My Messings

Not as good as new

2012-02-12T17:39:00.001+11:00

So you know how I was excited that my machine was fixed the other day? Turns out it's not :( I'm going to have to call up the shop tomorrow and find out what to do now.

However, mostly due to the generosity of other members of my quilting guild, at my SASD today I finished the quilting on my concentric hexagons quilt and stitched the binding down on the front. Only the hand stitching on the back left to go, hurrah! So a huge thanks must go to Annabel and Bek for their generosity.

As good as new

2012-02-10T22:35:00.000+11:00

I've got my machine back, hurrah! I traded shifts at work yesterday so I could get to the shop before it closed and pickup my machine. And this evening I've tried it out, and I'm pleased to report that it seems as good as new. As well a service to clean it out and fix the timing, it apparently needed a new bobbin holder unit.

I didn't want to launch straight in with anything too difficult on the machine (like FMQ), so I have cut out and started stitching what I'm hoping will be a "wearable" muslin of a Jasmine blouse. I'm using some black and white gingham that I traded with my friend Laura, and plan to have a plain black collar. I had traced off the pattern for version 2 the other week (a size 8 above the waist, tapering to a 10 at the hips) so I just needed to cut out the pieces.

So far I have the front and back pieces stitched together, and a quick try on tells me that the size seems to be about right; it seems to be the right size across the bust and hips. It's a bit hard to check the fit without the collar and sleeves though.

I'm glad to have my machine back, that's for sure! Expect more progress soon.

In for a service

2012-02-08T20:34:00.000+11:00

Quite frustratingly, I haven't got much to show at the moment. I had big plans for this week and next. The boy is on holiday and I was planning to make good use of my spare time by spending some quality time with my sewing machine.

Sadly, while I was quilting my hexagon quilt last week my machine started running strangely and it became hard to turn the wheel. I decided that it probably wasn't a good idea to keep going while it wasn't behaving so started looking in to taking it in for a service. I took it in on Saturday, and am hopefully going to pick it up tomorrow after work. Apparently something within the bobbin mechanism had worn out and needed replacing. I'm hoping that it will be as good as new when I get it home though.

I have got some sewing done, however, as we had a "crafternoon" on the weekend, and I had a sewing date last night, but unfortunately I'm not quite in the position to share pics of things yet. I have finished my Vogue 2902 dress but need to wait until mid next week until I have the matching belt to show you photos.

I've made some very good progress on my Beignet, which I've been sewing along with Claire, and should hopefully finish that soon too (although I do still need buttons). So bear with me during this unscheduled break, I will hopefully have some finished things to share with you soon!

Vogue 2902 - Attaching the straps

2012-02-04T19:12:00.000+11:00

I recently bought this Vintage Vogue pattern, which is going to be used for a special occasion later in the year, but after looking at the bizarre instructions for attaching the straps I decided to make up a practice version to have a go at an alternative method.

The pattern has you make up the bodice as if it's strapless, and then to make a fully enclosed tube for the straps part, which is slip stitched onto the top of the bodice on the outside (the top edge of the straps section lines up exactly with the top of the bodice).

I didn't want to do it this way for three main reasons:
1) I didn't want to trust or do that much hand stitching on it
2) If you do the straps in a contrast fabric and there is any slight gape when you move you'd see the bodice fabric on the inside of the neckline rather than the contrast.
3) Any visible hand stitches would be very noticeable with the fabric I'm likely to end up using for the "real thing"

Anyway, I came up with another method for attaching the straps that I think worked really well, so I thought I'd share it. It does still have a little hand stitching, but it's not integral to holding the dress up, and isn't visible. It does however solve the contrast at the neckline point.

The bodice was stitched together as per the instructions.

I stitched the straps section together as instructed EXCEPT I did not stitch along the bottom of the straps, as shown here:

Then I went about folding up the seam allowance along the bottom of that piece. The first method I thought to use was just to mark the seam allowance and fold it up like so:

However it's actually quite tricky to get a nice smooth curve doing this method. A slightly better method is to do a line of stitching just inside the seam allowance along the line you want to fold:

You can then fold just to the inside of this line of stitching and you get a much smoother curve:

I would suggest folding a slightly larger seam allowance on the inside of the band than the outside.

Once I'd folded and pressed the seam allowance on both sides of the band I stitched the INSIDE of the band to the bodice by machine. I pinned the band to the machine, lining the top of the bodice up with the top of the band, with the band enclosing the bodice, and stitched along about 1/8" from the edge of the bodice band.

Importantly, this line of stitching must be inside the size of the band on the outside to keep the stitches invisible from the outside. This is why I suggested making the inside seam allowance larger.

There will now be a line of stitching along the top of the bodice holding the inside band in place, which will then be covered up by the outside of the band.

The last step is to stitch the outside band down invisibly by hand. Doing a slipstitch along the edge of the fabric is the 'obvious' way of doing it, but after doing a couple of inches of this I decided that it was still too visible, so I folded back the first 1/8" of the band and did my line of stitches just under there (just inside my line of stitching from before, being careful not to catch the outside layer of the band and only the seam allowance):

When you let go of the folded back bit and let it sit flat your stitches are completely invisible. Here is a comparison of the two stitch types.

Normal slip stitch on edge of band:

My method folding it back slightly and stitching only the underneath layer:

Here's a peek at what the finished band looks like:

I hope those instructions are clear. If you have any questions please feel free to ask them in the comments and I'll to my best to answer them.

I'll share pics of the whole dress once it's finished - I still need to put in the zip and hem it.

(Audio)Book Recommendations?

2012-01-31T11:49:00.000+11:00

I got a subscription to Audible for my Birthday, but I'm completely overwhelmed and have no idea what audiobooks to get. So I was hoping someone might have some suggestions.

So far I've gotten a fair few audiobooks out the library, ranging from trashy "chick lit" to some non-fiction stuff, so am open to a range of different things. Basically I'm after anything that's easy to listen to, but interesting, but doesn't require too much thinking.

So, does anyone please have any suggestions?

Beignet Muslin, and Super Oops!

2012-01-28T10:38:00.000+11:00

Thusday this week was Australia Day, which means a day off work, hurrah! After a lovely picnic in the park with some friends, me and Claire went back to her house to work on our Beignet muslins. She had already traced her pattern pieces and made a muslin, but I hadn't started at all.

I decided to have a go at grading between sizes on the pattern, because my waist and hip measurements fell across two different sizes. So when tracing the pieces I traced a 12 for most of the skirt, but a 10 at the waist, and joined up between the two over the three inches above the "lengthen/shorten" line marked on the pattern.

I then cut out just the pattern shell pieces from some poplin to make a muslin, stitched up the seams and pinned where the buttons should be, and horror of horrors, it was WAAAAAY too big, as shown on the left below *insert sad face here*

After having a bit of a look at the muslin, I decided that I could pinch out the extra full-ness in the centre back, so did a quick seam up the centre back taking out a whopping 6cm(!!). Lots of cursing about stupid sizing was performed, but after that alteration the skirt fit pretty much perfectly (see above, right). My grading has left a slight bump on the front between the centre front and side front pieces, which I will smooth out, but other than that the skirt fits great.

However, before you start thinking that Sarai doesn't know what she's talking about please keep reading....

Look at what I noticed on my centre back pattern piece when I was folding it up to put it away:

Yup, that's right, I hadn't cut out the pattern piece along the "cut on fold" edge. I had just left it thinking "oh I don't need to cut there, I can just line up the line with the fold when I cut it out" but then had proceeded to completely forget that part and lined up the fold with the edge of the paper. And guess what, that extra bit of paper is pretty much exactly 3cm (ie 6cm extra fabric!)

Oops! Sorry Sarai for cursing at your pattern drafting, there is nothing wrong with it at all, it fits perfectly, it was 100% operator error!

So the morals of this story?

1) Don't be lazy when you're cutting out your pattern pieces
2) Pay attention when you're placing pattern pieces and cutting them out
3) The Beignet so far seems to have a fantastic fit, and the envelope measurements are pretty much spot on.

Super Stippling Progress

2012-01-27T15:43:00.001+11:00

After my Free Motion Practice post the other day I started quilting my concentric hexagons quilt (which really does need a better name, suggestions please?) and I thought I'd share my progress.

Since the weather has been pretty hot here this week I sought sanctuary of the living room, as my room can get very hot in summer and the living room has air con. However, we currently don't have a dining table, so I set myself up in a very unconventional and probably highly un-ergonomic setup using my coffee table.

I used the coffee table, a stool and the couch to support the weight of the quilt so that it wasn't pulling on where I was stitching. Then as always I always do whatever type of quilting I'm doing, I started close to the middle and worked my way out.

Despite the unconventional setup I am pretty happy with how my stitching is working out.

It also looks pretty good on the back (see below). Since the print is quite busy already and the navy bits alerady have some beige lines it actually (surprisingly) sinks into the print quite well and looks alright.

I did maybe 1/4 of the quilt over the course of the evening, which was 3 or 4 bobbins worth of thread I think.

You can see above how much I have done so far. I started up the top, and worked my way around a bit in the middle then moved across to one edge, then back across to the middle then kept kind of wiggling my way out until I reached the corner and then started working across the bottom edge.

I'm planning to take this along to the MMQG Sit and Sew Evening tonight to make some more progress on it.

And just so you don't think that everything always works perfectly, here's some stitching that went wrong:

This happened straight after I re-threaded the machine after the first bobbin ran out. I stitched maybe 6-10" of stippling and noticed that the stitches looked a bit loose. Then when I looked at the back of the quilt I had these terrible loops happening. Not good! So I stopped, unpicked the bad stitches (which thankfully was very easy) and completely rethreaded the machine, which fixed the problem.

So, if you ever end up with funny stitches, the best course of action is to re-thread your machine, as that usually fixes the problem

Free Motion Practice

2012-01-24T17:55:00.000+11:00

Today's post is related to yesterdays post about my hexagon quilt. Before jumping in and quilting the queen sized quilt (gulp!) I thought some practice to get my hand back in with Free motion quilting as I haven't done any in a while. So I got a practice sandwich, loaded up my machine with different colours for the top and bobbin thread and went quilting.

I was quite happy with how it turned out. I definitely need to work on keeping my stitch length a bit more even, but I was also focusing on increasing my scale slightly and keeping it consistent, which I think I managed quite well.

Leah Day, of the Free Motion Quilting Project is currently running a free motion quilt along where she is encouraging readers to jump in and just give it a go. She's written some great posts of how to get started, including some really great tips, one of which I used here with great success. In her "playing with scale" post she talks about using a reference to help you with changing the scale of a design. When I've free motion quilted things before I've struggled with scaling up the stippling, and I used Leah's tip of using a touchstone to remind you of your scale - I used the width of my fingers as I could always see it. I aimed for the gaps between the quilting to, on average, be about the width of my finger, which they are, hurrah!

(Leah has also been encouraging readers to show pictures of their stitches, both good and bad, so that's what I've done)

I definitely can improve, in the above pic you can see some examples of what I want to improve on - near the top you can see a massive variation in stitch length, and below left you can see how I need to practice smoothing out my curves sometimes.

Flipping it over and looking at the back it's mostly ok, as shown above...

But occasionally I get some of the top threads coming through to the back. This was alleviated somewhat by increasing the upper tension a tiny bit (and I mean tiny). Again however, Leah has covered this too and has suggested making sure you go slow and steady on the curves - as if you notice it only happens on the tighter corners where i'm not going at a steady speed.

Another thing that Leah recommends is to use the same thread in the top and bottom, which agrees with Michele's comment on my last post. I don't want to have navy thread poking through to my lovely cream negative space, and I don't think the cream thread will look horrific on the back (and besides, it's the back!)

Now to fill up some bobbins and get quilting!!

Basted Hexagons

2012-01-23T22:39:00.003+11:00

I have made great progress in the "concentric hexagons" quilt project I started a while ago using the pre-cut fabric kindly gifted to me. I had made up all the half hexagons at my retreat back in November, and I took them with me to Perth at Christmas to work on the final layout of the quilt. While I was there I stitched together the half-hexagons into rows, and at the MMQG SASD I stitched the rows together and the borders around the outside... except when I got home I realised that I had put the borders on the wrong edges, and rather than making the quilt square had succeeded in making it more rectangular! oops! I spent some time this evening unpicking the borders and re-sewing them back onto the correct sides, and thus finally finishing the quilt top:

I had decided for this project to challenge myself to try and make something with a modern aesthetic despite using the very traditional styled fabrics. The key to my "vision" was negative space, which was filled perfectly by some homespun from spotlight in pretty much exactly the same colour as the solid cream in the range.

