All Black Geranium

A friend of ours is due to have a baby daughter at the start of next month, and knowing how keen he is on his rugby there was an obvious choice for a present for the new arrival. To welcome her to the team. I'm sure her Mum will hate me for it, but the thought is there!

So, I started by cutting a stencil out. Trust me. Don't do it! Such a fiddly motif! Then as I was applying the second coat of fabric pain The Boy got a message... "Shes on her way!". Perfect timing or what! Luckily the Geranium dress is a quick sew. Especially the 10th time :) Sadly I had to photograph it really rapidly for my records, as I was hemming it before baby yoga on Saturday morning and the new father was potentially coming round when I was out, so these are on the sofa in the dawn light!

See why her mum might hate me?

Hopefully the (black) flutter sleeves and the white underskirt take the edge off!

For all the fiddling, the Fern turned out quite well. Its not the smoothest, clearly stencilled not screen printed, but the overall look is exactly what I was hoping for.

The dress is fully lined, which gave me a headache attempting to figure out how to make the opening in the back work. In the end I sewed the outer and inner dress together, leaving the opening clear, then sewed the outer and inner together around the opening, leaving the top 1.5cm on each side open so it can be attached to the bodice. Once turned the right way round and clipped and ironed it seemed to work. 

It was all sewn up as rapidly as I could justify, as we were due to see the father the next day (all going well with the birth) so it needed to be ready to go! And there was me patting myself on the back for starting it early. Thats babies for you!

A new toy and a new challenge

I've been telling the Boy for a while that I wanted to get an overlocker/serger to add to my collection. It was on the list of baby necessities ;) Seam finishing can be awkward enough, never mind on teeny tiny baby clothes that will (hopefully) be put through their paces in terms of washing and wearing. And I hate sewing stretchy fabric on my machine. It just never seems to work for me!

So when I saw this Toyota overlocker (SLR4D) on sale for half price at Spotlight last week, I knew it would be mine. Toyota arent exactly the brand that come to mind when you think of sewing machine creators, but I've had my sexy black Toyota sewing machine for a couple of years now, and its a dream to sew with, so off we went!

It took a few plays to get the hang of it, and its still a bit (hugely) scary that it has the potential to cut a big hole in what ever I'm working on, but I'm in love. I've used it to finish off seams on a few prototype baby garments, and sew another little onsie, but my first big adventure was with my first attempt at a maternity top. Sewing to fit a rapidly expanding stomach... Whole new challenge.

I roughly followed the tutorial by Zoe on how to transform a t-shirt pattern into a maternity top, using the Burda Sadie as my base (I some how stashed this one away for free a few years ago, but had never actually tried it).

Here is what the pattern looked like after I'd hacked it up, adding extra length between the "extend here" lines and the waist:

Can you guess which one is the front?! And then I made it up, folding the excess fabric into 4 pleats on each side.

Then I decided it was time to have a play with what else the overlocker could do, so I switched to 3 needle mode and finished off the bottom hem in as a lettuce hem, or what ever its actually called. Stretched out and encased. Then I did the arms and neck to match, since it was just a muslin and since I've still not really mastered the technique for adding neck bands. The arms stretched out more than expected in the process, so I took about an inch off under each arm to fit them again, and we were done. 

The whole thing took maybe 2 hours, from printing out the pattern to putting it on.

Its still got quite a lots of growing room in it, which is lucky since my baby bump is still very small!

I'm calling it a win and sorting through the relatively large stash of stretch fabric that I've picked up on sale or from the OpShop over the last few years and getting some variations planned out so I'll be prepared once it finally stops raining and starts to warm up!

A little sewing dare

So, this dare was set unknowingly for me by The Boy.
I saw this fantabulous surfing space robots poplin in Spotlight, but the Boy said it was too Boy for our neutral baby, so I decided to girlyfy it. Regardless of what the baby turns out to be I'm sure it'll find a home somewhere.

So Voila!

A teensy tiny 0-3 month Geranium dress in the top length, and some of SeeKateSews Baby Bloomers to go under. I'm sure that this will get worn at most once, if ever, but I really enjoyed the process of making it. 

To add to the included ruffles of the bloomers I added an extra orange bias tape ruffle across the bum.

I didn't close up the elastic holes and cut on the extreme side, so they can be let out or taken in as needed once I have someone to try them on!

I think these might be boyish enough to work regardless of gender, though I'm sure The Boy will disagree! I will admit that the other pair I made are a little too far on the girly side due to the massive rufflebum:

This will be a summer baby, so will probably live in singlet and nappy covers or onsies for the first few months of its life, so thats where My sewing focus will lie.

But sometime you just have to give into the dare!

I finally sewed something!

Using this tutorial from SpaceFem. I reused an old t-shirt, making the most of the already finished neckline and the hem for the sleeves, which left me to simply bind the bottom opening. It went together like a dream, despite my bit of hacking to be able to use existing features.

I've made some baby clothes before, but never onsies.

Who is this one for, you ask?

Well... 

Me!

Hence the lack of sewing for the last few months. I didn't want to jinx my self by sewing maternity or baby stuff, just in case, and I didn't want to sew clothes that may never fit again depending how much damage this baby causes to my body shape on a long term basis!

