The Stash is now organised!

Now I'm sewing more, or at least have plans to, I went to the half price sale at the local fabric shop. Awesome huh! But that meant that I needed to sort through everything I had to make sure I knew what I had and could get inspired!

Its in the built in wardrobe of my sewing room/study. Going back to uni means I'm going to have to keep it more under wraps too, so I can concentrate on work and not pleasure!

The box at the bottom has upholstery fabric and a bag of scraps. 

The upholstry fabric is destined to be some cushions for the garden seating. I've had it for a year though, and haven't quite got around to it yet!

The we have a stash of meshes and netting. I love the blue one- its all glittery!

Knits! The one with the dots is going to end up as a wrap top, and the stripes will be tshirts.

Cottons and poplins. These are mainly for muslins and linings.

Assorted others.

The dots are velour- its going to become the perfect PJs. Perfect for me, maybe not perfect in sewing skill!

The charcoal colour is synthetic moleskin. The plan is to work it into a formal-ish little black dress for work.

Pretty cotton and chiffon. 

The small flowers will be a blouse.

The large flowers will be a bag,

The rest I have no idea!

And having saved the best for last- the working stash.

These are the fabrics that I have plans to make pretty things from in the short term.

The yellow and blue polkadot is my currently a work in progress. It was cheap and on sale, but it feels lovely, wears well and has a gorgeous sheen, so I'm glad there is more left.

Mr Purple and Blue is going to become a dress. And maybe also a skirt.

The rest will become tops for work, like this and this.

My First (Autumn) Spring Top

So here in Perth, its Autumn. Still warm in the day, but crisp first thing in the morning. 

I L.O.V.E Autumn!

But in the blogosphere, its Spring Top time!

I've watched the last few years of spring top month from afar, without the skills to really contemplate joining in. But This year I'm up for the challenge.I also have a lot of time on my hands, due to whats hopefully a minor blip in a long road.So I've hit the stash that was meant to become spring tops back in the spring!

My first entry is this blue and yellow sleeveless number. The top half is lined, as the fabric is thin *and* has holes in it! Its loosely based on cap sleeve bodice on burda, mostly to be sure it fitted across the bust. I squared up the neckline, added the cut out at the back, and the patch/placket thing at the front. This was my first time attempting bias tape, so its not perfect, but passable.

See the issue? But you've got to learn somehow :D

One of my aims for this round of sewing is to try and make everything look good on the inside as well as the outside, so no raw edges!

This one is has french seams and lined openings.

Its bright and cheerful and I love it.

It took me about 4 hours from sitting down to cut to sewing on the last button.

And here it is in the Sewalong Pool

See my other entries for Raes Spring Top Sewalong.

70s Shift

I saw this material and loved it. I’ve wanted to make a shift dress for a while, as all my other projects have been waisted. The pattern is based on 60s-dress-by-alexandra on Burda.

 I like the back neck line. Next time I’ll probably make it more prominent, as it is in the pattern. I made it about 1 size larger, and moved the darts down to fit better. I left the sleeves off. 

I made a boo-boo doing the cutting, as I couldn't simply cut on the fold as I don’t have quite enough fabric for the placement I wanted on the front, so ended up cutting two left hand backs. Ooops! I didn’t have much material to work with, but instead cut off the top with the armholes, and added a pannel that had the flowers running horizontally. I think it worked OK! 

I think its a bit short :) and I might change the buttons. But I think its a good base to start from!

PS: Best zipper I ever put in too!

I'm thinking I might use the pattern inclusing the sleeves for a spring top entry...

Re-doing the garden

So, we've lived here nearly a year now, and the back garden is still just brick and mulch. And a tree that we can't decide if we like, and keep threatening to cut down if we could be bothered.

This is what it looked like when we moved in:

Those are rosemary bushes. 

Neither of us particularly likes rosemary.

And the tree was WILD.

And this is what it looks like now:

Yes, we used these 11 months well! 

The rosemary is gone, and the tree had a couple of hair cuts.

And this is what its going to look like. 

A couple of grevilleas, lots of kangaroo paws, some grasses, some low growing natives, a couple of funky Acacia Limelights that I saw ages ago and fell in love with, and a little pond. 