What do you think? Am I on course for making a "modern" quilt from the "traditional" fabrics?

One of the fat quarters had the name of the range on the selvage, which meant that I could look it up and managed to buy some on the internet from Lonestar Quilting for the backing and borders. The range is Wiscasset by Moda, and I chose this large "cheater quilts" print for the backing, because I quite like the print and it was completely lost having been cut up for the hexagons. I particularly like how it's got several of the prints from the line within its design.

After finishing the quilt top, the rest of my evening was spent basting the quilt (in the sanctuary of my air conditioned living room). I intend to machine quilt this one, so I had intended to spray baste it, but forgot to buy more spray. Since I had the evening free, rather than wait until I have some spray I decided to pin baste it instead. Hopefully the pins won't be too much of a pain when it comes to the machine quilting (I'm planning to free motion quilt it), I've only used pin basting for hand quilting so far.

Lastly, I'd please like some opinions on what colour bobbin thread to use when quilting. I have some cream that matches the solid for the top, and was probably thinking Navy for the bobbin (ie back). The tension when quilting is pretty good on my machine, so it's unlikely to show through to the front but it's possible.... What would you use?

Getting the stash under control

2012-01-22T15:08:00.000+11:00

Along with organising my patterns, I also wanted to organise my fabric stash for the new year, particularly given that the stuff I'd bought or gotten out recently had ended up just being stacked on top of my dresser:

Here is my current stash of non "scrap" dress making fabric:

Most of it I know what I want to do with it. The jersey down the left needs to become t-shirts. Then along the back row left to right I have a pleated skirt and it's lining, a rooibos, a jasmine, a beignet, the next three some kind of blouses, and the last three shirts. The front row the left spots will become dresses, the next three a dress and it's lining and contrast, but the last ones I have mostly inherited and I don't know what to do with yet, so any suggestions gratefully taken.

Anyway, I am determined to make a dent in it before buying any more (linings etc to finish stuff with this fabric is excepted!). How's your stash looking?

Pretty Colette

2012-01-19T21:44:00.001+11:00

I went in with some friends to get some Colette patterns, which arrived while I was away over Christmas. We got the Lady Grey, Crepe, Beignet, Jasmine and Rooibos:

I got the Beignet, Jasmine and Rooibos, and have actually already got fabric for them. This is what I got:

The Beignet is a grey drill, the Jasmine a voile/lawn and the Rooibos a poplin (all from Spotlight)

I can't wait to get started on them!

A Pair!

2012-01-17T20:07:00.000+11:00

Today I finished my first pair of socks!!!

Not really the ideal day to finish them, given that it was 34 degrees here today, but my office is over-air-conditioned, so I still got to wear them this afternoon :)

I am SO happy with how they turned out! There's a few small mistakes in them (which i'm not going to point out to you) but in general they're really successful.

I'm already eager to start my next knitting project. I'm going to knit some socks with one of my friends from work, so yesterday we went into the city and bought some yarn for them. We're planning to cast on in our lunch break tomorrow... just as soon as I choose which pattern I'm going to use!

Don't you just love sales?

2012-01-16T19:23:00.000+11:00

I got some good bargains in the sales around Christmas and New Year. The best has to be this white quilting homespun that I got from spotlight:

I bought what was left on the bolt, which was 6.2m, and after 30% off and a $10 voucher it only cost $20, score!!

I have some very exciting but even more secretive plans for this fabric, I promise I'll share as soon as it's no longer a secret though.

Great Op-Shop Find

2012-01-13T17:47:00.000+11:00

While I was in Perth for Christmas I snagged this pattern in an op-shop for only 50c!! Isn't it great! It's about one size too small for me, but surely it can't be too hard to make it a bit bigger.

The envelope back suggests to make it in "Garbadines, Linens, Piques, Poplins, Denims, Twills". What fabric would you use to make it up?

Sock Progress: One down...

2012-01-12T12:24:00.000+11:00

I've already shown you the initial progress of my first socks, but I've come a long way with them since then.

After making the leg of the sock as long as I wanted it I followed what the pattern said and carried on knitting only half of the stitches in a k1s1 manner to make the heel flap:

The k1s1 stitch was quite fun, as on the rows where the yarn changed colour I'd end up with stitches o alternating colours. It was tricky to get the hang of though and I think my tension was a bit tight.

Then I went on to what I'm informed are "short rows" to shape the heel:

They were even more fun as they were nice and simple as long as I kept good count of where I was and made the sock start to become 3D!

Next came the gusset, which I also found quite easy. The hardest bit was working out where to pick up the stitches, but I didn't stress about it too much and just focused on getting the right number of stitches:

Then it was onto the foot, which was super easy after the complicated-ness of the heel! Before I knew it I had enough foot and just had to do the toe:

I even braved it and looked up a video to learn the "kichener stitch" to finish off the end of the toe, and voila, a sock!!!

I cast on the second sock straight away (this was back on the 2nd of Jan) and I'm now a little over half way through it. I think I see some more knitting time over the next few days as I REALLY want to finish these. The pace has slowed slightly as I'm back at work, but as I'm getting the hang of it now I can do it while watching TV as long as the show isn't too involved (ie it's fine with most of the TV that I watch!)

Re-organised Patterns

2012-01-09T11:23:00.000+11:00

I'm trying to give my space a little bit of a sort out before I start sewing again for the new year, and I decided to start with my patterns. As you can see below they'd gotten in a bit of an unmanagable mess.

I went to Officeworks and bought a pack of B5 envelopes (a bit bigger than A5 sized). I also remembered just as I started that my printer can print on envelopes!

So I sorted out all the patterns that were in plastic wallets and printed out nicely uniformed labelled envelopes. As well as any notes I had, for printed out or traced commercial patterns I included the line drawings of the patterns, and for self-drafted or highly modified patterns I included photos.

Now my pattern stash is much more organised and easier to look through for either specific patterns or just for inspiration.

How do you organise your patterns?

Knitting Books - mini-reviews

2012-01-06T16:54:00.001+11:00

Just before Christmas I went to the library to get out some books on knitting. As I thought they proved to be a valuable resource in my sock knitting endeavors. Some more than others however, so I thought I'd do a mini review of what I thought of them and what I found useful, from a beginner knitter's standpoint.

It should be noted that these three books were chosen somewhat at random from the selection available at the library that I went to.

This first book was "simple knitting - a how-to knit workshop with 20 desirable projects" by Erica Knight. I got this book because it starts right at the beginning with techniques, and then works onto projects of increasing difficulty. However, while it did cover the absolute basics, as a beginner I found that there were some things that were missing from the explanations and I actually needed another resource (another book or the internet) to fill in those gaps. The most useful section of this book was the images of the swatches of different stitches. Sadly, as a beginner, I personally wouldn't recommend buying this book.

The next book that I consulted was "The sock knitter's workshop - everything knitters need to knit socks beautifully" by Ewa Jostes and Stephanie van der Linden. This book also starts by covering the basics and then moves onto the many different options you have when knitting socks. While the book covers many many options, it makes things simpler for the beginner by having a blue or red "yarn" that you can follow through the book to find the relevant instructions for one of two "beginner" socks that they suggest. This book seems to be a fantastic reference book, with step by step instructions of how to do all the different variations (including many tips to do with options for better fitting socks for different foot shapes), with a stack of patterns at the end of the book. I think it would well serve a knitter right from the beginning of their sock knitting career through to when they are much more advanced.

I didn't actually follow the instructions in this book because I had to choose just one to follow as to not get confused, however I think that I could have easily and successfully followed the instructions here instead of the ones I chose.

The last book is the one that I consulted the most while knitting, it is called "Getting started: Knitting Socks" by Ann Budd. It doesn't contain as much information as the second book, but includes a comprehensive coverage of how to knit socks. It presents the information in a slightly different order to the sock knitter's workshop, and I decided that it made a little more sense to my brain which is why I chose to use this book as a reference. I found this book a great reference as a beginner as it explains everything very clearly, giving a few alternatives without overwhelming you, and explaining why you might use them. However, I think that once you progress past beginner status you would find less use from this book than the sock knitter's workshop.

If I were to buy a book now (having had a go already) I would probably buy the sock knitter's workshop, however if i were to suggest a book for someone beginning knitting, wanting to try their hand at some socks, I would probably recommend the getting started knitting socks book.

I hope that these mini-reviews have been helpful to someone, and if you have any other recommendations for knitting books or sock knitting books please let me know so I can possibly check them out.

Ruby Shorts

2012-01-04T15:15:00.000+11:00

I started these shorts a loooong time ago, and finished the bulk of them not long after but then struggled to find some buttons that were within my budget (10 buttons on a pair of shorts starts to add up!!), but finally found some red ones in a shop on Sydney Road in Brunswick, and finished them off by adding the buttons shortly before Christmas.

The shorts are the "ruby" pattern from Burdastyle (which I had downloaded back when it was still free). As with all burdastyle patterns the instructions were a bit difficult to follow and I mostly ended up winging it (the advantages of having made a muslin).

I made a few alterations from my muslin - I cut the pattern according to my measurements and they came out MASSIVE! However on closer inspection I decided that it was actually just the back pattern piece that was too big, the front was ok, so I took about a 2 cm vertical fold out of the back pieces. I also changed the shape of the front crotch curve, and also took some fabric out of the front just below the waistband. They have turned out a bit big though (possibly partly due to the fabric choice), so next time I will take them in a bit more, and probably also narrow the leg slightly, as they're a little wider than I would normally prefer.

The fabric is a linen cotton blend that I got from the fabric store way back when I was buying the fabric for my Minoru. Because of that it creases quite badly (this much creasing is just from a trip to spotlight this morning before I took the photos). However they weren't supposed to be fancy shorts, but lounge around shorts so I don't mind too much.

Beanie for the boy

2012-01-02T13:26:00.001+11:00

I wasn't completely forthcoming in my last post about knitting, I did finish a first project before starting the socks, I just couldn't post about it because it was a Christmas present for the boy and I wanted it to be a surprise.

I decided to start with something with a bit more chunky yarn and bigger needles to get the hang of knitting and purling a bit more before embarking on socks, so decided to knit this beanie. I followed the pattern almost exactly, just adding in 5 extra rows where it suggests you check the size of the hat. It was very straight forward and the instructions very clear and it came together very quickly.

My ravelry entry for this project can be found here

Goodbye 2011

2011-12-31T15:03:00.000+11:00

There have been plenty of recap posts that I've seen around in the last few weeks. I always enjoy reading them and find it useful myself to stop and have a think about what I've done and what I wanted to do, and then what my plans are moving forward.

This time last year I set myself the very non-specific 2011 goal of "take my time, enjoy the process and take on the challenge of learning new things":

2011 has been an interesting year for me. I finally submitted my PhD thesis, so 2012 will mark some very new things as I move onto the next stage of my career. It was important to me to maintain a balance between writing and the rest of my life, otherwise I would have gone crazy and never finished, so I still got a fair bit of sewing done, including learning new things.

Looking back I have actually had a very productive year, and more importantly the proportion of items that were successes were very high.

My absolute favourite finished item of 2011 is my Genome Quilt, no competition. It was a mammoth project, but I enjoyed every step of it (except maybe the basting), and I still absolutely love the finished thing.

I did finish another few quilts too, including the "striped strips" baby quilt

and my bee quilt for the "oh beehave" quilting bee for MMQG. I'm also about half way through hand quilting my spotty quilt top.

With regards to garments I finished quite a few things, and more importantly the proportion of successes was very high, with many of them becoming wardrobe staples. Here are some of my favourites (click on the pics to see the posts):

I also took part in "Me Made March", which was much less of a challenge than "Me Made May"that I took part in previously, partly due to having more me-made items, but partly because of the different (warmer) weather. I also succeeded in documenting it this time, which was probably the most challenging part. I really do wear my me-made clothes on a regular basis, so it wasn't really that much of a stretch for me to wear them for a month.

