Sew Darn Tired

This is my Christmas stollen... it's German Christmas sweet bread. I don't like Christmas cake and many, many years ago I had a German neighbour and she gave me the recipe. My German friend makes it and loves it too. These are the ones wrapped for the neighbours tomorrow. My niece also loves it... she sent me a one sentence email, saying she'd bought some in New Zealand and was disappointed. I picked her up this afternoon... a surprise for the family at our Christmas day celebrations tomorrow. I made some this morning ... nice and fresh. I made two pavlovas too... I hope you all have a great Christmas ... full of family and friends. I hope it is a nice and safe one also.

I took a lot of photos at the exhibition and I won't go on too much but let the photos speak for themselves. I just used an iPhone having left my camera at my friend's place about 3 weeks ago and forgetting to get it when I went last week, so excuse the no so sharp or perfect snaps! This outfit is made from ribbon.. I took this close up to show the netting creating a frame for the ribbon. The rushing is done by channels of elastic. The velvet was quite worn. Yes... a corset with a pregnant belly! There was so much to see in this exhibition. One more set of photos to show. 

I'm back from Melbourne and doing some great things. I saw Nick Cave  on Thursday night and as ever he was great if you like that sort of thing. On Friday I went to the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition in the National Gallery of Victoria , it too was great. It was a great exhibition. There is a large body of work there...it's probably one of the best exhibitions I've seen. I recently saw the  Undressed  exhibition in Queensland Museum and I wasn't that impressed. It was small and all the exhibits were behind glass and the lighting I thought was poor (others made comments in the visitors book too, so I wasn't alone there). Admittedly the underwear exhibits are much older, but it was hard to see details. The Gaultier exhibition was all uncovered, with many rooms in different themes with many, many exhibits. You were permitted photos with no flash and could get right up close - but naturally not touch. I spoke with a guard there who was writing a report, in great detai...

I saw this pattern in the Burda Style magazine and  Kristy of Lower Your Presser Foot  made it mid last year and I really liked it. I saw this pattern on sale at Gardam's pop up shop in Edward St months ago and bought it. The pattern recommends cutting the dress on the bias but I used some rayon and thought the drape would be enough. Plus I just wanted to see what the dress was like before investing too much time and expensive fabric on it. The Burda Style top is slightly different in that it doesn't have the band on it; just is straight cut on the sides. Hmmm... yes headless shots as my hair was not cooperating that day (does it ever??) You can see in the second photo how much my right shoulder drops. The dress is cool and comfortable on but I don't think it is very flattering ... dowdy really. I'm not sure if it's the colours or the length or both, or maybe it's because I didn't cut on the bias but I don't think it's that as there is pl...

I went to my parent's the other day and Dad asked me if I could cut and hem a pair of his trousers. Sure, I said and he went and put them on and I 'pinned' it with a bobby pin, which was all I had at hand to hold it in place. Ok ... so Dad went to get changed and came back with 7 pairs of trousers and 2 pairs of shorts! Great! :(   Just in case you didn't get it, I've added the sad face!  Like most sewers, I hate   dislike  avoid doing alterations but what do you do when it's your Mum or Dad or sister (I have 4!). I do it... well I'm still doing it. I want to say that I have avoided doing suit pants for many years as I think, if I ruin them, there goes a whole suit, but I didn't worry this time because Dad has just turned 81 so the need for perfect suits is long gone. I don't know why I always question or am unconfident with my skills as I haven't actually ruined anything important really... the long, red satin gown for 2000 New Year'...

My son has gone to the U.K. with his Dad to see the rellies (relatives) for Christmas. This is his second time to go - the first being when he was just over 2 years old, 8 years ago. He loves the cold so he's not bothered about that, but his Mother is. I made  Burda t-shirt 151 03/2013  in August and he really loves it but I found it a little short on the length and since August he has grown taller so I made a test shirt by adding about 2cm seam allowance and then sewed it up on the overlocker without cutting to the original seam line... making it a bit bigger.  I also put the neck band on back to front so that it curls on the front. I like that. My son loved the t-shirt, but said he wanted it a little bigger under the arms.  It was a bit of a surprise that he liked it as I bought that fabric years ago from the op shop and it was in the scraps bag by the door.  (there was 2 pieces about 75cm each) I thought it was a bit thin and kind of nondescript but as I'v...