I fought the Elna and I WON!

I finished my shirt last night. This is how I wore it today, with my jacket. I wasn't sure about it like this but at an appointment I had this morning, I had 3 people go WOW great outfit and then they were super surprised that I made the jacket and shirt.

Thank you for all the suggestions in the comments. I took most of them up. I put a strip of interfacing in between the facing and the front and that seemed to do the trick. I also reset the machine every time too, by turing it on and off. A bit annoying but not very time consuming so it wasn't worth not doing it - just in case ;)!

The cuff and button. I thought the shirt would be just too plain so I decided to put some little details like the pink button holes and sewing the buttons on in pink thread too.

This was inspired by the hanging loop and the feature strip on the the collar. This pattern doesn't have a yoke so changed it to with yoke and also a pleat of fabric in the back so it wouldn't be bigger on my shoulders but fit my derriere! Lucky I did this because if I hadn't there is no way it would have fit.

Changing the yoke wasn't even a matter of drafting the piece. I just put a fold where I wanted the yoke to end, added a seam allowance and then did the same to the bottom piece of the shirt adding the seam allowance again. Easy peasy. Because I wanted the yoke to be on the bias, I had to cut the outer yoke out of scrap and I had to piece it, but I like the look even though there wasn't enough fabric to actually cut it exactly on the bias hence it doesn't meet up nicely but I tried.

The floral feature fabric was scrap from a dress I made years ago, it was way too small even though I made a 12, and recently I gave it to a friend's daughter. (she loves it). Really there was nothing left of the scraps. I wanted to make the one piece (folded) cuff into a faced one with the floral fabric but I just didn't have anywhere near enough for that.

I did have enough for the inside collar stand. I really like the pink highlights with this shirt and I think it really needs it.

Shirt after wearing so is rumpled, sorry.

I don't know if you can see it (and I wasn't trying) but the buttons have some writing on them. It says "QANTAS" Australia's national airline. Funnily, I did work for QANTAS before having my son, but not with a uniform that had buttons so I didn't harvest these. I must have bought buttons at an op shop somewhere and never noticed! Overall I'm very happy with my shirt even though I feel like a "woman wearing comfortable shoes" in it. Thanks again for your hints in ~~overpowering~~ taming the machine.

What's next? I have ~~many things~~ a zip up merino knit jacket from an Ottobre pattern cut out and I'd like to get this made and a pair of jeans (not cut yet) for a little trip we are taking to the mountains not far away in the future, where it will be much colder than our winter daily of about 21 degrees celsius.

Paris, river cruise 2022 - photo bomb!

(this post has been in my drafts since July 2022 due to life circumstances. I'm just going to write just a little and then just show some photos) My friend worked on a Superyacht for many years and through this connection was offered a friends and family deal on a river cruise in Europe. It was a deal too good to miss even though it wouldn't have been a first choice for me for a holiday. She had done this trip before but during the winter taking in the Christmas markets. We were going in June 2022. We decided to have 5 nights in Paris (where I'd been 5 times before) and 2 nights in Amsterdam where my friend lived for 2 years in her youth. We flew into Frankfurt... not because we wanted to but because these were the only flights we could get but we worked with it. Remember great deal! So ok, a short (5hr), fast ride on the ICE/TGV trains got us to Paris eventually (one was late which missed the connection to the earlier TGV but there was one a bit after). We knew that w

YFASMA - Fabric shopping in Athens

I promised this post in March! Fabrics from Euro1 per metre! I didn't buy anything in this shop but there was some lovely fabrics. I did buy the green and pink one above on the right. A satin finish rayon. It is lovely. There was a lot of lovely fabrics in this shop. It wasn't cheap Euro 8 p.m. but I didn't have a lot of room in my bag and I wanted something I would really love. I also didn't buy anything in Paris this time. I did buy the fabric for a table cloth just across the way from this shop. I also bought some orange/white weave linen fabric for Euro 4 p.m. at another shop, which I think I'll make some summer trousers with. As I was going to the airport, I saw this dress on the platform and I really liked it. Very easy to do too, I went to the Benaki Museum while in Athens. There is actually 2 locations. In this one I saw lots of Greek and Cypriot cultural crafts. This was a bridal bed in Crete. There was lots of clothing, embroidery and gold jewellery.

The saddest dress, then a few more.

Well hello. It's been a while. It was 8 months from the last post to the previous one to that and it's a bit longer this time. The last day I wrote was 10 Jul 2021. On 12 July my son and I were finally seeing Tim Minchin after booking it before we went to Europe at the end of 2019. It was going to be April 2020, but changed a few times and although it was a school night (year 12 for Alex) we went for dinner and sat in the show. My Mum had gone to hospital that morning and my sister was still at the hospital with her. Just after interval I got a message on my phone, "get to the hospital now". So we raced out and to the hospital where. although it was a lockdown and no visitors allowed, all 10 of us were allowed to see Mum as she was end of life. I won't go into the whole thing but Mum didn't die that night, but because of lockdown, we were not allowed to go and see her until a week and a half later when we were allowed just to discuss palliative care. By the n

Sew Darn Tired

Search This Blog