ease at the hips. None of the photographs looked as if the wearer were swimming in the dress.
Daughter the second (above) is wearing a size 6 version of the dress, one size smaller at the bust, 2 sizes smaller at the hips than the pattern envelope body measurements indicate. I think it is still a fairly loose fit. I did not put in the zip, as she can pull the dress on over her head without difficulty. The fabric is quilting cotton ($22 per m) The trim is offray double sided poly ribbon.

The only other change I made to the pattern was at the neckline casing. This is simply folded over from the front. To give a more even appearance to the gathering, and to prevent rolling to the inside, I topstitch the upper edge of this sort of casing before inserting the elastic. I also fit the elastic to my daughter - I used 10cm less than the pattern called for.
I had pleasant thoughts about making the same size dress for daughter the first - communual tracing! However, when she tried on her sister's dress, it was too short in the bodice. I found this surprizing, as her bust size does not even scare the alphabet at this stage, and in Burda and New Look patterns I make a petite adjustment above the bust for her. However, she required a 1cm increase in the bodice length, so while I was changing things I traced out a straight size 8 for her with this small length change. Her dress is made from 2007 Spotlight light weight cotton,(about $10 per metre) trimmed with polyester offray ribbon, with a machine embroidery stitch added to the ribbon. She did not need the zipper either.

Addition: Gail asked me about boning the BWOF 12-2008-102 dress. I did not look for a tutorial, as following the BWOF instructions to make a bias binding casing then sew the casing to the side seam allowances seemed to work nicely for me (I used bra wire channelling as an end cap). However, Ann at Gorgeous Fabrics posted about boning in her bustier recently, and the Nov 2009 Threads magazine and Australian Stitches (Belville Sassoon dress pattern review) about 2 issues ago both have detailed articles about making a boned foundation to wear under a chiffon evening dress. I read these articles before making my evening dress.

Fabric shopping Sydney #2

I have blogger's block. I have so many things I am waiting to post about, that I don't know where to start. I was planning to present them in some sort of orderly fashion, but this seems to mean I am not posting at all, so I will just throw them out randomly.
Today's post goes back to my Sydney shopping, 2 weeks ago. I left you at the bottom of the stairs outside Greenfields, all my loot safely dispatched to Queensland by courier. I then walked a few blocks to The Fabric Place on Cooper St. I would have been hopelessly lost without my Google maps print out, Surrey Hills is a rabbit warren. I did become a little distracted by Empire Beads.

I do not count beading as one of my hobbies, but my daughters like it intermittently. They have received beading kits a few times as gifts, and one Christmas we made beaded initials as Christmas decorations/gift tags for all our relatives. Lately they have been making stitch markers (for knitting) and selling them on consignment at the local yarn shop. I spent about 3/4 of an hour in here and bought them some beading supplies. (Hopefully I will have some fancy butterfly stitch markers in my Christmas gift....) It has a fabulous selection, and it was very easy to browse and to see everything, although not so easy to make a final selection! (There is also a loo for customer use here inside the shop, very useful, as there seem to be no public loos anywhere else)

After this intermission, I made it to the Fabric Store. This shop was reviewed a few months ago in Australian Stitches, and I was quite excited to see that it was really a branch of Global Fabrics from New Zealand. I have been wildly jealous of New Zealanders for having these shops ever since the 2008 SWAP at Stitcher's Guild, where Heather kept displaying gorgeous garments made from fabulous fabrics she had bought there. At this time they not only did not have an on-line shop, but when I rang them, would not mail order to Australia. (Boo Hiss) I have been seeking out NZ merino knits ever since.


There are lovely, intoxicating fabrics in this shop, but not much else. They have Gutermann thread and Vogue patterns, but no haberdashery or notions that I could see. I was served by a very young lady, who obviously sews, but sounded like a beginner to me. I have no complaints at all about the service, she was very pleasant and as helpful as she could be, but I think her advice would be misleading to someone who had not much sewing experience. The fabrics are labeled with fibre type eg: silk and cotton, with most including relative percentages, but not by type. A chiffon, a charmeuse and a taffeta are all just labelled "100% silk", and the saleslady who served me did not appear to know the difference between fabric types. She lead me to a heavy wool flannel when I asked for tropical weight brown wool for trousers, but quickly found me something else when I asked for a lighter weight.


