REVERSIBLE HEAD BAND

I sent my brave little girl off to music camp first thing this morning...I say 'brave' because she was the only year 7 girl going! She forms part of a guitar ensemble, and that's why she got to go.

I expected her to burst into tears when it was time to go, but she didn't and I'm really proud of her! (I got a bit teary when I jumped in the car though)

As a surprise, I whipped up this reversible head band out of scraps left over from the guitar case name tag and the music tote bag. She thought it was pretty cool and wore it with pride.

Have fun Bec, and see you in a few days...

I LOVE GETTING PRESSIES!!

Especially the hand made variety!
Thank you Linda for my lovely crochet dishcloths that you made.....I have been using them and they are fantastic, and also for my retro-style mugs!


"Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art"
Leonardo da Vinci

Linda also made me this framed dressform for my sewing room. It is truly beautiful and sits nicely in my fabric cupboard.

I've done a little sewing this week - with a holiday down south at Busselton and school holidays and sleepovers and movies and playovers and....well, I haven't done a lot of sewing this past fortnight!

I made this from black corduroy and animal print scraps. It's New Look 6391 View B I won't talk about the pocket that I forgot to add to the inside! This is a very easy pattern and you can whip one up in a night. I have my eye on the View A as well.

School holidays are now over and school starts tomorrow, so I'll be ironing and preparing the kids for their new week.....and getting some sewing done - Yee ha!

Have a great week.

MUST SEW #10

For my Must Sew list, I made these pants up last night. A very easy pattern which took me about 2 hours to do...which was just as well as I didn't start until about 10.30pm!!

No zip (woo hoo) just a really wide band with 5cm wide elastic threaded through it. It's New Look 6354 View A without the splits at the hem...or bow. If you make these up, just watch out for the amount of ease. I made a size smaller than I should have according to the pattern envelope, and I reckon I could have gone an extra size smaller still! I bought the fabric (suiting) last year some time from Spotlight to make a dress with - I guess I'll have to buy some more now.

I do like the style, but I'm still searching for that perfect pants pattern. And the colour also reminds me of my Tom's school trousers (note to self: don't wear these pants to school!)

Anyhoo, I wore these today to a lunch that Linda hosted, and I finally got to meet the very lovely Susan from 'Stitch Scrap Sew' (who is a total expert on hand embroidery!) and also Janelle from 'Threads of Friendship' (who makes the nicest bags...and lots of them!). It was an enjoyable day - so thank you, Linda, and also for my lovely birthday presents. The clever thing made me some "artwork" for my sewing room and I got the nicest retro themed mugs. I will post photos later as it is pm, and not good light to take photos.

Bec made some delicious cupcakes to take to lunch today - I was a bad, bad mother and didn't take a photo of them......next time.

Have a great week!

MUST SEW #9...CHERRY RED

Just a quick post to show another of the New Look 6594 in a cherry red corduroy.

I thought I'd make a nice bright colour just so these stormy days we've been having lately don't seem so glum. Wore it this morning out to coffee with a friend and I felt really girly in it.

I can just about make this skirt with my eyes shut now! Once again I didn't have to make any alterations, instead of a lapped zipper, I put in an invisible zipper (I'm getting quite good at doing these now!) I've now made 3 of these, time to move on.

And Susan... NO BOOTS!

MUST SEW #1

Remember my first disastrous attempt at the Butterick 4699 (mid 1960's) for my Must Sew #1? I wasn't going to let this pattern get the better of me!


This is my second attempt....






I kind of butchered the pattern a little. Although I made the original dress according to my measurements, it was too big and sack like. So I took it in about 2cm in all off the width, lowered the neckline a little (about 1.5cm), so it didn't feel like it was choking me so much, and shortened the dress by 8cm (I felt the length was a little dowdy).

I thought when deciding what fabric to use, I could go for a cross between a coat and a dress. So I chose a pinwhale cord in black and faced hems and sleeves etc. with bias binding. Because it was cord, I had to make a side seam so that I could cut the pattern with the nap, instead of on the crosswise fold.

I have to say that this isn't my fondest adventure with vintage patterns. I will wear it though, and am on the lookout for a hot pink skivvy and matching tights to brighten up the black!

GUITAR CASE NAME TAG

I love listening to Bec play the guitar. She's pretty darn good for a 12 year old! In fact, the other week her teacher phoned me and said that at her level, we should seriously think about getting her a better guitar. So we did! If it makes her enjoy playing the guitar even more....I'm all for it.

I had some guitar fabric in my stash, so this afternoon I made her a name tag for her guitar case.

My inspiration came from Lisa from A Spoonful of Sugar with her crafty tutorial in the Jan/Feb issue of Silver Magazine, although I used a slightly different method.

I used some iron-on vinyl that I bought at Spotlight (this is a bargain on ebay as I paid around $30 for my roll!) You just iron the vinyl onto the right side of your fabric and it coats it and makes it water proof...and pretty and shiny! I used my trusty old tag templates that I've had about a million years.

*Just iron the vinyl onto the right side of fabric and cut out 2 tags (front and back) mine were about 12cm by 6cm.

*Iron on some stiff interfacing to the wrong sides of both tags.

*Cut some clear vinyl (non iron on) to make a pocket for the name tag to slip into. Bind the top edge for neatness if you wish.

*Place this clear vinyl on top of one of the tags and baste really close to the edge.

*On the other tag, sew on a D ring using some tape or ribbon. Then attach a split ring.

*Place both tags wrong sides together and sew around all edges (about 5mm in from raw edge). Then unpick the basting from when you sewed the clear vinyl pocket on, and sew another row of stitching around all edges.

*Trim and neaten edges (they may slip a bit because you can't pin as it makes holes in the vinyl.....that's the downside).

*Place name and address details on co-ordinating cardboard and insert into pocket.

TA-DAAAAA!

MUST SEW #9.....again

Here is another skirt I made from New Look 6594. I was going to make this up in a corduroy, but I couldn't find a nice chocolate colour, and I wanted another skirt in a hurry, so instead I bought this fabric from Textile Traders . It has a teeny bit of stretch to it (I don't think it matters in this skirt that the fabric is stretch as it's not a firm fit anyway). No alterations again, which is way cool!

Oh, and I had to buy some chocolate coloured boots to match......just don't tell my husband (shhhhhhh)

I can see myself making a whole pile of these skirts. They are so easy to make and comfortable to wear.

I do think I'm starting to have a bit of a boot fetish though......