My weekend

Our house is under contract so the sewing machines and fabric can be unpacked and played with again.  With the Melbourne Cup long weekend I'm not due back at work until Wednesday so hopefully some of the above fabric will get sewn up this weekend.

Crafty Christmas Club

So I'm very proud of myself, as technology challenged as I am, I managed to put the Crafty Christmas Club button on my blog.  Now I'm wondering if I want to be a contributer or just a follower.  On the one hand it would be a great motivator to actually get some projects completed. On the other hand we're currently selling our house and about to finish building our new house, on top of all the usual family running around.  So I'm a bit on the fence about what to do.

Image from here: Brown Button

Our 'open for inspection' is over for the day and I've pulled out my box of UFOs.  I'm just itching to get my hands on my fabric and get to work.  With a little bit of luck I'll have something to show tomorrow.

Painting? Yes. Sewing? No.

All my sewing items have been safely packed away and the painting has begun.

Before all the packing commenced we had a family trip into the city and I was able to make a quick stop off at Tessuti where the three lovely pieces of fabric above came home with me. From left to right there is a lovely navy and white stretch cotton jersey, a crisp white shirting and a beautiful silk chiffon in shades of grey. I'm planning a simple t-shirt for the striped jersey, but haven't decided what type of sleeves I want yet. The shirting is obviously for a shirt. I'm planning a short sleeve top for work and the left overs are for a contrasting collar and cuffs for another shirt. For the beautiful silk chiffon I'm planning a simple sleeveless, cowl neck top. I haven't selected any patterns yet - I keep coming up with heaps of ideas as I paint.

With school holidays next week and the seemingly endless house prep I'm not sure when I'm going to make it back to my machine, but hopefully I'll be able to squeeze something in soon.

Balloon Top

It has been a while and I don't have a lot to show, but something is better than nothing right?!

Here's my most recent completed item - my balloon top.

Front

Full sleeve

V neck at the back

I really like this top, it went together really easily (even though I don't speak Japanese) and I've got plans to make another in a pale pink jersey for spring.

If you read my other blog, you'll know what it absorbing all my time. We've come to the stage in our build where we need to get our current house ready for sale and as I don't have a dedicated sewing space (I tend to spread out all over the kitchen and the study) I have to pack away my sewing things for a while.


Here's a little look at my sewing table as it is at the moment (it's a bit embarassing)





Not pretty for potential buyers. On the table is a half made Kasia skirt, McCalls 3830, a nighty for my youngest, a HotPatterns Weekender top, a quilt for my nephew and a couple of pairs of pants I need to hem for my SIL. There's also a few other patterns and pieces of fabric I've pulled out thinking that I'd quickly whip something up and then been forced to put aside.


I'm hoping that I can use the non sewing time to plan, cut out and prepare a few things. I'm planning on using my blog to set some goals for my summer sewing so you'll probably be seeing a few patterns and fabric combos in the near future.

Not the start I was hoping for.

My good intentions have come to nothing. It has been a super busy month so far with out of town visitors, two birthdays, school holidays and then extra work to catch up hours I missed over the school holidays. To top it all off the kids accidentally dropped our camera so I wouldn't be able to take photos anyway.

So today I told the family I was going to do nothing but sew. I still haven't accomplished much, kept getting distracted. The top is cut out and the neckbands interfaced. It looks like it will be great.

The simple pencil skirt is pushing my buttons. I've used a beautiful plaid I bought last winter of clearance from Tessuti. I've carefully matched the horizontal lines across the side and back seams and lying flat on the table it looks fantastic, exactly what I was hoping for. Unfortunately when I put it on I have all kinds of gathering at the top of my thighs. The back is fine, so I think it's just my pot belly causing the issues. I took some of the curve out of the side seams and extended the front darts by approx 5cms and this seems to help. I've put it aside for now and will take another shot at it tomorrow.

And we're off...

For quite a while now I have been lurking in the blog-o-sphere, drooling over the beautiful creations of others, gathering inspiration and giving my own mojo a bit of a jump start. Lately, I've been feeling the urge to put my own creations out there and I hope that I can provide a little bit of inspiration to someone else. I'm not entirely selfless ;) this year has felt pretty tough so far and so I thought that a little corner of the world for all the things I love would be the perfect pick-me-up.

No pictures of any of my work yet, but I do have a couple of simple things on the go.

First is a balloon top inspired by Yoshimi's - I love the look of hers so I bought my first foreign language pattern and I'm hoping to get it cut out tomorrow.

My second item is a very basic pencil skirt from M3830 to bolster my work wardrobe.

Wish me luck!