Silky Purchase...

Last weekend I spent some time with my sewing machine and made up a muslin of my Sencha blouse and it turned out really well. It was useful in two ways; obviously finding out the fit, but also learning how the blouse goes together so I'm less likely to have any hiccups with construction when I'm working on the real thing. I don't have any photos of it yet , but I will get some. Due to this success I have taken the plunge and bought fabric.

At sewing club this evening I spent quite a while laying the pattern pieces on the fabric to work out exactly how much I needed. I ended up buying 1.3m, which was quite a bit less than the 1 7/8yd the fabric says to buy, which my bank balance is very grateful for! I bought the "Crepe De Chine Silk" I mentioned before (pictured and linked above), and also bought matching silk thread, some lightweight interfacing, the correct type of needles and some silk hand-wash solution. When I got home I hand-washed it and it's now drying so it's ready whenever I am.

I'm still planning on a "practice run" first with some royal blue fabric from my stash so I can get the hang of sewing with slippery fabric on something that I won't be devastated about if I ruin it. We did the burn test on it and concluded that it's definitely something artificial, probably acrylic or polyester. Either way the fabric has a similar drape to the silk so will be a very good practice run.

My goal for the weekend: To make at least the blue blouse

Wardrobe Project

As I mentioned, as part of my Sewing club I have joined the BurdaStyle Wardrobe Project. I took a printout of my wardrobe plan along to the last meet of sewing club but am yet to share it with you on here.

As I mentioned in my "Looking Ahead to 2010" post, this year I wanted to sew with more of a plan and expand my winter wardrobe - so this fits into that perfectly.

Without further ado, here's my current plan (although it is subject to change):

Winter 2010 Wardrobe Plan

Esprit Dress - I started this a while back and have completed a muslin, made the necessary alterations and even have bought some lovely black fabric from Tessuti, I just need to get started on it and it hopefully won't be too complicated (fingers crossed!)

Sencha Blouse - As I mentioned, I now have this pattern in my grubby little hands, and plan/hope to buy this fabric to make it with. I'll need to read up about working with slippery material before I make it though, as that's something I've never done before.

Emily Shirt - I made a muslin for this last year in some black poplin and have some gorgeous white on white stripe Italian shirting I got on sale at Clegs ready and waiting to be cut into. (I'll be making the version with the normal sleeves)
Vogue Trousers - I've had this pattern for a while (ever since I saw EmilyKate's gorgeous pair from this pattern and I bought it at the $5 sale at Clegs). I'm not sure what fabric/colour I'll be making these in yet but I think I'll make view A. I plan to make a muslin before buying fabric.

Jenny Skirt - I'm not completely decided on this one, I know I want a Skirt but I'm not entirely convinced this skirt will be all that flattering on me... so I may substitute this for a different pattern.

Hikaru Jacket - I hope to make the Hikaru jacket as a middle weight jacket, which I desperately need for this Winter - I have a few warm coats and some thin jackets but nothing at that mid-warmth level that's vital for Melbourne winter. I don't have any fabric in mind for it yet, I don't really want to make it black but other than that I'm not sure.

So there you have it, my plan. I'm not totally sure that they all fit together perfectly, but I'm sure it'll be fine, especially when i take into account the clothes I already have and can mix with these items. As I make items I'll make sure they fit in with the other ones and make any choices/changes accordingly.

New Pattern Delivered!

As part of my BurdaStyle Sewing Club we are having a wardrobe sew along. I have my plan and will post about it soon, but I wanted to share with you this little bit of excitement that is related to the sew along - my new Sencha Pattern from Colette patterns:

I bought it online for a steal from Modern Retro Textiles, who sent it out to me super quick as I only ordered it Monday night and it arrived in the post yesterday (Wednesday). Incase you hadn't seen elsewhere on the internets, the Colette patterns are super cute in format as they come with the pattern 'envelope' being a little booklet with the intructions on, with a pocket in the back for the pattern pieces.

I'm very excited about this pattern; I think I've even picked out the fabric I want to make it out of; a gorgeous silk crepe that's white with tiny black spots from Tessuti. The plan is to make a muslin of this on the weekend to take along to sewing club next Thursday and buy the fabric. I have some fabric already that I inherited that would be gorgeous for this but i don't think i have enough. Once I have the pattern pieces cut out i'll have a go at laying them out on the fabric just to make sure though!

Some quilting done at least...

Yesterday I bought thread and started quilting the baby girl quilt but didn't quite buy enough thread. I only had enough for 1/3 of the top... mostly because I really need to learn to meander at a bigger scale as the stippling so far is still a bit close together (although still better than the teeny-tiny scale on my advent calendars).

So much for ploughing out the quilting in one night!! I have more thread now though so intend on finishing the quilting and hopefully a big chunk of the binding tomorrow night.

Quilt Back...

For the back of the baby girl quilt I pieced some smaller blocks with some of the left over fabric.

I then put them (deliberately) unevenly spaced near the top of the backing fabric.

Quilt top...

I've finished off the quilt top for the baby girl quilt I've been working on. As much as I enjoyed the improv-piecing, I realised part way through that I should probably have chosen a particular block size and stuck with it. However, I ended up with a bit of an assortment of block sizes. When I laid them all out on my "design wall" (i.e. the floor) I thought it was a bit busy to have them all just pieced together so added some sashing in pale pink (my backing fabric) which also served the function of allowing me to make all the blocks the same size.

(apologies for the crappy photo)

Now I need to decide if I'm going to do any piecing on the back before basting... I'm edging towards yes, I might try something with the fabric I have left over and see what I think.

Holiday Time...

There won't be much from me this week as I'm taking some holiday while a friend visits.

Yesterday we went to Brighton Beach and had a lovely walk in the sun.

Today we're going to drive along the great ocean road for a few days.

For Baby William...

... I hope you enjoy the Quilt. I finished the baby boy quilt I was making last weekend and gifted it to the intended recipient. Baby William is still teeny-tiny so will certainly have to grow into it, but hopefully him and his mum & dad like it.

I ended up quilting with a diagonal cross hatch in yellow on the front:

and red on the back:

I bound it a stripy blue fabric (that I got at the same time as the rest of the fabric). Here's the finished thing:

I'm VERY happy with how it turned out. The only thing I'm disappointed with is that I was hoping to wash it before gifting it as I've not washed any of my quilts yet so wanted to check how it would turn out. However, our washing machine is broken so that wasn't possible.

(the red and blue rectangle at the bottom is a label where I embroidered the Baby's name and date of birth. I've blanked it out in the photo).

(pictures are clickable to see bigger versions)

PS: A HUGE thanks to Nims who let me drag her out into the park next to where we work to hold the quilt up while I took photos. A much prettier backdrop than my weed ridden garden and smelly compost bin!