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.

BWOF 12-2008-102 progress shots

I am further ahead with my sewing than my photos, but here are some thrilling construction shots of the evening dress
The bodice was a little touch and go at the draping stage. I do not have a dress form, and my FBA to the outer bodice front was a little dodgy on technique, so I held my breath whilst attaching the bodice drape to the silk organza interfacing layer. BWOF wanted me to use fusible interfacing, but I felt my dress deserved better insides.

The interfacing layer was much larger than the outer borders of the drape piece. The front bodice looked a bit like a balloon when I first sewed it. Had I not recently made some pleated front knit clothing from Burda, this would have bothered me, but knowing that pulled tight pleats look better than poofy ones, I could sew this piece without thinking about it too much.
I really wished for a dress form at this stage for some judicious ironing and steaming work, but had to pull the pleats into position whilst modelling the bodice section. Fortunately the shantung holds pleats nicely.

In spite of my adjustments to the toile, after I attached the skirt to the bodice there was a lot of fiddling with the centre back seam for fitting. I have a superb final fitting technique here. My daughter pins me into the dress, then marks each side of the seam with another set of pins.
She usually elicits promises for future items of clothing whilst carrying out this task, negotiation from a position of power with the pins seems quite effective.

This morning I got up at the crack of dawn for my last opportunity to use my sewing machine before we leave for Brisbane. I put in the zipper (second time after removing the bum bobble yesterday), the boning and the lining - first time ever for boning! I have not tried the dress on again yet, so am crossing my fingers that I do not have to make any adjustments - handsewing a hem in a hotel room is one thing, handsewing fitting adjustments another.

Black evening dress

I know I said I would post about more fabric shopping, but I have been sewing today, so there is a detour.

A few weeks ago, I posted at Stitchers Guild about a dilemma. I am attending a conference next week, at which there is a Saturday night Ball. Initially I was quite excited about the sewing possibilities, but then I discovered that this was a black and white ball. Not a problem for many people, but as I generally look like death warmed up in either black or white, I felt rather disappointed about the theme. I also felt rather scared of sewing a formal dress.
Fortunately, as usual, the ladies at Stitcher's Guild had some very good advice for me. In a nutshell, the overall theme seemed to be, show plenty of skin, and keep the black away from your face.
I started to investigate patterns. Actually I bought patterns.
My early choice was Vintage Butterick 4919, photo credit Butterick patterns
which I really fancied making, and which looked a bit like the glamourous gowns suggested by the ladies at Stitcher's Guild. However, I showed this pattern to my daughters, who both said I would look as wide as I was tall, so this gown was scratched.
Next, I bought some Vogue patterns.
Vogue 1108, photo credit Vogue patterns,


I thought this might be a smart dress, maybe with a smaller bow . I showed it to my husband. He said it looked matronly. Now my husband has an endearing habit of thinking I look the same as I did when we first met, around 22 years ago, so I don't entirely trust his sartorial opininon, but he does not like this dress, and he is attending the dinner with me, so it was scratched too.
I sought some opinions on my Burda magazine collection. My daughters and my husband both liked this dress, BWOF 2008-12-102.
I was not so sure. It is rather bare. However, I have a nice stole as a cover up, only 8 years old (my brother's wedding) and black (no other colours available in the shops at the time), so I thought I would try this pattern.
I have not made a formal evening dress for 17 years. My figure was considerably smaller 17 years ago. I have not worn a formal evening dress for 8 years. My life does not generally call for formal clothing. This is an adventure. Somehow adventure sounds better than "I have no idea what I am doing".
Surprizingly, this dress is not terribly difficult to date. Abolishing the upper chest, shoulders and sleeves elimates a lot of of fitting issues. Remaining are my usual full bust adjustment

O.K. Princess line bodice FBA I can do, but what do you do with this?

I guessed - the lining is wider and longer, so I adjusted the pleated thingy the same amount as the lining horizontally and vertically.

Next was the backside and waist, out at one, and in at the other, so far, so good.

So today I sewed it up in black silk shantung from Gorgeous fabrics. Nearly done, and the only problem is getting in to the dratted thing. Women with my waist/hip ratio need a long zip, but a long zip in a dress with no back means unsightly bubbles at the bum - I will have to lie down to get this dress on! I should have put an extra zip in the side seam. I hope for dressed up photos later in the week. I wonder if my husband still fits into his dinner suit? Knowing him, it will be too big, and I will have to take it in!

Sydney Fabric Shopping #1 Greenfield Pty Ltd

I love fabric shopping.
I am frequently rather jealous of people writing about places like the New York Fabric district, or the London Fabric district, or Dutch fabric markets in Germany, and have a lovely time vicariously enjoying their shopping.
So here is my trawl of the Sydney fabric district, and a few other related shops. I had a lovely time, and there will be several posts on this subject, now that I have some requests for show and tell :).