Now, looking forward? I don't think I have that many specific goals for next year, really I just want to keep on enjoying my hobby, and as with this year, learning new things is part of that. However, I think it's worth trying to come up with some kind of plan to increase the chances of my items being a success and being incorporated into my wardrobe. That's something that my "five favourites" post can help with. I do have some more specific plans in the works, but I'll save them for another post.

Happy New Year to all my readers, I'm very appreciative of everyone that takes the time to take a look at what I've been working on. I hope you've had a great 2011 and that you have an even better 2012.

Against all of your advice...

2011-12-20T22:37:00.000+11:00

Huge thanks to everyone that commented on my last knitting post about what I was doing wrong. My knitting is going much smoother now, and after finishing my first easy project (which I will be able to share with you after Christmas) I have decided to jump in the deep end and have a go at socks. I know you all advised against it, but I'm going to give it a go, fully expecting it to be challenging. I am armed with two detailed books on knitting socks from the library (more on those later), a pattern from ravelry, and the internets.

I am using some yarn that I bought from Spotlight (that said it was for socks, so I figured I was safe buying it even with my lack of knowledge of yarn!), and some 2.5mm bamboo double pointed needles. Like a good little knitter I first knit my gauge swatch, which luckily turned out just right. The thin yarn and little needles were a bit weird to start with but I got used to them pretty quickly.

So then I started on the socks. So far I have knit about 2.5" of the leg of the first sock, so I'm still on the easy bit. I'm apprehensive of what I need to do to go around the heel, but I've read through the two books I've got and have picked one method that is heavily pictured to try.

Wish me luck and good progress!

Laptop Cases

2011-12-18T20:48:00.000+11:00

Before I could come across to Perth for Christmas I had to make a laptop sleeve for the laptop I bought a few months ago. So me and Claire got together for a couple of sewing dates and made one each. We used this tutorial by Elizabeth Hartmann from sew mama sew, which was very well written.

I used two pieces of fabric that my brother got me in Africa a few years ago (above) , and Claire used some IKEA fabric for the outer and some scraps I'd cut off the bottom of a curtain for the lining (below).

We followed the instructions and the laptop sleeves came together really smoothly, I would definitely recommend this tutorial.

Our laptops are now lovely and snug in their new sleeves.

What am I doing wrong?

2011-12-17T14:10:00.002+11:00

Another knitting post today I'm afraid - but don't worry I have some sewing stuff queued up to post about so this should hopefully be the last knitting post for a little while. However today I was hoping that there's someone out there that knows what I'm doing wrong with my knitting. I've just been practicing my knitting and purling but knitting up some stocking stitch on some big needles. However when I looked closely at my work I'm doing something wrong on some of my purl rows, and I have no idea what it is. I was hoping that by posting a picture someone might see it and be able to tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Can you see that in the lower rows the yarn just does a loop, whereas in a few of the rows it does a kind of twist when it's looping? I've outlined the rows in the image below, in green how it's supposed to be, and in red how the "wrong" rows are:

From counting back I'm pretty sure this is happening on my purl rows, but not on all of them - one of them of 6 doesn't have it. (But it's entirely possible that it's on my knit rows and I've counted wrong, either way it's on alternating rows). Any ideas?

(Thanks in advance!)

EDIT: I think I worked it out - I think I was wrapping the yarn around the needle the wrong way on the knit stitches. Those in the know, does that sound right?

Knitting! (and purling)

2011-12-16T09:51:00.001+11:00

I decided this week to finally give knitting a go. For ages now my friend Claire has been making me envious with all of her lovely knitted goodies, and then when Tasia started talking about knitting on her blog it tipped me over the edge. So, since I am now in Perth at my parent's house and have access to some yarn and knitting needles I had a go. I used the videos from Wool and the Gang to learn the basics, and just started knitting.

First I did some knitting, then I did some purling, then I learnt to alternate to do a stocking stitch. Then I decided to be adventurous and try some ribbing! After some false starts where my stitch number changed dramatically (from 10 to 14 in only a couple of rows!) I got the hang of it - muttering to myself "knit, over, purl, back" along the rows and then counting "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, hurrah!" at the end of each row.

Now the dilemma comes of how best to progress... I'm not much one for scarves. I'd really like to make some socks, but I don't know if I should just dive in quite yet! Does anyone have any advice?

PS: I also signed up to ravelry, do you have an account? What is it? I can be found here.

My own 5 favourites

2011-12-07T17:51:00.000+11:00

Ever since Tasia posted about her five favourite items from her closet I've been thinking about what mine would be. Have you tried? It's a hard one! I think it also changes from season to season, but I thought I'd have a go at assembling a list of my current 5 faves....

...and then I failed miserably. My first attempt at a list included my original crescent skirt, a flowery dress I got from esprit... and then I ran out of specific items. However I did manage to narrow down to 5 distinct "classes" of items of clothes that I could not live without (and mix and match together) that seem to fit perfectly in my lifestyle right now:

1) Skirts with prints
The vast majority of the skirts I own I have made myself, and most of them are made out of fun printed fabric. My crescent skirt is a prime example of this, and it gets thoroughly worn! But my gored summer skirts are also true to this.

2) A-line empire cut dresses
My favourite day-time dress is this dress that I bought from Esprit quite a while ago now (pictured on the right here). I absolutely love it. It's not the kind of print that I would have the guts to make a dress out of normally worrying that it would be a disaster - I have been keeping an eye out for a print that I think might make a dress in the same vein. But in the meantime, frequently when I wear the dress I get complimented on it, and often asked if I made it myself - to which i respond "I wish!". I have another dress with a very similar cut, also from Esprit, but also the two New Look 6726 dresses that I've made are similar too. The a-line skirt is comfortable to wear, easy to cycle in and a good length, meaning that the dresses work in a heap of different situations.

3) Thin jumpers
I have at least 11 thin jumpers that I use to layer things. I tend to wear them more than cardigans, I think partly because I don't find cardigans as comfortable. If you leave them open they tend to get in the way, if you do them up, you may as well be wearing a jumper!! I have them in a range of different colours, some have v-necks, some round and some higher, and they all get frequently worn. I'm always cold (damn air-conditioning everywhere!), so if my clothes can't be layered then they don't get worn!

4) T-shirts / Tanks in a range of colours
To tie all of the above items together, of course I need t-shirts (and tank tops / singlets for summer) - and these I have in abundance, again in a range of colours. I'm not adventurous enough to mix prints, so I need nice basic/solid shirts to wear with my printed skirts and dresses. I know everyone has t-shirts etc in their wardrobe, but they really are an essential and deserve to be recognised as such. And as I've discovered this year, t-shirts are pretty quick to stitch up and it's great to be able to make the style you want in the colour you want rather than having to rely on finding them in stores. Also, the cheap t-shirts I was buying I found tend to stretch out and become unwearable pretty quickly, and the more expensive ones, which last longer, cost quite a bit more money than making my own!

5) My Wedgewood necklace
This necklace is hands-down my favourite necklace. It is probably worn more than all my other necklaces put together. I absolutely love it and it goes with nearly everything! The necklace itself was a gift from my Gran - when I saw it in her collection and said I liked it she very generously gifted it to me. I have certainly made the most of that gift. Last time I went back to England it was the only necklace I took with me and served me well for my 5 week trip! The only single item in my list of 5, but has definitely earnt its place.

And so there you have it, my 5 items/classes that I just couldn't live without. Have you thought about it? Or about the original question of your five favourite items?

I'm glad I took the time to think about this list, as it's really got me thinking about the things I should be sewing - I feel really great when I wear and love something that I've made, so I want to make more things than I love. I know not everything is always going to be a success, but I'd like to help myself be more successful, and I think thinking about what I actually enjoy wearing will really help me with that.

Awesome Street Art

2011-12-05T21:41:00.000+11:00

Melbourne is known for it's street art. (Do a google image search and you'll get some examples.) The area I live in is one of the prime areas for some amazing street art, so today I thought I'd share with you some pics I've snapped of some of my favourite bits that I've spotted.

The t-shirts of goldilocks...

2011-12-03T16:59:00.000+11:00

Do you remember the t-shirt I made earlier in the year? (pictured below) Well I have since made a few more, but am still ironing out some of the kinks in the pattern (not that there's any problems with it, it's one of my most worn t-shirts these days, but there's nothing wrong with wanting to improve things).

I made another iteration from some brown jersey that I got from The Fabric Store, specifically with the intention of making something to match the planned spotty crescent skirt. The pattern was a direct replication of the first shirt and turned out pretty well...

...except that I forgot that I'd been meaning to add a tiny bit of width to the shoulders of the shirt, so the shoulders of this one (as well as the first) are a little bit narrow.

My next iteration was a sky-blue version (some more fabric from The Fabric Store, this time picked up in a sale), and this time I did remember to add some width to the shoulders...

... but I added a bit too much, and the shoulder seams are puckery and lumpy because they're too long. I'm considering chopping off the seam allowances of the sleeve seams and reducing the width of the shoulders a bit to see if that fixes it up (unpicking the triple stitch isn't really an option with the jersey).

One success though is the conversion of the v-neck into a round neck - some more of the story of which will be further detailed at another time!

And there you have it, one with shoulders to narrow, one with shoulders too wide. Here's to hoping that the next one will be juuuust right!

Garden 2011

2011-12-01T14:55:00.000+11:00

A slight change of topic from sewing today: my garden, I hope you don't mind!

Since I moved into my current house 3.5 years ago, we have grown veges in the back garden to mixed success. Until now I've only really succeeded in growing tomatoes, but this year I have branched out and am trying some other veges. It remains to be said whether that decision was wise or not! Anyway, I wanted to share the beginnings of the progress in my vege patch.

Above is my Vege patch about a month ago, and below a photo of it now. Across the back wall you can see three tomato plants (two cherry, one "bush"), then to the right some cucumber plants, then further left some potatoes and right at the back some sweetcorn. There are also some herbs dotted around, including Basil, chives, oregano, and our ever continuing massive rosemary bush. As you can see below they have all been growing like mad in the last month! The standard Melbourne weather of showers then sunshine has done wonders for their growth.

Some highlights so far, (two) Cucumber(s)!

And some Cherry Tomatoes

I'm looking forward to seeing how they all grow and even more so to eating the product!

A bit of a Sewaholic Day

2011-11-30T18:57:00.001+11:00

Saturday morning I finished my second version of the Crescent Skirt. My first one gets worn a LOT, it's become one of the 'go to' items in my wardrobe, so I thought it was about time that I got around to making the second version I planned way back when I got the pattern. The fabric I've used is some more of the spotty sateen that I used for my "seeing spots" quilt.

Firstly I need to show you this photo so that some of the below ones make sense - I don't usually pair a green skirt with blue and pink wellies, but you see it was pouring down with rain here on Saturday when I first wore the skirt so I was also wearing my Minoru:

(do you see the awesome street art lion in the background?)

And onto the skirt...

As I know from working with it before that this sateen is very fine and frays quite easily I decided to follow the suggestion in the sewalong and sew french seams wherever I could, which makes it look lovely inside:

I also used Tasia's fantastic zip method, which looks so smart, and no hand sewing!

Because the seam lines in the waistband cut up the spots somewhat I decided to emphasise those lines by topstitching either side of the seams with brown thread, using the triple stretch stitch on my machine:

And some pics of the skirt on me:

And a couple where the waistband isn't covered:

Grey Dress and better Minoru Pics

2011-11-24T16:47:00.000+11:00

I have a few pics to share today, the first is a dress that I made yonks ago but hadn't photographed until yesterday, and also is some better pictures of my Minoru jacket, as the previous ones didn't show the colour very faithfully.

This dress is New Look pattern 6726. I've made it up before, but this time went for the normal straps rather than the buttoned ones (as the buttons are painful when carrying a bag!). For this dress I used some fabric that I got from Tessuti called "Peppercorn" (unfortunately I can't find it on their site). The fabric was some kind of blend, and is lusciously soft, I wish there was a way for you to stroke it through the computer screen, it's so lovely.

As I'd spent ages fitting the dress last time and had marked those changes onto the pattern pieces I didn't bother fitting at all along the way when making this dress. I figured the brown version fits me great still so I'll be ok. Turns out there's a bit of a fitting issue along the princess seams in the bust which aren't obvious in the dark brown fabric but are glaringly obvious in the grey.