Maybe even a fish!

All native, hopefully bird/insect/frog attracting and waterwise.

See the results!

Its a date!

We got a date for our citizenship ceremony!

In fact we got two; they split the group in half alphabetically, and as I didn't change my name after we got married, we were on separate halves of the list and therefore a week apart in ceremony dates.

A quick call to the council and it was all sorted.

By the end of March we'll be AUSTRALIAN!

Stoner Caterpillar Dress

We were invited to an Alice in Wonderland birthday party. 

Go through the rabbit hole....

I loved the idea of something more imaginative, so raided my cupboard.

The bodice is based on the burda cap sleeve bodice, but I pieced together the bodice so I could have the underbody of the caterpillar.

For the skirt, I knew I needed a train, but I wanted something more than a circle skirt. I ended up cutting a slit the same length as the bodice width ina long rectangle of fabric (about 1.5m). I sewed it onto the bodice so the front and back had tight radiating gathers, and the rest was a smooth join. I'll try and add pictures, because that doesn't make such sense to me either!

I attached the rest of the scarf to the skirt so it matched the pieced bodice.

Once the main dress form was finished, I tried it on and tacked the netting in gathers under the back of the skirt and train, until it looked like I wanted.

I cut 4 sets of feet out of felt and tacked them on, donned the wig, and was transformed into a beautiful... caterpillar.

Fully caterpillared!

My inspiration. I had a cigarette holder as my hookah pipe, but forgot it :(

Id even covered it in glitter specially.

Me and the husband.

I was very proud. He made his outfit (mostly) all by himself.

There was a bouncy castle :)

Finally, an excuse to wear the shoes from Dubai.

Some other party goers.

I used the rest of the fabric to make a sorbetto

Australia Day '12

Yesterday was Australia Day.

We were hoping to be making our citizenship pledge, but apparently we didn't get our applications confirmed in time for this round, so instead we will become full citizens in a couple of months.

So once we got over this disappointment, we made the most of both being home together to celebrate for the first time.

We joined the hoards and headed to the beach for the Thong Challenge, like I did last time I was in Perth for Australia Day. I generally freak out in open water, but with so many people in and splashing around with our yellow inflatable Havaianas, I figured the sharks would have a hard time picking me out. Plus, there were at least 4 helicopters flying over, so they would see anything as it approached... And I won't listen to any suggestions to the contrary!

Western Australia came out tops with 2088 people all chained together. Apparently people are more willing to go to the beach when its 42 degrees C than when its cold (and rainy) as it was in much of the rest of Australia! 

The surf life savers were obviously not too happy to be there, as when it was announced that we had enough people in the water to beat the record, the ones at our end started sending people back in. We kept trying to explain that the record attempt hadn't actually begun- we had to wait for the horn and link up etc etc, but he wouldn't listen. Kind of spoilt the occasion, but we stayed out despite his insistence, so managed to be part of the record anyway :)

Once the heat and sun got too much, we headed home, washed the salt and sand off and met up again at a pub close to the city, had some drinks and food then walked down to the foreshore to see the fireworks.

When we got out of the pub, the clouds were looking very ominous... when we got to the foreshore, it started raining a bit, on and off... 

When the fireworks started, the heavens opened and the lightening put on its own show!

I spent the 20 minutes of the show hiding under the trees, freaking out about being under the tree, going out in the rain, getting too wet and going back under the tree again...

We weren't too sure if this was the planned big ending, or if the lightening just made them all go off at once :)

In previous years we've attempted to Drive home, but its only 5km, so we got the train down to the pub (delayed because of the heat... the tracks warp is its over 40 so the trains have to go slow) then walked all the way back. Luckily the rain held off! By the time we got home, the heat and salt and beer and excitement was quite enough for us, and we fell straight asleep.

2008 - I don't think I even knew it was my first Australia Day! I was in Kambalda... I remember a bit of a poster about there being an event at the pub, but I was crazy busy at work and it just wasn't on my radar!

2009 - Australia Day breakfast BBQ in a truck stop on the Newman-Marble Bar road

2010- Dave flew in from work for the fireworks

2011 - I flew in from Work

2012!

Happy Australia Day!