Still here

I have not been posting. I have not been sewing. My cushion covers have not killed my mojo - thanks Elizabeth and Claudine for the warnings, but I cannot sew anything else whilst they are still looking at me.
Instead I have done some knitting. Here is my younger daughter in the jumper I just finished for her brother. She is 5 years older and 8 sizes bigger than her brother. My swatch lied. Please admire my daughter's dedication in modelling for me. She is wearing jeans and a jumper in high summer, just like a real model has to. I said if she would do this for me I would give her the jumper instead of putting it away for 5 years in the hope that her brother would grow into it.
She was conned by this, but then would not smile until I told her corny jokes. "Real models don't smile mum, don't you know that!!!!"

 

Here is my next knitting project. I am really excited by this one, the yarn is so luxurious and the pattern so arty. I am making the origami jacket from Jo Sharp Knit 7.

 

There are some really boring sewing projects on the horizon. I need to make a school shirt and a school tie from this primary school dress. The hideously expensive school uniform shop does not have any shirts in my son's size at the moment, and I am not inclined to pay $15 for a school tie.

 

However, the overwhelming reason for not sewing is this.

 

My husband and I are tiling a 33m2 shop floor. More about why later!

Thank you

Thank you for the lovely comments regarding the sewing tools my husband made for me, I made him read them, and he was suitably gratified, although he did say "Do people read your blog? I thought it was a sewing journal"
He lost some brownie points for that one. Fortunately he has a lot already stored up for making me such nice presents. I love hand made gifts.
I will show him this
I am feeling particularly uncreative recently (sorry for no posts, not even finished object posts), so it was lovely of Liana and Claudine to send me this. I am honoured that such accomplished people read my sewing journal.
I read a lot of sewing blogs. I have 80 or so on my bloglines account. I like all of them, so will not pass on an award to a mere 7, although I think nearly all of them have this pat on the back already. Instead I will update my blog roll, which I have been meaning to do for some time now, and resolve to be less lazy about comments. Do not hold your breath though, my children go back to school tomorrow, and I really deserve a bad mother award. I bribed my older daughter to cover my son's school books, (she is a very useful girl) and he is still missing a new school uniform shirt in which to start Grade 1. Fortunately my friend with 4 boys(at the same school)gave me a box of hand me downs last week! I have been a bit busy at work lately, and everything else is suffering, particularly sewing. Maybe trying to make chair covers was a fatal mojo mistake.

Hand made sewing tools

Dawn just posted photograhs of some beautiful sewing tools that her Dad made, so I am copying. This clapper and presser board were made for me last February or so by my husband, when I made my first ever tailored jacket.

 

 

Both items are made from Flooded Gum, an Australian hardwood. They are recycled from the verandah of our 1890's Queenslander, which was overdue for repair when we moved into our house 10 years ago. Due to the strong colour of the wood, my husband was a bit concerned that the wood would stain, once he saw me steaming my wool fabric under the clapper, but I have had no problems at all - although I always use a silk organza press cloth under the clapper or over the presser board. My husband has been looking at presser boards on the internet, and thinks mine is a bit vertically challenged, but it works for me and I am very pleased with it. The wood is particularly suitable for a clapper, as it is very dense and heavy, no seam can stand against it!
My husband made me this box for Christmas.

 

It is perfect for my new Christmas Fiskars. The lid is Queensland silky oak, and the outside is rose gum.

 

Simplicity 3877 dress

I finished Simplicity 3877 today. It took a lot longer than I expected, even after all the godets, as I put the zip in very badly on my first attempt, and spent much more time removing, repairing and replacing than I should. Despite this hiccup I am very happy with the dress. It is very comfortable, and I will probably make it again.

 

I will be able to wear this into Autumn. The fabric is a medium - weight cotton from Spotlight. I think I bought it in the June/July school holidays, so will enter the garment in the patternreview Stash contest, to add my mite to the total amount sewn.

More Fabric, and the unbalanced stash

Belinda AKA sew-4-fun wrote an interesting post about her sewing goals yesterday, which included plans to buy the sort of fabric that she sews (please excuse my paraphrase). My feeling whilst reading her post was that my stash is probably more unbalanced than hers! I keep buying winter fabric, as I like them, but what I mostly make are summer type clothes, as, it is nearly always hot in Queensland.
Just to add to this issue, I received a lovely parcel today from Michael's Fabrics. I bought these in a 50% off sale (still ongoing),which, even with the woes of the exchange rate, neutralizes the awful postage from the USA. Included are 2 cotton shirtings (1 for me, 1 for DH), suitable for our climate, one linen plaid, which although suitable for the climate is unsuitably and unexpectedly large in scale,as well as an uneven plaid, so will not be turning into this
anytime soon, despite my original plan. The unbalancing act are the two lovely wool fabrics that I bought in order to make work trousers. The taupe is possibly lightweight enough to be 3 season trousers, but the fabulous herringbone sort of fabric will only be worn for about 6 weeks per year. Really I should stay away from midweight and heavy wool, despite my fondness for the fabric.

