Sew Darn Tired

These are the last (unless I get some spare time this arvo) of the sewn things of 2015. I used Kwik Sew 3674, a pattern I got at the 2nd hand shop a while ago. Quite a useful little pattern if you have a young girl around, with two different looks and the puff sleeve dress without sleeves (like I've made below) makes it three looks. The dress above is made from remnants, both I got at Spotlight in separate purchases for minimal money. The owls are so cute I couldn't resist and my friend's daughter just loves getting me made dresses! She's only 5 but very tall (think 7 or 8 year old) so it's nice to make her something her age that fits. She has seen the fabric on their last trip down from Yeppoon and I promised a dress from it. They are moving back in a number of weeks and so she will open it with her other presents. When I made the dress below, I just leave the sleeves off, overlock and turn over the armholes and then make a casing for the straps... this ...

These are the fab four... a charcoal one, a purple (one of her colours) with coral/orangey back (not her colour), the rust red one and the taupe one. I thought I'd show the four singlet tops I made for my niece in more detail. They were made from scraps of merino knit that was from the fabric sale I went to a few weeks ago. It is a lovely slubby merino and behaved very well. I traced the pattern - pretty easy for a singlet - front and back. The original has bindings on the armholes and neckline but I didn't have enough fabric for binding for the armholes. In the photo above I cut two fronts or backs at a time. You can also see the leftovers were not much - I had to cut the neck bindings out of those tiny scraps. The fabric was also about 5 cm shorter than the original top (and serendipitously just wide enough). The original tip was very long on Zoe's body (she's a stage manager and does a lot of bending and stretching so for work wear it needs the length)...

My niece loves very basic but quality "adventure" type clothing. She has a basic merino singlet in black fine merino that she loves but it has been discontinued by the adventure clothing company. My mind went 'ding' and I remembered the scraps of merino I bought at the fabric sale for $2 for the lot. I  got the singlet from her yesterday and cut out a pattern this afternoon and sewed one up in three hours. The colours above are not very representative, but they are her colours. There is enough for three more singlets. I made the pattern a bit shorter in between the armhole as she is short bodied like me. I think for $2 I can take a chance. She said she wouldn't like the red one but it's more a rust than the red it appears here and I think she'll like it. If not it will be a good trial of the pattern and if she still doesn't want it, I can use it. The black one is the bought one. I literally had enough to cut the front and back out and piece ...

I'm making some trousers... Burda 7441. I bought this pattern at Make It Fabrics at Logan  about 6 months ago for $5. Not an op shop price but good for a Burda pattern. They are a lovely pair of trousers... welt pockets at the back and slant pockets at the front with a curved waistband, a lovely looking leg and a single large pleat at each side. (A lot like the Papercut Patterns Guise Pants  without the elastic back). I'm not sure I need a couple of big pleats at my pot belly but I'm making them out of that .50c piece of cotton fabric I got at the fabric sale last fortnight, so nothing lost but a number of hours if they don't work out. When I say don't work out... of course I mean "won't fit".  I think I've made a size 16 (or 18) for my well endowed rear and tum, but the legs are looking a little narrow. I'm using a remnant of cotton quilting fabric I bought at Spotlight for a few dollars. Perfect for contrast fancy pockets, particularly wh...

In 1993, hence "The Past", for no reason other than to further my learning, I did the Certificate III in Apparel Production. This was the course you did if you wanted to be a fashion designer. I did not want to be a fashion designer, I just wanted to know how things were done. It was a 2 year full time or 4 year part time course. I did it part time at night, twice a week for a couple of years - 3 hours lessons plus the homework, which was considerable. This is one of the reasons I didn't complete the course - the workload was enormous in the 2nd year - it went from the designing, drawing, drafting, toiling, and making a collection. I worked full time 6 days a week back then and there was no way I could fit it all in and as I said I was just doing it vocationally. Interestingly, I may have completed it except for the stall half way through - the course was changing to a Diploma but as the teachers all went through the course and were only Certificate trained, they could...