Month: March 2012

sewing, what I wore, yarn stash

what I wore – week 12 (and other things)

So here it is – week 12.  I forgot to snap a photo yesterday, but can tell you that I wore a me-made Simplicity dress to work, with a me-made StyleArc Laura jacket to keep me warm in the morning at the train station.

what I wore - week 12

We are having classic Autumnal weather now – beautiful days, but cold and crisp mornings. I cannot wait for daylight saving to finish this weekend. The only good thing about 7.10am at the train station in the morning at the moment is this:

2012-03-21 07.12.04 - sunrise at the station

the beautiful sunrise. Which would be much better taking place at 6.10am, in my opinion. It is so hard to get up to get ready for work when it is so terribly dark!

heading to the school dance

The school dance was on Monday evening. The kids had a blast, as did the parents. Stella decided to wear her New Look 6577 dress, despite it’s lack of a bow or rose on the front. It had the required twirlability factor!

Nw Look 6577

And my latest dilemma? The destiny of these four skeins of Wollmeise…

wollmeise kunterbunt bags (two) from March 2012 update

children's clothing, sewing

New Look 6577

Something has been sewn!  In half hour bursts over the past week, I finished off New Look 6577, a summer dress for Stella.  Yet it was so cold here yesterday that we had the heater on. I may have missed the moment with this one.

New Look 6577

This is view B. Stella is quite insistent that it isn’t finished yet – she wants a bow and rose flowers attached to the front waistline. I’m not so certain. I used vintage fabric for this dress (Stella’s choice) with a gingham underskirt. It peeks out just a little from underneath, and is edged with vintage embroidered lace that I think Mum spotted on op-shop duty one day. The underskirt gives the dress that bit more “oomph”. And I love the flounce on the overskirt.

New Look 6577 - hem flounce detail

Unusually, there weren’t any matching invisible zips in my stash! So I went with a lapped zip in the centre back – I wanted to get this finished without a trip to Spotlight. I am very happy with my seam matching at the back yoke and the waistline.

New Look 6577 - back zip detail

The front yoke is also rather lovely. It scoops nicely and is self-lined. Actually, the entire bodice is self-lined, but not in a way that encloses the waistline skirt/bodice seam. I’ll have to remedy that if I make it again. Which I probably won’t do, although it is a lovely pattern – I have plenty of other children’s dress patterns awaiting my attention!

New Look 6577 - front yoke detail

I was rather excited yesterday when I was emailed by Pattern Review to let me know that I was their featured member that day! So if you’ve popped over here via Pattern Review – hello and welcome! It’s great inspiration to get some more sewing done, actually! I’m off to a “bag in a day” class today run by the talented Nicole Mallalieu herself together with five of my friends, and I can’t wait. I’ve been a little cheeky and cut out not one but two bags in anticipation. I wonder if I’ll even manage to finish one in between chatting and laughing!

crochet

mystery yarn

My Nanna spent the last few years of her life in a retirement hostel.  Her short-term memory wasn’t so flash.  At some stage she bought some unlabelled yarn and stashed it away in a cupboard (she had been an avid knitter).  My Mum eventually came across this yarn that Nanna no longer remembered buying, and it moved from Nanna’s stash into hers, and then years later into mine.

Nanna's mystery yarn

There was 600g of what seems to be around 10 to 12 ply yarn. It looks and feels as though it has been hand-dyed, and potentially even hand-spun. I am guessing that it is wool with some alpaca, but there could be something acrylic in there too. A friend and I did a burn test:

the burn test

At first the it just blackened in the flame, but with a little determination it did burst into flame, but quickly then went out again, leaving that little shrunken ball behind. I’d love some input from anyone experienced in doing this type of thing! Anyway, I’ve almost used it all up now, crocheting a Joplin Vest. Photos of the finished vest to come later in the week – once the ends are woven in.