Nevermind, the dress is still more than wearable, and most of all has the super awesome pockets that I love so much from the first version. (I do like this dress, despite my expression in the above picture suggesting otherwise!)

And the second thing I wanted to show you today, the better photos of my Minoru Jacket. Nothing against Laura, who took the first photos, and did a great job under the terrible conditions (after dark, inside with average light and using my crappy camera). Now I have some daylight photos where you can see the jacket a little better.

Front and Hood (less comically large when my hair is tied back):

Back:

Ready for the rain:

Don't you love the oversized collar:

And more importantly, I can't believe I forgot to show a picture of the lining last time!!

If you want to make a Minoru yourself, make sure you head over to the sewaholic shop, as the pattern is now in stock!

Seeing spots

2011-11-21T21:26:00.002+11:00

Mindy has assisted me in naming this quilt - "seeing spots". Which is now basted and ready to quilt. I have decided to go with the basic quilting of outlining the L shapes with the matching thread, which I think will look awesome on the back. Time will tell.

Shorts time...

2011-11-15T22:38:00.001+11:00

This evening I spent a few pleasant hours working on a pair of shorts (since the weather is starting to warm up now) and watching the west wing. A pretty enjoyable way to spend an evening if you ask me.

Quilting Opinions Please

2011-11-11T21:20:00.001+11:00

Yesterday I went to GJs in my lunch break. GJs is about 5km from where I work, and I rode like the wind to get there and back in my lunch break, and I managed it, hurrah! While I was there I got the backing, quilting thread and batting for my spotty quilt (which still needs a name, so suggestions gratefully taken).

I had intended to get the grey version of the spotty backing fabric that I used on my genome quilt, however they were all out of it so I had to change my plans. I stuck with the grey scheme though and got two grey homespuns. I am planning on hand quilting it with perle 8 threads, and Georgia was kind enough to order me in some colours to match my fabrics, 5 of the 6 colours have come in so far, I'm just waiting on some teal as my last colour. I also got some bamboo batting for the middle. I've not used bamboo before, but I want to try some new things to see what I like the most, so I shall report back on how it turns out.

Last night, however, I fell over in the garden and sprained my ankle, which is now pretty sore and very swollen. Nevertheless, one to look for silver linings, I realised that I my "sewing machine foot" was still perfectly fine (I sprained the left), so after resting most of the day I spent a couple of hours this afternoon sewing the quilt top together, so the day wasn't a complete bust.

Now, the reason for posting this now - I'd like suggestions/opinions for quilting this please. I want to hand quilt it, and I (will) have perle 8 thread to match the 6 main colours of the fabrics. How would you quilt it??

Rain = passed

2011-11-09T22:24:00.000+11:00

Despite having finished my Minoru over a month ago, today was the first time I'd been able to test it in proper rain. I'd been out in some light showers, but this evening we had some serious rain, in which I had to walk home. I am pleased to report that the jacket held up very well. 10 minutes of walking in heavy rain and the top 2/3 of me (ie the jacket covered bits) were still completely dry.

A photo snapped earlier this evening showing the storm clouds rolling in. The colours of the sky/clouds are pretty accurate.

However I did discover one slight flaw in the jacket - the bit of the collar where the hood comes out leaves a little lip on the outside, which tended to catch water and fill up a little, which allowed it to seep inside the jacket around the neck seam. Not enough got in that my clothes underneath got wet at all, I just need to remember to fold that bit down when it's raining hard to stop any water accumulating there. The hood kept my hair and face absolutely dry though, so hurrah! a great success!

Retreat 2.0

2011-11-08T18:10:00.002+11:00

This past weekend I headed up to hepburn springs again for another retreat. We had such fun on the last retreat back in May that we booked in for another, even longer, one while we were still there. This time we stayed 3 nights, and it was lots of fun and incredibly productive.

I got lots of sewing done, including assembling the blocks for two quilt tops. Above are the base blocks for the quilt I am making with the spotty sateen fabric I bought earlier in the year. The blocks have since been cut into quarters bento box style, and the quarters trimmed to 8" square ready to be assembled into a quilt top.

Below are the rest of the hexagons that I started on the other weekend, and I love how they look, piecing them together has definitely transformed the fabric. I just need to get some solid cream fabric and I will begin assembling the quilt top of this one too.

This means that soon I'll have some quilting projects on the go again, which i'm excited about. I'm planning on hand quilting the spotty one, although don't exactly know what design yet, so suggestions gratefully received. In contrast I'm considering machine free motion quilting the hexagon one, probably just with a stippling pattern, however as i'm hoping the quilt will be about queen sized I may regret that decision and change my mind with either the quilting method or design.

I did get some other stuff done over the weekend, about which I shall blog in due course.

Minoru Jacket

2011-11-03T10:44:00.003+11:00

If you're a follower of the sewaholic blog you will have seen Tasia's new pattern, the Minoru jacket by now. This means that I can now share with you my secret project from a while back. I was lucky enough to be a pattern tester for this pattern, so I have been gallivanting around Melbourne in my version for about a month now.

The Minoru Jacket is the 4th pattern that Tasia has released, and is just as great as her first three patterns. The jacket is a raglan sleeved jacket, cinched in at the waist with elastic, with a big collar and optional hood that folds away into the collar.

I made my version in a hot pin cotton canvas type material that I got from The Fabric Store. I wanted to be able to use my jacket as a "shower proof" jacket, therefore I wanted it to be water resistant, so I tested a swatch of the fabric (and the other contenders) by spraying some water on them and seeing what happened - some of the fabrics absorbed the water instantly, but the water formed droplets on the surface of this pink fabric, and didn't seem to sink in very fast at all.

For the lining I chose a printed cotton fabric for the bulk of the lining, but I used a standard lining fabric for the sleeve lining pieces so that my arms would slide into the sleeves ok and if I was wearing a jumper or anything I wouldn't get stuck trying to get the jacket on or off. I chose grey for these which cooordinates with the grey zippers that I used.

I was under a time constraint making this jacket, so I had set aside 3 full days and then some evenings to make it, and to my great surprise it came together MUCH quicker than I'd anticipated - I stared mid-afternoon on day 1, took my time cutting out the fabric and then started sewing until early evening. By that point I'd sewn together the jacket shell. I then resumed sewing the following afternoon and by the time I went to bed that evening I had a finished jacket!

I deliberatly worked through the instructions slowly and steadily, following them to the letter, and the jacket came together with no issues at all. Sewing the cuff on the bottom of the sleeve was a bit fiddly, but everything else was very straight foward.

I made two alterations to the jacket - I moved the elastic in the waist up by 1 inch, and I extended the size of the hood by 1 in - as I can't be doing with a hood that's too small. The hood is now comically big when I have my hair down, but it's still plenty big enough when my hair is up, which is what i was after. Having said that though, the hood is already a really good size, so I probably didn't actually need to extend it at all.

I absolutely LOVE this jacket! I have worn it a LOT since finishing it, the inconsistent spring weather has allowed me to wear it a fair bit, and it's comfy to wear, and very practical. The raglan sleeves means that there's not any seams directly on your shoulders, so helps with the water resistance of the jacket. I've been caught in a couple of showers in it and it's kept me thoroughly dry so far.

After thinking about it quite a lot there are only two things that I would change about the jacket. Number 1 is that I would have put a hanging hook in it (which I didn't think of until too late when constructing it), and Number 2 is that I still find not having external pockets a bit weird and inconvenient - if I were to make another one I think I would possibly add some kind of patch pocket to the front.

If you're interested in the pattern Tasia is running a pre-sale for subscribers of her newsletter, otherwise it'll be available in her shop soon.

A note for people in Melbourne interested in making this pattern - I found finding a long enough separating zipper trickier than I anticipated. Basic colours are available at Clegs in the City and at GJs, but the Fabric store have a slightly wider range of chunky plastic jacket zippers, which is where I ended up getting mine.

EDIT: For better photos of the jacket please see this post: http://mymessings.blogspot.com/2011/11/grey-dress-and-better-minoru-pics.html

Apparently the best print

2011-10-31T10:29:00.000+11:00

Summer is approaching here in Melbourne (not that you'd know it from todays weather!) and I have discovered that my summer pyjamas collection needs some refreshing. So while going through the city yesterday I stopped in at lincraft (which I generally loath to do but I don't have the time to go out to spotlight, which is generally my store of choice for printed poplin).

I came away with fabric for two new pairs, including 3.5m of this dinosaur camo fabric that was declared by the boy to be hands down the best fabric in the entire store!

Something New...

2011-10-29T17:38:00.000+11:00

I haven't done much sewing lately. Partly because initially I wasn't really in the mood, but then as my retreat grew closer (next weekend, hurrah!) I kind of felt like I shouldn't be working on things but that I should "save" them for the retreat, which is just plain old silly! So last night I sat down and bit the bullet and started something new just because.

I made a decision and started sewing with the pre-cuts that my gran and Jo had given me for Christmas quite a while back now. I have a jelly roll (2.5" strips), a honey bun (1.5" strips) and a charm pack (5" squares) and then two coordinating fat quarters. So far I'm working with the strips. Sewing them together and cutting them back up again into triangles, which I'm sure you can guess, will become hexagons:

I'm not sure how it's all going to work out, the design is still forming in my mind. I think I'm going to need to buy a little more fabric to make the quilt a useable size, and I'd quite like to try doing something a bit unexpected with it... but I'm going to finish making these units and see how they look before I decide.

Colours...

2011-10-19T14:41:00.000+11:00

I need a better storage system for my spools of thread. Currently they're stored in a shoe box that often gets dropped, and frequently needs re-organising.

It was during one such re-organising the other day that I was bemused by the range of colours of thread that I have. Heaps of colours that I don't remember ever sewing with. I have since remembered what most of them were bought for, but still not quite all.

A Rainbow of Threads

And that's just the Gutermann one's I've bought, not the other miscellaneous ones I've acquired.

A cute set of 'vintage' threads that my gran gave me

(PS: I would absolutely love to have a thread rack like this one Tasia has)

Liberty Quilt... Ideas?

2011-10-16T18:36:00.000+11:00

Do you remember the Liberty Fabric that my Gran very generously gifted me when I was visiting her last year? Well it's been on my mind for the last year what I should make out of the fabric and I still don't know.

Now I've finished my big quilt project I'm in need of a new one, and I kind of think that the liberty could be that project, I just need to decide what patchwork design to use. I was initially thinking maybe some kind of coin quilt, but now I'm not so sure...

In the pictures of this post you can see what I have. I don't have to use all of it, and I can add to it if need be. Also, Bronwyn has put me onto a source of solid fabrics with a very similar feel to the liberty, so I was planning to get some solid to go with the prints (not sure what colour yet though, that might depend on the design I go for).

What would you do with it?

Seeing Circles

2011-10-07T18:54:00.000+11:00

This week I have been enjoying looking at quilts with circles. Here are some of my faves:

1. Drunkard's Path, 2. Drunkards Path Sofa quilt, 3. Benjamin's Blueberries, 4. RainFall, 5. Turquoise Circles Quilt by Peppermint Pinwheels, 6. Dot to Dot, 7. "Huckleberry" Modern Baby Quilt, 8. circle quilt top, 9. 002, 10. Quilt :: Circles Quilt ~ hand quilting detail 2, 11. circle applique patchwork quilt top wip, 12. CC Baby Quilt

What to work on?

2011-10-06T09:00:00.003+11:00

When looking at my calendar the other day I realised that it is 4 weeks until the quilting retreat that I’m booked in for (a slightly longer rerun of the one I went on in May because we had so much fun). In addition to making me excited, this also made me stop and realise that I don’t know what I’m going to work on.

After having a big project on the go for so long it’s weird not having anything sitting on the back burner waiting to be worked on. I have a few ideas of things that I’d like to do, but I’m faltering with committing to a particular project.

I have the spotty fabric I bought a while back that I want to have a play with at the retreat; I know exactly what I want to make with that, but I’m not sure that that is sufficient for stuff to work on for the entire super-long weekend, either due to keeping my attention for that time or due to how long the project will take.

Would it be “rude” to do some garment sewing on a quilting retreat? Do you have any suggestions of things I could work on? Ideas for presents for people maybe? Help!

