Bargain patterns

Merry Christmas and all the best with the New Year. When I was out shopping for Christmas, I always leave all that to this week I can't deal with it before then. It is easier not having young children to buy for though. I dropped into the Salvos and found these 2 patterns for $1 each.

The Vogue Paris original is just gorgeous, I love the jacket, I'm not sure what year it is. The Simplicity is 1977 and I love the sleeves and the shape and of course the rick rack around the edge. What's not to love about rick rack!. I was pretty happy with my find.

Unfortunately my sewing mojo seems to have disappeared. I have lost 2 very significant people in my life in the last  few weeks. My teacher from primary school who became a friend and helped me to decide the path my life took and last night the father of a friend, who is also my parents best friend.  I have known him all my life passed away. I just feel overwhelmed by my fabric and ideas and don't know where to start with sewing. I am hoping my mojo will return after Christmas.

Merry Christmas everyone and all the best for the new Year.

Happy Sewing!

Belly Dancing Costume

I have been doing some sewing, a belly dancing costume. One of my hobbies is belly dancing. It doesn't matter what size you are or how old you are it's just a fabulous, fun exercise. Last night we had a performance. My beautiful children and wonderful man came and watched. I was extremely nervous as this was my debut but it was great fun. We all mucked the dance up but no one seemed to mind.

I made the costume very quickly but I was happy with the effect.
The skirt is Vogue 8818, and the fabric is a sequin fabric from Spotlight. The gold trim fabric is from Spotlight as well, a gold circle fabric. The hip scarf was purchased.

You are able to cut rows of the circles and then stitch them on.  It could be nice as a feature on an evening top. It wasn't the easiest to sew and the skirt is very full.
The top is made from a black organza(I think) from my stash. I used  McCalls 5050. I just cut it off at the waist and didn't add any elastic at the waist because I wanted a loose top, I just added the elastic at the neckline.. I put a row of the gold trim at the bottom but I didn't do a very good job.
The costume was effective and comfortable so I was happy. My kids only took a video so that's why I used the mannequin for pictures.
                                                      Happy Sewing and Shimmies !

Pants, Pants , Pants

My how time flies. I haven't blogged for quite a while, the usual reasons of work, end of year madness at school, long lost daughters returning and for the first time in 4 years I have all my children living in the one city, very exciting.

Sewing has overwhelmed me lately, so many patterns and so much fabric that I thought I need to plan a bit more and just start shopping from my stash. With that in mind I thought I would start with pants. The weather in Sydney is hot and humid at the moment, and I find cotton and linen pants comfortable.
My plan the fabrics

These are all stretch woven cottons. The top fabric and stripes and spots are from Tessuti's and the purple and orange from Spotlight last year.

The patterns: 

There are 3 Style Arc patterns. An old favourite the Elle pant, I have made these up 3 times previously. They are quick and easy to make. The Tori crop pants, these will be fabulous for summer. A new Style Arc pattern, Flat Bottom Flo Pant, I'm excited to try these. The last pattern is a Hot patterns Fast and Fabulous Tummy-Taming Trousers. These look great. I hope they tame my tummy. This is the plan I hope it works. The only spanner in the works is that I have been called up for Jury Duty starting tomorrow, not the best way to start my summer holidays but I guess it's an important part of our democracy.
                                                    Happy Sewing!

The Shirt and the Pants

My how time flies, November already. I have been sewing but as usual it has taken me a while to take photos. The self timer is not working on my camera so I have to wait till someone is around. My lovely gentleman friend came to the rescue.

My shirt is Burda 7136. Not normally a shirt I would make but it was the pattern requirement for a course I did at the ASG's convention in September. I thought this would be a disaster but my teacher was amazing. I said this won't work for me and she said, "well we will make it work," and she did. Its funny but she gave me permision to change it, and with that a freedom to change a pattern to suit me and what I feel comfortable with. It was quite liberating.

For the shirt I bought this lovely turquiose linen but with a cross white grain from Tessuti's. I can't remember what its called but its lovely, very comfortable and cool.
I am really happy with the shirt, it fits hooray!... There were a few adjustments.
                                   1. I lowered the bust dart about an 1".
                                   2. I added a pleat at the back

                               3. I added to the sleeves, in I think, a bicep adjustment, so the sleeves fit, so excited.

                          4.  I changed the placket to the placket the teacher used. Very excited about this because I had never done a placket before.

All in all I'm happy with this shirt. I learnt so much and it fits.

The pants are another Style Arc Barb stretch pant. I made these out of a stretch cotton that I bought at Spotlight last year. Its quite a large patterned fabric that I wouldn't have used normally for pants but the colour was so lovely with the shirt I thought the abstract pattern would work. I feel it does. 

The adjustments to the pants were really just shortening them, even more than last time and this seems to have removed the folds I had with my animal print pants.

I am happy. I have a shirt that fits. I have an outfit, so a success. The shirt is far from perfect but the lessons learned were immeasurable.

Happy Sewing!

Vogue 8952

Well I fell in love with this fabric. A loose slub knit, it's just gorgeous . Black with a whitish fleck and quite an open knit..

I thought it would make a lovely jumper to wear at night when its cool in Spring. I decided to make Vogue 8952 View C. A simple long sleeved top with a hi low hem.

It turned out well. I wanted it to be loose. I just added a black band around the neck to bring the neck in slightly, otherwise it would have  fallen off my shoulders too much.
The fabric was from Tessuti's and I also bought it in a stone colour. It was a little difficult to sew. It is easy to pull a thread and this causes runs. Plus it moves around a bit. This pattern was so easy to sew and came together easily. I love the back.

I am happy with how the fabric drapes which was the look I wanted. So I would recommend this pattern if you want a quick, easy, comfortable and loose top.

                                                     Happy Sewing!

The saga of the striped Moneta

 The striped Moneta has been a bit of a saga. I started making this in the cooler weather so it started life with sleeves. Then the weather warmed up and at about 4am one morning I had the bright idea of removing the sleeves. Usually ideas at this time of the morning aren't so clever but this one was not too bad. So the sleeves came off.
 

The saga didn't end there though. With my first Moneta I had no trouble using the clear elastic but in this version the insertion didn't go so well.

As the pencils show the difference between the bodice side seam and the skirt side seam was a couple of inches. While I'm not a perfectionist sewer this was a little too much actually alot too much. The main trouble was that the ponte was quite a stable knit so didn't stretch too far. So I cut the skirt off and put in pleats , a much better outcome.
  The neck , armholes and hem are trimmed with a magenta ponte. I just wanted to add a bit of colour.

 So the saga ended and I'm pretty happy with the end result. I found a cardigan which was a perfect match.
 

                                          Happy Sewing!

Tops for Spring

With the weather warming up I looked in my wardrobe and found some holes. I need some cool summer tops that are comfortable but werable for work as well. I need to have sleeves to cover my upper arms so I thought my first try would be in this lovely linen I bought from Tessuti's and this Burda  6972.

 I intend to make the tunic butI will shorten the sleeves to about a 3/4 sleeve and I want it long. As I am short I probably won't need to lengthen the tunic. Let's hope this works.

Happy Sewing!