Nanna's mystery yarn

what I wore

what I wore – week 11

There goes another week.  They are flying past, faster and faster and faster.  As quickly as I cross items from my to-do list, I add others.

what I wore - week 11

Melbourne has turned on a last gasp effort to convince us that we did have summer after all.  It’s been divine autumn weather with cool nights and mornings but glorious sunny days.  The forecast says that it isn’t going last much past tomorrow.  And I am very over daylight saving – the dark mornings just make me want to roll back over in bed and continue to sleep!  I’ve been mentally planning my winter sewing, because I’m sure that it isn’t all that far away now.

2012 BAMCAL, crochet

March 2012 BAMCAL squares

It’s amazing how much crochet you can get done while watching the ABC2 re-runs of Doctor Who.  Clare became interested in Doctor Who over the past series, so is enjoying the re-runs and finding out why some of the things in the most recent series have happened.  And my husband and I are just enjoying watching them all over again!  Donna Noble was simply the BEST companion ever (although Sarah-Jane Smith runs a close second…)

Anyway, back to the point of this post!  My 2012 BAMCAL March squares are finished (if you don’t count weaving in the ends, that is).

2012 BAMCAL March - Hint of Spring

This square is called Hint of Spring. In my opinion the instructions aren’t written quite as precisely as they could be, but I like the resulting square. It did need serious blocking to get it nice and flat though – the centre was terribly rippled before copious steaming with my iron. Crocheted in Bendigo Woollen Mills Classic 8ply with a 4.5mm hook.

2012 BAMCAL March Filler - Double Treble Burst Square

The filler square was the Double Treble Burst Square. This is a great one for playing with colour. I am very happy with the graduation from darker to lighter. In Bendigo Woollen Mills Classic 8ply with a 4.5mm hook, once again.

While chatting to my Mum on the phone this afternoon she commented that I must have been busy over the past week because I haven’t been updating my blog very much! That is one of the realities of life. I am planning sewing/quilting/crafting projects in my head, but finding the time to put them into practice seems to be more and more difficult, despite having Thursday as “my day” with Stella at childcare. And even when I do get things finished, I don’t always get them photographed and/or blogged.  Mum can read the nuances of my life from my blogging patterns – I suppose that some mother/daughter relationships are like that!  Mum, you know me so well!

By the way, have you seen Tangled? It’s such a beautiful Disney film, and I think that adults enjoy it just as much as the kids. I originally saw it at the movies with Clare, but we all watched it on DVD this evening as a family and everyone liked it. I think that I might have even cried in some parts…

adult's clothing, sewing

Simplicity 2059 – aka the Lisette Continental dress

CurlyPops issued a challenge: join with her (and hopefully many others) in sewing Simplicity 2059, aka the Lisette Continental dress.  When CurlyPops summons, how can I resist?

With the weather forecast promising a day over 30 degrees, which may be one of the last hot days before autumn really takes over, I quickly paired the pattern with some Amy Butler rayon that happened to be in my stash. After measuring myself and working out how much ease I wanted the dress to have – not half as much as the pattern suggested – I decided to make size 12. I made my usual short torso alterations by folding out around an inch or so at the printed alteration line on both the front and back pieces.  Sticky tape comes in handy at this stage.

Simplicity 2059 - pattern piece alteration

Because the rayon was a border print, I decided to take advantage of the contrast edge and insert a vertical feature into my dress. Rather than placing the front pattern piece on the fold, I placed it and cut it out with the centre front on the edge of the border print. After judicious and plentiful pinning, I seamed the two half front pieces together along the edge of the border print.

Rather than using the provided pattern pieces for the neck and armhole binding, I used my rotary cutter and quilting ruler to cut bias strips the same width as the pattern pieces, then ran them through my handy Clover bias tape maker – which happened to be just the right size for the bias strips I needed.

Simplicity 2059 - making bias binding

I then cut these strips to the length of the binding pattern pieces. I used some leftover pieces to make belt loops by folding the tape in half and edgestitching the sides. The armhole binding was applied pretty much as per the instructions except I used the fold lines that I’d already pressed into the binding with my bias tape maker as a guide for both attaching the binding to the armholes and for folding it over and topstitching.