What have I doing instead? Mainly sleeping.

But a couple of weeks ago we finally went on a road trip I've been wanting to do for a long time, all the way down to Esperance- 2000km all up. But you can see why it was worth it, even if it was a bit chilly.

And we finally stopped in a Wave Rock... the most underwhelming tourist destination in all of WA.

Cue surfing the rock photo.

ANZAC Day - Remembering our lost soldiers

Today is ANZAC day here in Australia. I was up and out of the house by 4:15am to get to the Dawn service I was playing at, then drove back into the city to play in the main parade. Big day! I think I sent about 5 hours holding 6kg of brass up in front of me! My arms hurt!

What was a thinking of during the silence, I hear you ask? My mind went back to when I was in Italy, and stumbled on a memorial for 5 Australian and 1 English soldiers in a remote valley in the mountains. They were escaped prisoners of war, killed here while waiting for the weather to improve enough for them to cross the mountains into the safety of Switzerland.

Maybe it was the unexpected nature of my discover, but finding this little memorial nestled into those steep hills really struck something in me. I couldn't help thinking I was one of the only visitors that this place has received. I couldn't find any information on it when I searched, and there were no signs of life other than that very weathered-looking bunch of flowers. I spent a while there, reflecting on their story and thinking how much strength they must have had to survive all they did.

They weren't heroes. 

They weren't superhuman. 

They were (probably) young men who had been shipped off voluntarily to the far side of the world, fought and been captured, survived as a POW until they could escape then survived in the mountains, a place where I had so many precautions in place to make sure I was safe and yet still felt uneasy. And then they were ambushed and shot.
To get as far as they did must have taken so much inner strength. I hope that I can find those same reserves in myself if I should ever have to, but hopefully because of their sacrifice I never will have to face what they did.

One of the four key responsibilities we agreed to when we became Australian was to defend Australia should the need arise. Having to agree to that rather than having it sitting in the background is a very confronting thing to do. I left a river stone on the memorial, with "Lest We Forget" and some flowers marked on in paint marker. I don't think it will last the weather conditions, but I'm happy that I marked their sacrifice as well as I could.

Since I couldn't find any information, here is my bad translation of the sign near the memorial. The location is shown below, but there are no roads recognised by google, so to get there you get to Castagnea village, and turn right at the T junction at the top of the town (western side) and follow the dirt road down into the valley, past the Santuario della Novareia to the river and the hydroelectric powerstation (Piancone). Then follow the river south until you notice the little sign. Its a one track dirt road and you will need a car with good clearance.

Around September 8, 1943, the Allied soldiers who were in the fields of Vercelli plain as prisoners of war gained their freedom and tried to get to safety in Switzerland.The flow to the Swiss territory was assisted from the first anti-fascist organizations that had set up a system of accompaniment through which many of the former prisoners were guided from the plains to the mountains of Biella and Valsesian and Ossola and then to Switzerland, usually through the Passo di Moro Macugnaga. Not everyone, however, managed to reach Switzerland, as the Germans occupied militarily the crossing points and also because, with the passing of time they became weather conditions deteriorated.Among the prisoners who remained in Italy, some were again captured, others joined the Resistance, and many took refuge in the hills or in the mountains, surviving thanks to the generosity of the local population or to aid liberazion National Committees.In the spring of 1944, several hundred former Allied prisoners were still in the Biella area waiting to ripen the conditions for the move in Switzerland. These include a group of soldiers had settled here at the Tagliamento Legion [part of the fascist National Republican Guard], department commanded by Marico Zuccari, who made ​​numerous and frequent roundup actions against the Resistance and looking for draft dodgers, both in Valsessera in Sesia Valley.

The presence of a group of soldiers [the escaped POWs], who were not part of the Resistance, was reported to the command of Tagliamento Legion by an informant.On May 5, the former prisoners were surprised by the fascists as they were returning from Mosso, where they had gone in search of food and information, and shot. In the event five soldiers were killed Australians, and one Briton.The pastor of the Alpe Barbero, Lorenzo Verzoletto, escaped through luck, but was forced to dig the graves of the soldiers along with Agusto Massaro.The names of the fallen are shown in the plaque erected in memory of the massacre.

C Ladell (AIF)

H Blain (AIF)

E Woolf (AIF)

T Nichols (AIF)

S Harvey (AIF) 

I English

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And now it is.

Enough, anyway. I think I need to bite the bullet and buy a french curve, as the problems with the skirt resut with me not being able to draw a smooth curve! Can you tell I'd been wearing it sat down for a few hours?

And I finished the last pair of pants for MMM! 

(Can you guess the Boys name?!)

So I thought this was finished...

...then I took the photos, and the camera never lies!

It looked fine in the mirror, though maybe in need of a bit of an iron.

But from the back?

Whats with the weird puffy sides?!

So its back to the machine for this skirt, to try and smooth out those puffs!

I have a horrible feeling I may have to take the invisible zip out and start it again, but I'm hoping it doesn't come to that!

In other news, I just got back from the local sewing meet with 3 new pairs of knickers, all ready for MMM. I have one more pair cut out and ready to sew. While 5 pairs might be a bit sparse for the whole of May, its been a fun learning curve. I can definitely see the improvement in technique.