 

I did not sew today (yet) but my Simplicity 3877 dress has progressed well - only the hem left, then photographs. I should have bought 6.5 metres of cotton from Michael's for the next version.

Fabric score

Sue kindly asked me to post about my fabric shopping during my dash to Brisbane,(twist my arm :) ). I do not have any secret and previously unknown-to-me shops to divulge,as I had to squeeze my shopping in between dull work activities, but here it is!
I love the parcels that Gardams make up. It is quite exciting to unwrap them once you get home.

 

I bought 3m of a cotton shirting in a subtle green and black on white print in order to make my DH (and perhaps my son) a shirt. My DH's hints about his next shirt are becoming quite frequent. The other fabric is a 100% cotton sateen in a creamy/beige colour, I bought 2m to make a work shirt for myself. Both fabrics cost $18.99 per metre. This year I will write down all my fabric purchases, for interest and investigation only, as unlike many sewing bloggers, I do not think I buy too much fabric, but it still seems to be accumulating, so maybe I do buy too much.

 

The other fabric I bought is from loathsome Lindcraft in the city. The poor overworked shop assistant in the home dec department was extremely helpful and pleasant, which is a nice change. This is a polyester upholstery fabric in a sort of purplish tweed. I bought 6m of this at $14.95per metre (on sale) in order to make new chair covers. I dislike home dec sewing, but was unable to make myself buy new chair covers, as the fabric, thread and zippers for 2 chair covers and footstools costs less than one finished, badly made cover, so in my strange internal accounting system, the shirt fabric above is completely free, (once I make the covers).

 

The other horrible news I discovered is that Gardams on Adelaide St is closing in March at the end of their lease. I was very sad to hear this. Apparently the shop closure is not due to decreasing sales - the lady at the counter told me fabric sales are the best they have been for years (yay!) but to a huge rent increase. There will be another city shop, much smaller, and the Indooropilly shop will increase in size. This does not help me, as I have never managed to go to Indooropilly, so I really hope the new city shop is as easy to get to as Adelaide St.

Short term plans

I am thinking about my sewing goals for this year, as I am enjoying reading everyone elses, but like Josieloves2sew
I am waiting until my bloggiversary.
In the short term, I have a lot of plans, but life in the school holidays whilst I am still working a bit is a little unpredictable. Today, I virtuously made shorts from old jeans for children, did some mending (see my halo) then felt no guilt at all at spending the rest of the day working on Simplicity 3877 for me, despite it gobbling up 6 metres of fabric.
Photo from Simplicity patterns
This pattern has been reviewed 14 times on pattern review, and I have read them all. My favourite thing so far is the multiple bodice pieces for different cup sizes. The bliss of not doing a FBA is still making me happy. I made a toile of the bodice, in a 10, which is a size smaller than I would usually choose, thanks to the heads up from the reviews, and it was not too bad at all. So far I have taken about 1cm from the back neck, raised the centre front cross over about a cm, and made a slight square shoulder adjustment, and cut a size bigger for the cap sleeve. This may sound like a lot of fiddling, but it seemed very quick and easy for some reason. Famous last words no doubt! I have made up the bodice in my real fabric, self lined, and attached the ties, and will wrestle with the gored skirt on Thursday. I am off to Brisbane for the next few days, and may visit a fabric shop or two.

BWOF 2008-9-143 again

I made the second version of the BWOF boy's shirt from the September 2008 Issue today. I am much more pleased with this version.

 

Learning from the previous version, I made the shirt about 7cm longer than the pattern, including the hem allowance. I used around 1cm of this length for the hem. I also made the collar stand and the collar each 0.75 cm more narrow. The combination of this change, and the slightly softer hand of this particular quilting fabric gives a much more appealing collar IMO. The other terrific thing about the second shirt was that I only had to match the pattern at the back yoke, as the print was not so large as to need matching at the centre front nor the pocket.