"Test Your Skills Sampler"

2011-10-05T13:24:00.000+11:00

Sandi over at Piecemeal Quilts is running a quilt along as part of her "skill builder series" that is designed to allow you to practice the different quilting skills that she's covering in the series in a quilt project. It is a little different to normal samplers, as it deliberately includes blocks more than once so that you can get the hang of the techniques a little bit better. Here's her mockup of the quilt, isn't it fantastic?!

Image used with permission from Piecemeal Quilts

I was very tempted to join in, except it requires a fair amount of fabric (which I don't currently have) as it finishes at 70x86" (for those like me where inches like that mean nothing, that's 1.77x2.18m!). I would have liked to make it with the pre-cuts that my Gran and Jo gave me a few years ago for Christmas, but Sandi mentions that it's not really suitable for pre-cuts. It's definitely in the back of my mind for if I see or think of any fabrics I'd like to get to make it though.

Secret Happenings

2011-10-03T18:34:00.000+11:00

Things have been a little quiet here of late, not because I haven't been sewing, but partly because I suck at getting photos at the moment, and also because I've been working on a very exciting project that I unfortunately can't share with you quite yet.

I'm very excited about this one though, so I promise I will share it as soon as I'm allowed!

(in the meantime, anyone that I know in real life that's seen it, please keep the secret)

Concentric Circles

2011-09-22T20:11:00.000+10:00

While I was quilting the concentric circles pattern on my genome quilt I had a few people ask me how I marked the circles, so I thought I would put together a post explaining the method that I used.

As I wanted my circles to be perfectly concentric, evenly spaced and for all the circles in the quilt to be the same sizes, I made myself a cardboard template. The card I used was some medium thickness card that I got from an art supplies store. The store I went to was actually very generous - I went in and explained what I needed the card for and the guy said he knew exactly what to suggest and showed me the card I ended up getting, which was just right. I asked him how much it was and he said free! Apparently the card is actually the packaging that the fancy paper that they get comes in and they throw it away anyway! Score!

Anyway, since I wanted my circles to get quite big I needed to fashion some kind of compass - for which I used a blob of bluetac and a map-pin to be my central pivot point, and then I taped some stay tape to a pencil, which I would use to measure the radius of the circle. I did however find that the stay tape stuck to the bluetac, so I put a bit of paper between the tape and the bluetac and it worked perfectly. In the picture below you can see me marking the circles on the card, I made my lines 2 inches apart. To maximise the size of the circles I could draw, I just made a template for half the circle.

I then needed to cut along the lines to make it into a template - I cut out every other half circle arch, as shown in the photo below. To make sure that the centres of my circles stayed in the same place I kept a thin strip along the edge to hold all the arches in the same places. I also marked the centre of my circles so that I could place the template over it when I moved it to draw the other half.

I then drew around the circles with my washable pencil

I chose pink lead because it would show on the white, blue and green fabrics in the quilt

And then lastly I stitched along my traced lines.

I didn't mark the whole quilt at once, I did a couple of patches of circles at a time, starting in the middle and working my way out in each direction until I'd filled all the spaces.

Today's lesson...

2011-09-19T18:30:00.000+10:00

Today's lesson is not to sew when you are tired and distracted, because things go wrong! (although you probably knew that)

Can you spot the odd one out?!

Does anyone have any tips for unpicking a whip stitch?

Coffee Sorbetto

2011-09-17T16:53:00.000+10:00

After finishing my Genome quilt I decided that I needed to take a break from big complex projects and do something nice and simple. Conveniently The Fabric Store had just gotten in their new spring fabrics, which include some gorgeous cotton voile/lawn.

Above are the fabrics I bought. From left to right: Black merino wool jersey, navy cotton/lycra jersey, blue organic cotton jersey, beige and brown spotted cotton, plain brown cotton, brown silk suiting.

I bought the beige and brown fabric and the brown fabric to make a sorbetto. After seeing so many gorgeous variations around the internet I decided to have a go at making one of my own to see if the style suits me. (I was a little concerned because of the lack of shaping that it wouldn't work with my boobs).

Overall I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The pattern was very well drafted, however the instructions were a little confusing for the binding. I thought I had followed the pattern instructions but after discussion with Mindy we now think I did it differently (not that it really matters). Also, the continuous binding tutorial linked in the pattern completely eluded me - I COULD NOT get the stripes to line up and after three tries I gave up and didn't bother trying to make it continuous.

One other, slightly more serious gripe however, is the inaccuracy of the fabric requirements stated in the pattern. I bought the amount of fabric suggested in the pattern: 1.5yards (ie approx 1.5m). However this ended up being easily twice as much as I needed (ie I have more than enough fabric left over to make another top if I wanted to!) I was a little disappointed by this, and wanted to point out to anyone considering making this pattern that you do not need 1.5m, if the fabric is over about 120cm wide (size dependent) you need about 75cm as you can fit the two pattern pieces side by side and fold the selveges to the centre (a little more if you want to lengthen the top).

Other than that I followed the pattern faithfully, making no alterations.to the size 6 pattern. However if/when I make another one I think I will lengthen it just a tiny bit, and also pinch out the gaping at the armhole and transfer it to the bust dart.

I say if because although I really like the pattern i'm not sure how practical it is. It looks fine tucked into a skirt but left untucked it's a bit sack like, and thus it's a bit of a smarter item. However, smarter items tend to be worn in places like offices and such, which are generally FREEZING cold due to over-air-conditioning and I have to wear at least one jumper (even in summer). This top can be worn with a jumper (see below, that's how it was worn the one time I've worn it so far), but it seems a shame to cover it up, and with the cotton it crumples a bit.

However, having said that, I think it would be a FANTASTIC summer pyjama top, and since some of my summer PJ bottoms are starting to fall apart I expect I will be making some as the weather warms up and I may make some matching Sorbettos to wear with them. We'll see.

Finally...

2011-09-16T21:44:00.000+10:00

I realised the other day that I had forgotten to post my big news - on the 31st of August I submitted my thesis! And, as is custom with Melbourne University, I got my balloon:

Now to wait up to 4 months to see what the examiners say.

This does however mean that I am thoroughly enjoying having nothing I should be doing when I get home from work in the evenings! Thus sewing no longer has any accompanied guilt.

Cathedral Windows Practice

2011-09-09T18:55:00.000+10:00

I have been a bit absent lately - that's because I submitted my thesis last week! Hooray! Now to wait about 4 months for the examiners to read it and find out if I pass.

I've been wanting to post about the practice Cathedral windows blocks I made for a while, however I managed to loose one of them before I'd taken a photo. I had a proper look this evening though and found it, so now I can share them.

After posting my Cathedral Windows Inspiration I decided to do a small practice block to see if I liked the technique before making the decision to commit to a full quilt of them. So I had a rummage through my fabric and made a practice block:

The practice block turned out pretty well but it was a bit of a pain to sew together - it was very stiff to get the needle through the fabric. However the fabric I'd chosen was some poly-cotton left over from making a skirt so I thought that maybe it was the fabric rather than the technique, so I made another one, this time with proper quilting cotton:

This one was much easier to sew together, and i tried out a few techniques to (in my opinion) improve the finish of the block. As you can see, I also had a go at adding an extra fabric in the background.

Even after my two sample blocks i'm still in two minds about whether or not to make a full cathedral windows quilt. I love how they look, I'm just still not sure how functional they are as quilts.

Genome Quilt: Finished!!!

2011-08-24T19:42:00.000+10:00

It's finished, and I absolutely and completely and positivly love it! I actually finished the quilt the middle of last week, but wanted to wait until the weekend to get proper photos of it before posting this post.

This quilt has been a looong time coming, for those who haven't followed along for the entire process, here's a summary. I started thinking about it September 2009, and buying the first fabrics for it shortly after that, and then some more in october, but I didn't have all the fabrics until I went to Perth in April of 2010 and bought a stack more. Cutting started in May 2010 at the inaugral MMQG SASD, and after some more cutting, was piecing in May too. The fabric selection was then finalised with a last few additions to bring the quilt up to size and match out the dark/light fabrics. By the end of June I had made all my HSTs and worked out the layout. And then the requirements of working on my thesis seriously amped up and the quilt stayed pinned on my makeshift design wall for a VERY long time, with very little piecing having been done on it. But plodding away on it a block at a time I started to make some progress and then made real progress at the MMQG retreat in May. Then, as I had some extra time while waiting for thesis corrections the piecing started to roar along in June and July, meaning that I finished piecing the blocks, and then the top, in mid July. Quilting progressed well in July, partly due to having big chunks of time to work on it while I was watching the Tour de France, and a crafternoon or two, meaning that by last week (Mid-August) I was onto binding and finished the quilt very shortly thereafter! All of the posts about this quilt can be seen here.

The concept of the design was "stolen" from Beverly St Clair, who explains the concept of the quilts on her site. Briefly, giving the HST a dark half and a pale half means that the unit has 4 possible orientations. The four orientations then represent either A, G, C or T from the DNA code. The code that I chose is mouse integrin beta3, which is the gene around which my PhD focuses, and the first 1225 bases of the gene are included in the quilt. I love that it's a thoroughly geeky quilt but you wouldn't know unless I told you.

When choosing my quilting design I wanted something that would add to the quilt, encouraging people to look at the quilt top as a whole, rather than separating it back down into its individual units. It took me a while to settle on a design, but when Jo suggested concentric circles this time last year when I was visiting Cowslip Workshops with my Gran I instantly knew that this was the quilting design for me. You can see the design I chose particularly well on the back of the quilt (above).

So over all I'm incredibly happy with the quilt, but if I were to do it again there are a couple of things I'd do differently. Firstly in my fabric choices, I think I would not have included some of the paler aqua fabrics (visible in the above photo) and chosen some darker fabrics instead. They're a lot paler in value than the other fabrics so have given a sort of pale line across the quilt where they are in the gradient.
Secondly, it's not really visible in the photos, but in person you can see the seam allowances of some of the white fabrics through them, I think because the backing is dark and the wool batting isn't all that solid so doesn't provide a good shield from the colour. It's not a disaster, but in future I will remember it and either use a more solid batting, or "underline" the quilt top with some white fabric between the top and the batting.

(A huge thanks go out to Mindy and Claire for helping me with the photos)

So incredibly close...

2011-08-15T22:08:00.000+10:00

There are two big projects in my life at the moment that are both almost complete - my PhD and my genome quilt. Today was a big milestone day for both of them - I gave a full draft of my thesis to my supervisor, and currently more exciting (because i'm fed up of being cold all the time), I finished the quilting on my genome quilt!!!!!

So this evening I cut and joined and pressed the binding, and after a quick trip in my lunchbreak to go and get thread tomorrow I intend to spend tomorrow evening sewing the binding onto the quilt. I'm SO excited that I'll soon be able to sleep under it!!

"Oh Beehave" - August Block

2011-08-12T20:36:00.000+10:00

August is Andrea's month in the MMQG quilting bee "oh beehave". Andrea is making the "small plates" quilt from Elizabeth Hartman's book "the practical guide to patchwork". As the blocks are very simple she asked us to make her four blocks:

I hope you like the blocks Andrea, I enjoyed making them, the fabrics are gorgeous.

A Pair of Skirts

2011-08-09T16:21:00.000+10:00

I showed you a sneak peak of this skirt quite a while ago, but have been particularly hopeless at putting this post together to show you the whole thing.

A pair of skirts

A while back me and my friend Mindy were in spotlight and Mindy spotted some navy over-sized gingham on the clearance table. So we decided to make a pair of skirts with the fabric, loosely following Gertie's gathered skirt tutorial, but with the addition of pockets.

Look, pockets!!

We bought 3m of fabric, which turned out to be exactly the right amount - after we'd worked out how much fabric we needed for the skirt panels at our desired lengths we were left with this much fabric:

Not even a full gingham stripe left over!

Mine is lined with some lilac lining fabric that I had lying around. And I'm considering shortening it by half a stripe in length, but haven't yet because I'm lazy.

A lovely crafternoon

2011-08-07T15:09:00.001+10:00

Yesterday I spend a lovely few hours enjoying a "crafternoon" with some friends. A very nice way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Nichola and Claire knitting up a storm

The others were all knitting - Claire and Nichola being very acomplished knitters and Mindy just learning.