Simplicity 2059 - armhole binding

The neckline is very nice on this dress. It’s well scooped and the gathers provide interest and bust shaping.

Simplicity 2059 - neckline gathering and binding

Rather than a simple straight stitched hem, I used the blind hem stitch on my machine. Well, it’s blind enough unless you get very close – which you won’t!  I took a one and half inch hem and it’s only just above my knees.  I know, I’m short.

Simplicity 2059 - machine blindstitched hem

I made the self tie belt from more of the border. I rarely use belts, but after seeing how good Cam’s dress looked belted, I thought that I’d give it a try too. Originally I was going to add pockets – also inspired by Cam – but with the feature stripe down the centre the dress didn’t need them.

Simplicity 2059

Unfortunately in all these photos my gorgeous youngest daughter kept on clinging to my leg – or trying to. It’s twisted the dress around a little – something that my husband failed to tell me when he was in the process of taking the photos!

Simplicity 2059

I wore this dress today, and it was very comfortable and easy to wear. At first I thought that it was a bit much like a sack with a belt, but I did receive a couple of compliments. The rayon feels delightful on and hangs beautifully.

Simplicity 2059

There’s still time to join in with this sewalong – pop over and visit Cam!

ps – Carolyn – I finally remembered to include more information on construction details!

sewing, what I wore

what I wore – week 10

There hasn’t been as much going on in regards to sewing as I’d have liked.  We’ve had a busy week with family visiting from interstate for Oma’s 80th birthday party, Clare off on Brownies camp for the long weekend, booking our first big family holiday ever, and a variety of other activities.  I have been crocheting during chatting and commuting time, and have managed to complete some hats that I’ll blog soon.  Last night I finally broke my sewing drought by whipping up a dress that I hope to blog later this evening.  But in the meantime, here’s my outfits from week 10.

what I wore- week 10

By half way through the week I went to the special effort of cleaning the mirror that I take my photos in. It took me less than five minutes. Why did I procrastinate so much? And on another note – I had passport photos taken today. If I really do look that old and tired all of the time then I’d better apply for a Seniors card – I reckon that they’d give me one.

I bought a t-shirt dress from the Mesop outlet during the week, and thought that the dressmakers among you might be interested.  It has an attached scarf, gathered in to the front neckline with a twist at the bottom.  I tried a few different ways of wearing it.

scarf wrapping options - Mesop dress with attached scarf
I thought that this was an idea that a few of you might be interested in adapting. Take a t-shirt pattern that fits you well, sew in a scarf! Maybe the scarf/drape could be inserted in the shoulder seams. Not sure – a few things to think about and mull over there.  There are possibly other ways of wearing it too.  There were lots of lovely clothes at Mesop with interesting draping, gathering and pleating in terrific stretch fabrics that I don’t see in fabric stores.

children's clothing, crochet

silky plum cardi

A couple of weeks ago I put up my hand to test-crochet a cardigan for a fellow Raveller.

IMG_5659

This was a terrific crochet pattern. There’s enough variation in the lace repeat to keep it interesting, yet it’s not complicated or difficult either as there is minimal shaping. A very enjoyable crochet!

IMG_5651

I crocheted the 6-8 size, and as Clare is a petite 9 year old it fits her fine. The yarn is Bendigo Woollen Mills Silk Supreme in Silky Plum, and this took one and a quarter of the big Bendi balls.

IMG_5656

This took ten days of social crochet time. Quite quick, I thought! I made two linked buttons as a closure, so Clare can place them wherever she likes along the front.

IMG_5640

My Ravelry project page is here and the pattern (Child’s Lacy Sweater) is now available for sale on Ravelry here.

IMG_5663

what I wore

what I wore – week 9

Isn’t there a theory about how often you have to do something before it becomes a habit?  I appear to have made taking a daily what I wore photo a habit.  Pity I haven’t followed the same principle for more virtuous and important things, such as doing my bookwork and weekly meal planning.

what I wore - week 9

As usual, if you click through to the mosaic you can then click to get more details on each outfit if you are interested.  I’ll be back later today to share a recently crocheted creation!

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