Here is the sensible, planned section from Global Fabrics, see the merino knits? I will make next to skin layer technical clothes for hiking and camping with most of these. My husband wants some as I rashly said that the Mountain Design versions were rather overpriced for something I could make. The pale pink one is quite an open knit, and I am thinking of a wrap cardigan for next winter. I only bought 1m of each of these, they are really wide. (Oops, 2m of the pink one, it is not so wide). Here also is the fairly light weight brown wool for work trousers, and some cotton shirting fabric for (surprise) work shirts.


Here is the result of fabric intoxication.
Mostly silks, I fell in love with the Lisa Ho reversible brocade on the left that has been nearly entirely chopped out of the picture by blogger, I do not know what I will make from it, or where I will wear it. The others are chiffons, georgettes and charmeuses for fancy blouses and scarves. I will probably pat these a lot before I make anything. There is also some mostly cotton stretch lace, maybe for a fancy t shirt.

I packed all of this into 2x 3kg post bags, and posted them at the Central Train Station postboxes (Friday). They arrived in Queensland on Monday.

Originally, I had planned to visit Tessuti in Surrey Hills, particularly wanting to look at the Japanese pattern books, but by this point I had a) overspent my generous self imposed budget
b) was suffering slightly from fabric overload eyestrain and c) had received a phone call from my husband asking me to meet him for lunch (about 12.30pm by now), so that was the end of purely fabric shopping.
After lunch I visited Photios Brothers near Town Hall station with husband in tow (we walked - that would be the husband influence, I would have caught the train) to look at trims on the advice of Sydneyite Sharon.
It was good advice, this is a very interesting shop, although mostly catering for costumes. I bought some hair ribbon for my daughters and nieces here. I did see some trim in the sample book for my one-day-I-will-get-around-to-it Chanel jacket, but it was not in stock.

Next I was in tow to a couple of cycling shops and a music shop. Then we went to Morris and Sons to inspect the yarns. This shop was very hard to find, despite being on a major street. This is the sign - does that look like Morris and Sons to you? I would have missed it without my prior research and map.

Morris and Sons must be the second class shop here - once you are inside the first floor of the tapestry and craft shop (full of embroidery goods and some framing things), there is a little sign next to the stairs to the dungeon, which actually looks lovely once you are downstairs. The staff here were very knowlegable and helpful, although have obviously been told to push their own Morris and Son branded yarns - made in China from allegedly Australian wool. I think Australian Country Spinners have just been in trouble for this sort of labelling, apparently once the wool is in China for scouring and spinning, there is no track on it, so the "Australian" wool could come from anywhere. I was unpatriotic, and bought Italian lace weight yarn for a shawl, labelled "made from Australian merino" (Do they track the fleeces in Italian mills?) which was the purpose of my visit to this shop.

We also bought sock yarn, knit picks sock needles and a ball of cashmere fingering weight yarn. This was entirely my husband's enabling. He felt that an entire weekend without handwork might be bad for me (or him maybe?), and I had complained that I had already finished the smocking I brought with me on the train trip into the city. (No knitting on Australian aeroplanes - and we only took hand luggage). It had nothing to do with the earlier male expenditure at the cycling shop, but I don't know if he would have thought I needed a present if he had been carrying all my parcels!

Sneak peek

This is such a terrible photo, but I have been posting about this dress so much I did not want to wait another week until I can have my daughter take sewing worthy photographs. A very pleasant muscle physiologist from the UK took the photo in the reception area outside the ballroom, as the venue was darkened, with fairy lights and candles for illumination . The venue looked fabulous, but was not good for photographs. I was really happy with the dress in the end, and did not have to alter it any further. Complete strangers asked me where I bought the dress and a guy who studied at University with me 20 years ago told me I was much better looking than he remembered. I am not sure if this was a compliment or not! I will post more details about the dress later.