Mindy learning to knit

I was, surprise surprise, working on the quilting of my genome quilt top.

I'm making good progress with the quilting, with maybe 1/4 of the top left to go - all the circles are marked now I just need to plod along with the stitching to get it finished.

Above shows the awesome little goldfish bag that I've been using to hold all my quilting supplies - it was a gift from my lovely friend Kelly and is perfect for the job.

Cathedral Windows Inspiration

2011-08-04T09:52:00.000+10:00

At last week's Sit and Sew Evening for MMQG I got chatting to Bek about cathedral windows quilts, and out conversation has whetted my appetite for giving one of these quilts a go. I've been pondering it in the back of my mind for a while, it has come forward slightly recently.

In this vein, I've been looking at pictures of completed Cathedral Windows quilts to get some inspiration with regards to what fabrics I may like to use. Here is a collage of some of my favourite ones that I found on flickr (photo credits listed below the image)

1. Cathedral Windows Pillow, 2. cathedral windows, 3. My Last Wildflower Bouquet of 2007, 4. Cathedral window patchwork quilts, 5. Pot holder, 6. Cathedral Windows", 7. Cathedral Window Quilt, block, 8. Cathedral Windows Pillow, 9. Cathedral Window Quilt (with background light), 10. Cathedral Window Quilt, 11. cathedral window pillow, 12. Fade to blue pillow complete

"Oh Beehave" - My Finished Quilt

2011-08-03T10:40:00.000+10:00

So, I have finished my quilt for the MMQG quilting bee "Oh Beehave". As you may or may not remember, I asked the ladies in the bee to make me two wonky star blocks - one red on sand, and the other sand on red. I then put the blocks together into essentially two tops, and quilted it with perle 8 thread by hand - first 1/4 inch around all the stars (on the front and the back), and then adding some more stars into any big spaces that still needed some stitching.

I was initially thinking of binding it in a solid red a little bit darker than the red in the quilt, but didn't manage to find any fabric in any of my local quilt shops in the right colour. However, while I was at Amitie the lovely lady serving me suggested a stripe that they had - which conveniently happened to be in exactly the two right colours.

I have entered this quilt in the "Quilts from All Over" show that's being organised by Hawthorn Rotary Club, so added the binding to finish the quilt this weekend. Now I just need to add a temporary hanging sleeve before the show.

"Oh Beehave" - July Block

2011-08-02T13:40:00.000+10:00

Just realised that I had this post written as a draft but hadn't published it yet...

July's block for the MMQG quilting bee was for Frogdancer. She asked for a quilt as you go block following this tutorial:

This block was fun as it was something different. It took quite a long time to quilt the 1/4 lines and my lines were a little more wonky than I would have liked them - sorry about that Frogdancer. In all honesty, most of the fabrics in this block are far from what I would choose, but they come together really well and I'm sure that the final quilt will be gorgeous.

Priorities vs desires

2011-07-18T14:03:00.000+10:00

After my post on Friday I reassessed my wardrobe and decided that I should be able to scrape together enough clothes for a week from my wardrobe and rather than make a shirt what I really wanted to do was start quilting the genome quilt

So that's what I did. Three sets of concentric circles down... lots left to go. I'm loving it so far!

Shifting Gears...

2011-07-15T12:56:00.000+10:00

As much as I want to work on my Genome Quilt, a slightly more pressing need has arisen and it has been temporarily put aside.

Shirt Fabric - Top two from Tessuti, bottom one from Clegs. (All a bit crumpled as the photo was taken immediately after removing them from the washing machine to pre-wash the fabric)

I have (finally) found some work, but have discovered that my wardrobe doesn't really cater for work in the corporate world, so urgently need to correct that little issue. Earlier this week I bought a suit jacket and a shirt, but while that's good enough for an interview that's not quite going to be enough to get me through a whole work week! I need at least one more shirt. Rather than buying another shirt, however, I have got fabric for three different shirts in my stash that I really need to get around to cutting into. Thus, I have the weekend to transform at least one of those pieces of fabric into a wearable shirt.

I have a number of shirt patterns that I've made before (JJ, Emily and New Look 6732), but none of them are quite suitable. My JJ is great but as it doesn't have a proper collar doesn't feel smart enough for the corporate environment. The Emily shirt I made is in black poplin and is more suited to being a waitor than a receptionist, and the version of New Look 6732 is just a bit of a disaster and makes me feel like a 9 year old (who can't lift her arms more than 45 degrees).

Left: "Emily" Shirt, Right: "JJ" Shirt

I also have a shirt that I bought at Next for my graduation from Uni, but when I put it on the other week I discovered that the bottom half of the back panel is disintegrated, and despite trying to repair it, more rips keep appearing. That shirt fits really well, so I'm tempted to cut it up and make a pattern from it.

"Next shirt"

So, decisions - What do you think? Stick with the JJ pattern, but have a go at adding the Emily collar? Or dismantle the Next shirt and make a pattern from that?

Genome Quilt Top

2011-07-14T12:25:00.000+10:00

As promised, some photos of the finished genome quilt top. Sadly the weather has remained miserable here in Melbourne so the photos aren't the best, but I'm eager to baste the quilt and start quilting it so they'll have to do. Everything to say has been said already, so here are the photos:

Genome Shopping...

2011-07-12T11:17:00.000+10:00

After posting about the finished blocks I continued on and stitched the blocks together on Sunday as well. It all came together surprisingly quickly. So, yesterday I toodled on down to Amitie to get their advice on batting and quilting and to buy the supplies I need.

Above shows (almost all) my supplies. My quilt top, my backing fabric, and then purchased yesterday from Amitie: Four perle 8 threads to match the gradient of colours, appropriate needles, a new thimble, a marking pencil, more basting pins and some batting (not pictured).

I decided to go with the 100% wool batting that they have, so hopefully the finished quilt will be nice and warm. Also, the batting is nice and fluffy which should hide the lumpiness of some of the seam allowances.

Now, once I've taken photos, to baste... my knees, back and fingers aren't looking forward to it!

Hooray!!

2011-07-10T12:42:00.002+10:00

All 49 5x5 blocks sewn together! Hooray!

Now to start sewing the blocks together into the top...

Exciting...

2011-07-09T22:46:00.000+10:00

Only 6 blocks left to go...!!!

Guilt Free Diet Breaking

2011-07-08T23:21:00.000+10:00

I'm on a self-imposed fabric diet at the moment.I'm trying to not buy any fabric but to finish WIPs and make things out of the fabric I already have. However, there are a few exceptions that allow me to break my diet guilt free, and a purchase I made last week was one such exception.

I have been pondering what to use for the back of my genome quilt ever since I started it. Initially I was considering a pieced back with the same fabrics as the front in a coin quilt style design. But then I worked out exactly how much fabric I'd need to do that and my student budget got a little overwhelmed and I abandoned that idea.

I have since decided that I'm going to hand quilt this quilt, so decided that the less seams on the back the better, as the front of the quilt has enough bulk in it, I don't want to make the quilting any harder than it needs to be. So since making that decision I've been keeping an eye out for suitable fabric. Obviously the fabric needed to fit into the colour scheme of the quilt, but I also didn't want anything too busy, but equally didn't want a solid - I want some small disguise to my inevitably messy quilting!

Then I saw this fabric at GJs at the SASE last month and got a swatch of it to compare with my fabrics in the quilt. After comparing it to my quilt blocks and thinking about it for a month I went back last weekend to buy some. It is in their backing section, so is 2.4m wide (I think, it may be wider), it really is one massive square of fabric. It was still only $20/m, meaning that as I only had to get about 2.5m, the back cost about $50 rather than over $100 as it would with normal quilting fabric due to having to buy twice that length. Another bonus is that my quilt back will have NO seams at all! The fabric is also really soft, particularly now I've pre-washed it.

I really love how it looks with all of the fabrics in the quilt (as much as that matters for the back) and I think I'm going to bind the quilt with a navy blue to even out the green/blue balance.

The next decision is batting... any suggestions/tips?

"Oh Beehave" - June Block

2011-07-07T22:51:00.000+10:00

I'm currently waiting on corrections of my thesis at the moment, so have finally had a chance to take some time out and do some sewing, so this evening I decided to get caught up on my bee blocks.

June's block for the MMQG quilting bee "Oh Beehave" was for Helene. Helene asked for a scrappy, but not wonky, 15.5" log cabin block:

Aren't her fabrics gorgeous!

Finished: Crescent Skirt!

2011-06-21T20:13:00.000+10:00

I showed you a sneak peek of my Crescent Skirt the other day, but now I have photos of the finished garment to share. I wore the skirt on Sunday but sadly there wasn't a potential photographer around during daylight hours. I wore it again today however, and my friend Jacinta kindly snapped some photos for me during my lunch break. Apologies for the slightly windswept look, it was ridiculously windy here in Melbourne today.

The skirt is a huge success. It is super comfy, both for sitting, walking and standing, not twisting or shifting at all. I definitely plan to make some more versions. The pockets are great too - they're really big so great for sticking things in, and best of all, having stuff in your pockets doesn't mess up the line of the skirt - most of my other garments with pockets you can at least tell when I have my phone in my pocket, but with this skirt you can't really tell.

As I mentioned before, I sewed this up with my friend Laura. We followed the instructions that came with the pattern and also referred to Tasia's fantastic sew-along posts for extra guidance and reassurance. They were very handy as they showed us photos confirming what we had to do. The only difference we did from the pattern was add a lining, which Tasia details how to do anyway.

Fun red lining!

We followed the instructions for inserting the zip into the skirt, and although it took a little while to get our heads around the method (although the photos helped immensely), once we did it we loved it! I will definitely be remembering it for other patterns, as it really leaves the skirt nice and neat on the inside and the outside. I definitely prefer it to an invisible zip, and it's much quicker than hand picking one.

Lovely neat zipper insertion, inside and out

One last exciting thing about my crescent skirt is that it elicited what Elizabeth refers to as an "unsolicitation" while I was at work today - a random women in the lift told me that she loved my skirt and that it added some much needed brightness to a dull day. That's the first "unsolicitation" I've ever recieved, so that made me very happy!

The only time it's ever mattered...

2011-06-20T22:20:00.000+10:00

I'm left handed, and it's never really affected my sewing (or my life). I have right handed shears and I find them fine to use, I have a rotary cutter that's really easy to switch between left and right handed. However, earlier this year I discovered the first thing that I've found where it actually matters that I'm left handed.

Following Gertie's recommendation for ease of trimming seam allowances, I got a pair of duck bill applique scissors for my birthday from my Mum. However when I got home and picked them up to use them I discovered there was no possible way for me to use them in my left hand in the way they're intended to be used.

So I had a look online and could only find one website in the whole of the internets that sell left handed duck bill applique scissors, and it was in the US. So in typical procrastinatory way, I hadn't done anything about it by the time the Australasian Quilt Convention rolled around, so I asked at every booth that was selling scissors if they had left handed duck bill applique scissors, but none of them had any. They had left handed scissors of all other types, where the left/right handed-ness doesn't make a huge difference, but not for the one kind of scissor where it made a difference!

So I eventually got around to ordering some from here. I had to email them to get them to send me a paypal thingy to allow for international shipping, but the service was great. They were shipped within a day of me placing the order, but unfortunately due to crappy postal systems took a month to get to me, but that's no fault of the seller.

The two pairs of scissors next to each other - left handed on the left, right handed on the right.

Two new skirts

2011-06-18T21:13:00.001+10:00

Things have been quiet on this blog as I've been ridiculously busy in other aspects of my life - working during the day and trying to finish my thesis in the evenings doesn't leave much time for sewing, and even less time for blogging. However, I have managed to fit in a little bit of sewing by combining it with seeing my friends in the form of "sewing dates"/"crafternoons".

Today I took some time off from writing for one such "crafternoon" and managed to finish two skirts that I've been working on for a while. The blue and white gingham skirt I have been making with Mindy, and the red-flowered skirt is my crescent skirt that I have made together with my friend Laura as part of Tasia's sew-along. (By the way, by making together I don't mean we will be sharing the skirts! We have made a skirt each but made them together.)

Proper photos of the finished skirts will be posted in due course once I've worn and photographed them.