Last week I spent a lot of time on Google maps and the NSW transport link planning my travels, all by public transport, which made my shopping on Friday very efficient -maybe too efficient.
Stop 1. Greenfield Pty Ltd, Ann St, Surrey Hills.
I thought I had taken a photograph of the outside of this building, which has very few windows, and does not look at all like a shop of any sort, but it is no longer on my camera.
This was the first time I had been to this wholesaler. They open at 8.30 am on weekdays, and I was there on the dot. It took me just over an hour from the Northern Suburbs by train, including the walk from Central and a little map reading difficulty.
I was glad that I had studied the website at some length before my visit, I found the set up a little overwhelming. There are 2 floors open to the public, 1st floor notions and trims, second floor fabric. I started with the second floor. I knew that I wanted to look at some particular silks, laces and denim, as I had seen the fabric types and photographs of the colours on the website, and so was able to direct my attention to just these fabrics.

There are sample books on a counter at the front, and once you know what you want, you can ask an assistant take you in to the main fabric area which has thousands of rolls of fabric and interfacing, to see what colours and lengths are available at the time of your visit. The fabrics are mainly solid colours, none of the fabric types I purchased were available in prints.

The prices of the fabrics are very good, but priced in the sample books at the whole roll rate (usually 40m), ex GST, so you have to do some maths to compare to retail prices. There is a $3.60 + GST charge for cutting shorter lengths - but there are also part rolls, which allow you to purchase smaller lengths without the cutting fee depending on what is available on the day. I was rather surprized to learn that if you are ordering over the internet or by phone from interstate the prices are higher. For Queensland, for instance there is a surcharge of 3% - this does not include shipping.

After I had selected my fabrics, while I was waiting for them to be cut I went downstairs to look at trims and notions (at the suggestion of the sales assistant in the fabric section), selected these and paid for them, then went upstairs to collect my invoice for the cut fabric, back downstairs to pay the fabric invoice, back upstairs to collect the fabrics, back downstairs to shipping. I had brought post bags with me in order to send my booty back home, but the denim was rather bulky, and when I spoke to dispatch, all my shopping could be sent by courier to QLD for $13.20, and I was keen to use this service. Unfortunately this arrangement did not make me popular with the lady taking payments, apparently I should have paid for shipping at the same time as my fabric (How, if they would not send it downstairs until it was paid, and could not weigh it for shipping until it was send downstairs?), but I just let her complain to me and did not argue with her and it was all arranged to my satisfaction. I think she was having a bad day, as generally the staff were very helpful and pleasant.

I was at Greenfield's on Friday, and the package arrived at work on Monday.

 

From left to right, starting at the back. 6m x 100z indigo denim, bra chanelling and bra straps, lingerie lace in purple and cream/apricot, silk/cotton voile in cream, chocolate, peach, then sandwashed silk in dusky pink, beige and pink, 3m silk jersey in stone. There are some belt buckles and buttons from the notions section at the front.
I am most pleased with the denim and the silks. The prices were extremely good for the denim, voile and sandwashed silk, but I thought the laces and the silk jersey were quite similarly priced to similar fabrics I had seen available on the internet. (This did not stop me buying lace and silk jersey, the price was still good).
I found the staff in the fabric section very helpful, but on the notions floor, the staff were all very busy, and it was not easy to work out what was available in small purchase amounts without assistance. I had not researched notions as thoroughly as the fabric, and would have preferred to be better prepared. It is not a place for easy browsing.
I found it difficult to see the colours clearly in the fabric area, as it was very poorly lit, although it was an overcast day which may have made this situation worse than usual. Now that I have the fabric back at home, the pink sandwashed silk is quite a different colour to the dusky pink I thought I saw in the warehouse. I am sure I will find a good use for it.

I was extremely pleased with the quality, range and price of the fabrics, and I will be visiting Greenfield's again if I have a chance. I had finished here by about 10.30am (all that stair climbing was time consuming) Next stop in another post.

BWOF June 2008 #136 baby romper

The swimming costumes in small sizes were for 2 of my Sydney nieces, but I did not show you the present for my youngest niece. I actually made this last year when I was making the same outfit for my next older niece (other side of the family), as I knew another baby present would come in handy.
Here she is modelling it. She has just started to walk, and is 12 months old, so you can see that the size 18 months does run small, it fits her perfectly.

I had a very busy time in Sydney, and on Friday, this busyness was almost all self inflicted. Wonderfully enabling Sharon sent me to some fabulous shops (twisting my arm of course :), even though she was out of town :( and I now have an awful lot of new fabric. I posted it back and have recieved lovely parcels all this week.