Sew Darn Tired

NYE's dress DONE! I started at 3pm after I had to meet my cousin's wife at Spotlight to get back the pattern I had loaned her. By the time we caught up and got the fabric and I came home, had some lunch, I didn't start cutting until 3pm. I made a swayback adjustment (pinched in up about 2cm - very exact - not!) and chose the length I wanted. Got out my oldest scissors and started chopping - then they snapped. I think I bought these for $13 (back when I was making $80 per week!) at Coles. They were not very good but perfect for this. When they broke I got out my "dressmakers scissors" from a scissors pack - again so, so cheap I wouldn't care about blunting them. Sewed it up, couldn't find my steam a seam so had to make a facing out of the plain edge on the selvage. Washed up half way and ta-da! Red sparkly number finished at 4.28pm! It is not so tomato red but a blue based red is probably still big in the shoulders but I cut a 10. The fa...

I don't like Christmas cake or plum pudding or most things with lots of dried fruit mix. So instead of having any of these 'traditional' treats I make German Stollen instead. My former house neighbour is German and many years ago she was making Stollen at Christmas - I tasted it and was sold. I have made it every year since.  Another friend is German and she moved to Australia from New Zealand last October. Last year we doubled the recipe (so made 2 kg flour mix) but this year we tripled it!!  The recipe normally makes two stollen but my half of the mix made 16 small ones. This is about 12cm long by about 6 cm wide. A nice homemade Christmas thought wrapped in cellophane and tied with tinsel. Just realised the photos of the Stollen is on the desktop not the laptop so will give you photos of our Christmas.  We had it at one of my sister's house (I have 4 sisters) and it was decorated with silver and purple. We don't have table decorations or beau...

Before the end of the year I thought I'd better post some things I have made and just never got to photograph. Bear in mind these are probably of the worst photos on the blogoverse but the best I can manage before the end of the year. This is the Simplicity 9083 from 1984. I bought this pattern from a church jumble sale and I didn't make it up before because I thought the straight skirt wouldn't suit me but I LOVE this dress! It looks great on, is so easy to wear and I have had many, many unsolicited compliments! I will adjust the pattern some more and make this again. The fabric was $4 per metre from Spotlight earlier in the year and is very light cotton jersey. The pattern is a size 14 and has only one clever piece cut twice (it is the same cross over on the back)so I need to work out how to adjust the top better yet again. I did finish it in time and wore it to Simple Minds playing at A Day on the Green with Devo, the church and the Models. This is at the end o...

Santa being reminded to buckle up by the Victorian Police. Image from  here. Merry Christmas to everyone. I hope you enjoy the break, with family and friends and I wish you all a safe and prosperous 2013.

A while ago I wrote  this post  asking if anyone had used Lekala patterns and what they thought. There were some fantastic patterns there and I'd like to try one in the future. I had a lot of comments (good and bad) but the most interesting were the comments from Natalia. Making a presumption from the comments made,  Natalia works for Lekala and gave some good information and also said she would pass all the comments on to the designers! I think this is fabulous! It shows they are interested in what the sewing public think of their patterns and how they use them and if they have any problems. Based on this alone I will use one of their patterns at some point even though I hate printing and sticking patterns together. It is interesting that the patterns are printed to your measurements and that is the best part - if they work for you.

I have been distracted by Christmas sewing instead of finishing the stripy dress in the last post but more on that later. I have just worked out I can put my SD card straight into my MacBook Pro so lots of photos!! In September school holidays my beautiful boy and I went to Toowoomba just at the end of the Carnival of Flowers. Toowoomba is a two hour drive from Brisbane and it is a lovely city on the top of a mountain. It was just a couple of days but really fun. Alexander's breakfast Alexander eating my breakfast! Some of the beautiful flowers (nice smoker in the background!). Sewing room mess in process of being sorted! (random photo drop!) This is the Motorcycle Museum on the way to Toowoomba. For motorcycle enthusiasts - there are A LOT of fantastic, rare, special and weird bikes here all privately owned!   Now to the dress I started about 2 or 3 weeks ago. Pattern reminder. So I stalled as the fabric is quite thin I decided to buy some S...