 

I used the pocket from shirt 142. It is a tiny pocket, but I think it suits the shirt. I did add grosgrain ribbon to the outer border of the pocket, rather than the satin ribbon called for in the instructions for shirt 142. I think this looks O.K., but that adding it to the yoke seams, as the instructions indicate, would have been overkill. I used another print for the under collar and back collar stand. It reminds me of lizards for some reason, so I thought it belonged with this shirt.

 

My son does not like this shirt quite as much as the Holden cars one, he is disappointed that there are no Eastern Water Dragons or Velvet Geckos in the print. I have a budding naturalist here, and he wants his local lizards represented!

BWOF 09-2008-142/3

I had a fabulous New Year's Day today, and naturally this involved some sewing. I made this shirt for my son, from the September 2008 BWOF. It is a short sleeved version of 143, without the pocket, and with the collar and stand from shirt 143.

 

My son picked out the fabric a few weeks ago. It is a quilting fabric, with a stylized Australian road map superimposed with old Holden cars. I love it, but it was difficult to line up the fabric, especially as I carefully cut it out after a glass of wine last night, and managed to offset the centre by 2cm whilst I was pattern matching. Note to self, cut out before the glass of wine. I was unable to cut out another front, as I only just bought enough fabric for one shirt - at $22 per metre for a cotton print, there was no budget for mistakes.

 

 

You may see that I have added an important town to the road map with the alphabet on my sewing machine. I cannot imagine why it wasn't there already!
I am not 100% happy with the pattern. The collar is very high, which I may change on the next version. Also,foolishly I did not measure the pattern pieces, and the shirt was far shorter than I expected. It is a size 110 cm, and has a back length of 40cm. This is a good 5cm shorter than the TopKids size 110cm shirt I made my son last time I sewed for him, and I had to add a false hem to the shirt - more pattern lining up! I did not have enough fabric to match the pattern at the back hem, but I don't think it looks too terrible.
I have started on a second version of this shirt with a longer body, and a skinnier collar stand. This next print is even more fun, lots of Australian lizards!

Retrospective 2008

I have really enjoyed reading the end-of-year posts from lots of people, so thought I would write one as well, even though I am now in 2009. (Yesterday was busy, sorry)
This has been a very interesting sewing year for me, as through the Timmel SWAP competition I was introduced to on line sewing, and have learnt so much from it.

I wrote 86 or so reviews on Pattern review this year. My profile shows that I joined PR in 2006, but in 2006, I looked at pattern review only once, and joined so that I could look at a review of one pattern. Unfortunately the review was not terribly good, and I did not look at the site again until January 2008. I now look at it nearly every day.

I made a lot of garments this year. I think it is well over a hundred. My goal was to make one or two garments each week for myself or my family this year, and I have met this goal. For some reason I think I should still sew more. I am obviously addicted to sewing.:)

My other goal was to improve my sewing. I think I have achieved this too, although I now think I should be more specific with my goals.

This year I made my first (not very good) tailored jacket, Vogue 2925

and my second (slightly better) tailored jacket vogue 2925.

I made my first welt pocket and my first men's dress shirt - vogue via David Coffin's excellent book.


Another sewing goal was to find and use more interesting knit patterns and fabrics. I think I have achieved this too. I am now very fond of href="http://www.gorgeousfabrics.com">Gorgeous Fabrics, and have made lots of knit clothes this year. My favourites are Vogue 8305 that I have made 3 times

and Jalie 2794, that I have made 11 times, for 4 different people.
I should probably also mention Vogue 2925 again (4 times) and Vogue 8379 (3 times), but I think I am running out of room for pictures.

My last goal, and possibly the most important was to make pants. I still do not like making pants for myself, but I am getting better at them. I made 6 pairs of pants from Vogue 2925 this year. 3 are now worn out, my work is hard on clothes. I also made a disastrous pair of jeans for myself, and a fabulous pair of jeans for my daughter from Jalie 968. I need to conquer jeans this year!
. My favourite pair of pants this year, and a real sewing leap for me are the Marlene pants from BWOF August 2008.


I owe these trousers to Elizabeth, and to Ann Rowley who post at Stitcher's Guild.

I started sewing from BWOF magazine this year too. My first issue was June, and I have hardly bought another pattern since. I am really enjoying the magazine.

However the best thing for my sewing this year was being able to chat about it with all the lovely people at Stitchers Guild and at Pattern Review, and reading all the fabulous blogs out there.
Thanks to everyone who writes about sewing, and Happy New Year.