Mill Rose Cottage

2011-06-07T12:45:00.000+10:00

On the way up to Hepburn Springs for the retreat we stopped in at Mill Rose Cottage, a lovely quilt shop on the main street in Ballan.

The selection of fabrics is very extensive, ranging from the traditional "country style" to modern fabrics such as Kaffe Fassett and Amy Butler.

They also stock all the available colours of "Emma Louise" solids - which are beautifully soft solids.

And they have quite an extensive range of Liberty fabrics (apparently diminished at the time of our visit as they sold heaps of it at AQC)

They also had a lot of books and patterns in the first room of the shop.

If you're in the area I highly recommend stopping by. Also, it's worth visiting hungry and stopping in at the cafe next door, the food was divine! I had the most delicious and decadent morning tea while we were there!

Multi-tasking...

2011-06-06T11:39:00.000+10:00

So, it turns out that hand quilting is an activity that can be done very well while hanging out with people... which is what I did this weekend.

I've made great progress quilting my wonky stars - I've quilted around nearly all the stars. Once I've finished that I need to fill in the space in between them. I've been quilting with red perle 8, which means nice big stitches! I'm a big fan of this method, it makes the quilting go pretty quickly, making it enjoyable rather than a chore!

Improv Wonky Stars Layout - mini-how-to

2011-06-02T09:00:00.000+10:00

In my retreat recap post the other day I included a picture showing my finished wonky star quilt tops, the blocks for which were made by the "Oh Beehave" participants. Today I thought I would post some more information about how I pieced the tops. I would describe the way I pieced the tops as an "improv" method - especially since I made it up as I went along. I took a few pictures though, so I can explain some of my process.

First off I chose the layout of my stars. The design wall at craft retreat was incredibly handy for this, although a floor would have worked too. I marked the size I wanted the quilt to be with thread on the wall and then I chose the layout of both tops at the same time, so here you can see both sets of stars on the design wall at the same time:

I will now outline how I went about making the quilt top with red stars and a beige background.

First I looked at my layout and mentally split up the top into sections (photos of the finished top as they're a bit clearer). First two (the horizontal line in the below pictures), then three (the vertical line):

Next I split those three sections into smaller sections - to avoid y-seams my lines had to both start and finish either at the edge of the quilt top or a previously decided line:

I then carried on mentally splitting up my quilt top until I could see square or rectangular shapes filling in all the gaps between the stars:

Then I started sewing pieces of beige background fabric to the stars to fill in the negative space. Here you can see where I have pieced together the top into 7 large pieces:

Does that all make sense? Taking away all the lines can you see how I broke up the quilt top?

How about the top with the red background?

Here's how I broke it up:

Does that description make sense? It was actually very fun and freeing to do, especially since I was trying to use up the left over pieces of fabric sent back to me by the ladies in the Bee.

Tonight at the MMQG SASE I'm going to get some batting so I can start quilting this sucker!

One Pattern, Seven Bloggers - Finished!

2011-06-01T17:22:00.001+10:00

Today is the last day of the "one pattern seven bloggers" project. It's been heaps of fun to do, and I would like to once again issue a HUGE thank you to Sam for instigating and organising it and choosing to include me in the group. Did you look at all the how-do posts last week? If you missed them, you can find links to them all at the bottom of this post.

Despite getting the bulk of my dress done at last month's MMQG SASD I still ended up finishing it just in time, squeezing in little bits of sewing between everything else I have going on. The zip went in on Sunday evening, Monday night the hem was pinned, and yesterday the skirt and lining were hemmed and the side seams taken in a smidge as the waist was a little big. Photos were very kindly taken by my lovely housemate this afternoon before the sun went down (Thanks Abby!).

Despite cutting it so close to the deadline, I am very happy with the dress. I'm happy with the fit (although think I might still need to fix the bust darts a little) and am very happy with the length and fullness of the skirt (about 275cm/108"; very full!!!). I gave it a nice wide hem to, in theory, support the fullness of the skirt slightly. Most importantly, as per my initial requirements, it has POCKETS!

I ended up fully lining it in Navy, using this tutorial again for sewing up the bodice. The skirt is also a gathered rectangle but isn't as full as the actual skirt, and then it's hemmed about 2 inches shorter than the skirt so it doesn't show. I also added some grosgrain ribbon to the lining waistband as a sort of waist stay (which I also did with my New Years dress), although it's not yet functioning as one as I haven't yet stitched the lining to the bodice at the waist so I can alter the darts if I want to

One last construction comment I wanted to include was the very helpful advice Tasia gave me regarding sewing in the zip. I had asked if the method she suggests for the Crescent would work for a dress and she suggested an alternative method that she used on her 60s shift dress. Bascially what I did was sew the lining to the fabric right sides together to where the zip would finish, then turned it right side out and the edge was beautifully finished and I just had to sew in my regular dress zip and sew together the rest of the centre back seam - it worked beautifully and is defnintely a method I will be remembering to use again in the future.

I can't really give much of a review of the pattern, as I completely butchered it, so I have no idea how the fit would actually have been. However, I was a bit unimpressed at the instructions that came with the pattern, particularly as it's a pattern you pay for, as they were HOPELESS. The lines for the pattern pieces don't have the sizes marked on them at all, and the instructions are completely full of errors that I guess must have happened when the file was created or something, as there's missing characters, and all sorts. They're as good as useless, I didn't bother using them at all. A big thumbs down from me, I think if I'm paying for a pattern I at least deserve someone to have proof read the instructions for font errors and typos!

Anyway, I don't want to end my post on a negative point so I will reiterate how much I love my finished dress, that I'm very happy with the quality of my work, and I can't wait to see the other gals dresses. You should remember to check out their dresses too, as before here's a list of links, I'll update them to be links to specific posts as they're posted:

Sam: http://hand-quilter.blogspot.com/
Marie: http://asewingodyssey.blogspot.com/
Reana Louise: http://curvespatternsandpins.blogspot.com/
Kat: http://petticoatsandpeplums.blogspot.com/2011/06/1-pattern-seven-bloggers-big-reveal.html
Jen: http://the-paperdoll.blogspot.com/
Amy: http://sewingthroughthemotions.blogspot.com/

Thanks again to Sam, Marie, Reana Louise, Kat, Jen and Amy for being part of this very fun project!

What are you doing on Thursday evening?

2011-05-31T09:00:00.002+10:00

What are you up to on this Thursday evening (the 2nd of June)? If you're free you should come along to the MMQGs first sit and sew evening.

It's 7-10pm at GJs in Brunswick and should be heaps of fun! For more information see the post on the MMQG website.

Genome Quilt Progress - May 2011

2011-05-30T16:35:00.000+10:00

The other day I showed you my "progress sheet" for my genome quilt blocks. While I had the blocks out to take a photo of them and the sheet I couldn't resist seeing what all the ones I have done so far look like all laid out. Now, it would be a bit remiss of me not to have taken a photo of it to share with you as well wouldn't it?

What do you think? I'm loving it!!

Retreat Recap

2011-05-28T21:33:00.000+10:00

A certain friend has told me off for not posting about the retreat last weekend yet, so I thought I'd better get on that this weekend!

The retreat was AMAZING. We were a little worried going up there because when it was being organised we had the pick of dates we wanted, so we were worried it would be too good to be true. However, a sneaky peek through the windows while we were waiting to be let in put our minds at ease - the place is beautiful! It turns out that Craft Retreat had only opened in March, which was when we were making our booking. It sounds like it's already filling up for the rest of the year.

We had Friday afternoon and evening, all day Saturday and Sunday morning to sew, and PLENTY got done!

Our Retreat Group. From left to right: Helene, Me, Bronwyn, Kirsty, MJ, Annabel, Marg and Andrea. (plus Louise, who arrived late so isn't pictured)

When we got there on Friday I got to working on my genome quilt, until dinnertime which was a delicious "planned pot-luck" dinner at the house. We then watched Murials Wedding and added green border hexys to a couple of hexagon flowers while watching the film.

Making use of the design wall

Saturday was dedicated to sewing together my wonky stars from the MMQG quilting bee into two tops (well technically a top and back, but the quilt is destined to be reversible). I did the last couple of seams on Sunday morning, but was very happy to have achieved the goal of getting them done. I'll post a more detailed post about how I went about putting the tops together at another date. (I took lots of in process photos on Helene's lovely camera).

My two finished wonky star tops

Saturday night we went out for a delicious and decadent meal at Mercato, after which some of the group watched another movie, and the rest (including me) chose to continue sewing.

All my genome quilt blocks so far

Sunday morning before leaving I chugged out a few more genome quilt blocks, bringing my total for the weekend to 16 blocks. 29 down, 20 to go, I'm getting there slowly.

The sheet I've been using to mark off the blocks as I've done them - the red crosses were from when I was rotating the HSTs, and now colouring them in means I've sewn the block together.

So all in all, an AMAZING weekend! We had such a good time we're planning to go back in November... hopefully I'll be able to go too.

One Pattern, Seven Bloggers - How To: In-Seam Pockets

2011-05-25T12:05:00.004+10:00

Are you still following along with the "one pattern seven bloggers" project? All of last weeks posts are linked in the bottom of my last post here.

This weeks post will be a "how to" for something we did when making the dress. One thing that I knew I definitely wanted to do with the pattern was add pockets into the side seams. I find it very frustrating wearing clothes without pockets, so find pockets in my dresses an essential design feature these days.

For this dress I decided to add in-seam pockets into the side seams. I put in-seam pockets into my "twin spruce knock-off dress", except in that dress I put the seams slightly further forward than the side seams (In the two seams made when I split the entire skirt into thirds), however they feel a bit weird when there's stuff in them and I'm sitting down, so this time i'm going to stick with the traditional side seam pockets.

Below is a photo tutorial for how to sew together the skirt pieces for these in-seam pockets. My pocket pattern piece was kind of fudged from looking at a few pockets in different garments and has turned out quite a good size (including for an iphone, as mine lives in my pocket). I was hoping to be able to scan the pocket pattern piece to include in this post but haven't been able to get my hands on a scanner this week. I will endevour to scan it in the future if there's interest though.

If you want to make your own pocket pattern piece I would recommend looking through your wardrobe for an item with an inseam pocket and using that as a starting point, and then checking it will fit the most common things you will put in it (eg your phone). In the pictures below you can see the general shape of the pocket.

One thing to take note of before following this tutorial is that I have moved the zip from the side to the centre back as I don't like side zips. The burdastyle pattern has a side zip, so you would need to put the side seams together slightly differently with a side zip (it's possible and i've done it for a skirt, and if there's interest I can make a tutorial for that too).

So, onto the tutorial.

First you need to assemble your pieces of fabric - you will need the following:
- 1x skirt front piece (in this case as the skirt is gathered it's just a big rectangle)
- 2x skirt back pieces (this is the same as the skirt front piece but cut in half to make two pieces)
- 4x pocket pieces

Here you can see one pocket's worth of pieces laid out - if you want two pockets you'll do exactly the same thing twice, on either side of the skirt front.

One important thing you need to decide is at which height to put the pockets. I put my pockets at 10cm from the top of the skirt pieces - which means they'll be about 10cm below my waist. I know that this height works for me based on my previous dress. For reference I'm 5'4, so if you're taller you might want to increase this distance a bit.

Measure down the side seam edges of the skirt pieces 10cm (or whatever distance you chose) from the top. For two pockets you will have FOUR edges to measure - both sides of the skirt front and one side of each of the skirt back pieces.

Make sure the skirt backs are the opposite sides and not the same side - you can pin together your centre back seam if that will help prevent you getting confused. Alternatively, if you have the space, lay out all your pieces of fabric so you can see which seam is which.

Now pin your pocket piece to the edge of the skirt pieces RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER.
You will need to line up the straight edge of the pocket with the straight side seams of the skirt, and put the top of the pocket at the 10cm mark you measured before.

(I have outlined the pocket pieces in a dashed white line as it was tricky to see because of my fabric)

Here you can see one pair of pockets pinned on - the skirt front is on the left, the skirt back on the right, and they are a mirror image of each other with RIGHT SIDES FACING.

Now sew along that straight line you just pinned with a 1.5cm seam allowance (5/8 inch) from just above the pocket to just below.

Now finish that seam allowance, eg by zig-zag stitching along the raw edge.
You only need to finish the bit you just stitched, the rest will be done later.
(I forgot to do this on my first pocket so I had to go back and do it by hand at the end)

Now press the pocket pieces outwards, pressing the seam allowances towards the pocket pieces as in the photo below:

Now place the skirt front and skirt back together RIGHT SIDES FACING and pin down the side seams, and around the edge of the pockets. The edges should be identical and should all match up nicely, as shown here:

Now you sew the side seams and the pocket bags all as one long seam. Start at the top of the skirt, stitch with a 1.5cm seam allowance (5/8 inch) along the side seam until you reach the pocket. When you get to about 1.5cm (5/8 inch) below the top edge of the pocket stop with your needle down and rotate the skirt so that you can sew around the edge of the pocket pieces. When you get back to the side seam stop again, rotate the skirt and sew down the side seam to the bottom of the skirt pieces.

To demonstrate what I mean I have marked your stitching line with a white dashed line in the photo below:

Once you've sewn this seam, finish the edges along the same line as you just stitched.

Press the pocket and seam allowances FORWARDS:

(in this photo the skirt front is on the right hand side)

And now you have a pocket!! Hurrah!

The next (and last step) is optional, but I prefer it. I like to topstitch my pocket along the front edge to help the pocket stay facing forwards.

I hope this this tutorial has been clear. If you have any questions please comment below and I will do my best to answer them. If you're interested in the pattern piece, please comment saying so below so that I know there's interest - that way I will have more incentive to get off my arse and scan it.

Again, remember to hop along to the other lovely ladies taking part in their projects to see what they've decided to show:
Sam: http://hand-quilter.blogspot.com/
Marie: http://asewingodyssey.blogspot.com/2011/05/one-pattern-seven-bloggers-4-techniques.html
Reana Louise: http://curvespatternsandpins.blogspot.com/2011/05/lace-trimmed-bias-tape.html
Kat: http://petticoatsandpeplums.blogspot.com/2011/05/1-pattern-seven-bloggers-week-4.html
Jen: http://the-paperdoll.blogspot.com/2011/05/one-pattern-seven-bloggers-4.html
Amy: http://sewingthroughthemotions.blogspot.com/2011/05/one-pattern-seven-bloggers-lining.html

One Pattern, Seven Bloggers - Fit

2011-05-18T09:00:00.002+10:00

Wow, week three of the "one pattern seven bloggers" project already, time is flying! Did you check out the great fabric and fitting posts from the girls last week? They're all linked at the bottom of last weeks post. This week I will discuss how I tackled fitting the pattern.

I have a confession to make, I kinda cheated when it came to altering the "one pattern seven bloggers" pattern to fit me. You see, the pattern really is quite similar to the bodice that I drafted over Christmas with a three key differences; both the front and back necklines, the cap "sleeves" on the Burdastyle bodice, and my bodice has two bust darts whereas the Burdastyle one has just one.

Burdastyle pattern on the left, my bodice pattern on the right

Rather than going through the whole fitting process again I used the pattern pieces of my bodice to trace off some of the seamlines to hopefully get a good fit straight away. I also decided to keep the two bust darts rather than convert it into one dart as I was sceptical as to the quality of the fit over my boobs if I just did one dart.

I started with the back bodice piece as I expected it would need less changes, and I could straight away see that the Burdastyle bodice is much too long for me (which isn't surprising, I had to shorten the length of the Emily Blouse when I made it too). I lined up the pattern pieces using the underarm seam and the top of the darts as reference points and I could see that I needed to remove length from both ends, so I drew the waist seam line according to my bodice pattern, and then picked the shoulder seam from the Burdastyle pattern that looked at the right height.. I then drew in the centre back seam from my bodice pattern, but extended it up to the neckline of the Burdastyle pattern and this is what I ended up with:

My back bodice piece ready to make into a muslin

Then I moved onto the front bodice piece, which needed more changes, mostly due to adding the second dart. I lined up the pattern pieces the same way, using the corner of the underarm seam, and traced off most of the shape of the pattern piece of my bodice (the darts, side seam and waist seam). It's a very different shape due to the added dart.

The shoulder seams were MUCH higher than the length of my bodice (sorry, I forgot to take a photo), so after checking that it was identical to the front shoulder seam, I used the shape of the back shoulder seam that I'd just finished to draw a lower front shoulder seam, basing the height on the height of my bodice pattern piece. I then used the neckline as per the Burdastyle pattern.

I was inspired to try it this way from the method that Carolyn has mentioned that she uses to modify patterns, where she uses her TNT pattern to get the fit and the shape right, and uses new patterns to add design features easily to the pattern that she knows already fits her.

Thankfully these changes meant that when I made up a muslin the fit was already pretty good. I made three small changes to the pattern after my muslin (which I didn't manage to get a photo of because there wasn't anyone around to take one for me, sorry!)

I lengthened the bodice by 2.5 cm - I was concerned in my muslin that it was sitting a little high, so I have lengthened the bodice and will make a final call when i've sewn the bodice together but before I attach the skirt.

I actually wore the muslin around the house for a bit (I was home alone), and in doing things while wearing the muslin I discovered a major fit problem - the bottoms of the armholes were too high, particularly at the front. While hanging out some washing I felt a rip, and the front armhole had ripped perpendicular to the seam! So I trimmed off some of the armhole so that (hopefully) doesn't happen in the real dress.

What was trimmed off the armholes

Lastly, the front neckline was gaping a bit so I took two tucks in the neckline pointing towards the bust point, which I then rotated out of the pattern piece on the paper:

First I cut out the tucks down to the bust point:

Then I rotated the pattern piece to close the space from the tucks. I also trimmed the neckline to give it a smooth line:

And so my pattern is ready to go!! Exciting.

Remember to check out the posts by the other lovely ladies involved in this project: (once again, links to the posts will be added once they're posted)
Sam: http://hand-quilter.blogspot.com/2011/05/one-pattern-seven-bloggers-3.html
Marie: http://asewingodyssey.blogspot.com/2011/05/one-pattern-seven-bloggers-3-fabric.html
Reana Louise: http://curvespatternsandpins.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-dog-ate-it-miss.html
Kat: http://petticoatsandpeplums.blogspot.com/2011/05/1-pattern-seven-bloggers-week-3.html
Jen: http://the-paperdoll.blogspot.com/2011/05/one-pattern-seven-bloggers-3.html
Amy: http://sewingthroughthemotions.blogspot.com/2011/05/one-pattern-seven-bloggers-fabric.html

Retreating

2011-05-17T16:20:00.000+10:00

Image from here

Next weekend I'm going on a MMQG Retreat. I'm disproportionately excited about the whole thing, and as the date gets closer am getting more excited (if that's possible!) An entire 48 hours of sewing, eating and gossiping with some fabulous company - what is there NOT to be excited about?

I've started writing mental lists of what I need to pack (which will be converted into actual lists very soon I'm sure), and have been worrying about forgetting some vital thing that will mean that I can't do the sewing I want to do, so I will, as they say, be making my list and checking it twice.

I have no idea how much sewing I'll be able to get done while I'm gone, but I'm planning on taking plenty; something truely magical would have to happen for me to get through it all. The major thing I want to make headway on is the piecing of my genome quilt (in itself enough to last more than the weekend). I'll also take the star blocks for my "Oh Beehave" quilt, I'm sure having the other 8 ladies around would do wonders for helping work out layouts. And I think I'll also take along my hexies, just in case I want to do some hand sewing rather than just machine sewing.

SO excited!!!

Are you metric or imperial?

2011-05-15T15:27:00.000+10:00

Some people seem to think in either metric or imperial measurements and can't comprehend the opposite. Other people can think interchangably in both. I'm a really messed up version in between.

I measure small things in either inches or cm depending on my mood. I know my measurements (bust, waist, hip, etc) in inches but not cm, but I buy fabric by the metre and can measure a metre of fabric out incredibly accurately on my arm. I use a 1.5cm seam allowance for garment sewing, but a 1/4 inch one for quilting. Heights are always feet and inches, metres means nothing to me. Medium distances (for example ones I could walk or cycle) are in km, and my brain just doesn't fathom big distances.

Weights are just the same. I don't get on with "cup" measurements, and my recipes are a bizarre mixture of oz and grams, litres and pints (even within the same recipe sometimes). However, weights of people I can't comprehend unless they're in kilos.

What kind of measurements do you think in?

(this random post brought to you by my new tape measure thats 3 metres long!! and even better only $2! (from GJs))

One Pattern, Seven Bloggers - Fabric

2011-05-11T12:03:00.002+10:00

Did you take a look at the other girls blog posts for the "one pattern, seven bloggers" project last week? There is such varied inspiration, I can't wait to see how the different dresses turn out. If you didn't take a look I've put all the links at the bottom of my last post

This week is just a quick posts to show you the fabric that I chose for this project:

Yup, I went with the geometric-y print wool/viscose blend fabric, and also bought a navy lining fabric to match as I plan to fully line the dress for warmth and so that I can wear it with tights without it clinging to my legs (hopefully).

I've been considering having a go at adding some piping to the dress... but I've never done piping before; does anyone have any tips? Or good tutorials or resources?

Again, here are (or will be) links to this weeks posts by the other 6 lovely ladies participating in this project:
Sam: http://hand-quilter.blogspot.com/2011/05/one-pattern-seven-bloggers-2.html
Marie: http://asewingodyssey.blogspot.com/2011/05/one-pattern-seven-bloggers-2-muslin.html
Reana Louise: http://curvespatternsandpins.blogspot.com/2011/05/blue-blue.html
Kat: http://petticoatsandpeplums.blogspot.com/2011/05/1-pattern-seven-bloggers-week-2.html
Jen:
Amy: http://sewingthroughthemotions.blogspot.com/2011/05/one-pattern-seven-bloggers-muslin.html

Pin Cushion Swap - Thank's Kirsty!

2011-05-06T19:11:00.000+10:00

The pin cushion that I recieved for the MMQG pin cushion swap was from Kirsty, and it's seriously awesome! A really cute pattern, lovely fabrics, and it's HUGE! I won't be running out of space or pricking myself with pins poking all the way through the pin cushion.

(pictured next to my iphone for scale)

The only potential problem is that it may not get used as a pin cushion as it's also lots of fun to throw around!

Thanks heaps Kirsty, I love it!

One Pattern, Seven Bloggers - Inspiration

2011-05-04T10:33:00.001+10:00

I have a very exciting project to tell you about today.

A little while ago Sam contacted me and another 5 bloggers asking if we wanted to take part in a fun little project called "one pattern, seven bloggers". The idea is that all seven of us will sew up the same pattern in a way that suits our needs and style, sharing the process and the seven probably very different dresses at the end.

Here are the seven bloggers involved in the project:
Sam: http://hand-quilter.blogspot.com/
Marie: http://asewingodyssey.blogspot.com/
Reana Louise: http://curvespatternsandpins.blogspot.com/
Kat: http://petticoatsandpeplums.blogspot.com/
Jen: http://the-paperdoll.blogspot.com/
Amy: http://sewingthroughthemotions.blogspot.com/
and Me

We will be making up this Burdastyle pattern, posting on the same topics in relation to the project on Wednesdays until the 1st of June, when we will reveal our finished dresses.

Exciting!

And so, onto my first post - the theme for which is "inspiration".

As I've mentioned before, generally when clothes making in Melbourne it's easier to go to the fabric store with a vague idea in mind and look for inspiration in the fabric, as it's often very tricky to find exactly the fabric that you have in your imagination. So for this project I wandered over to The Fabric Store and took a look at what fabrics they have that could work with this dress.

For my inspiration post I though I'd share with you some fabrics that I saw that I think would work for this pattern.

First up, a lovely bright royal blue cotton with a lovely drape. Simple but would be stunning

What about this great geometric print? This is a Marc Jacobs wool viscose blend.

An obvious choice for the dress I think, a cute flower print, but I can't go past Rayon whenever I see it, and this is a cotton rayon blend

Plaids are always fun, this is a cotton, lycra and nylon blend.

What about something completely different; this double-layered Helmut lang cotton nylon blend has a bit more of a "suiting" style but still has a fairly good drape.

Or similar, this wool suiting was a little thicker but would probably just about work. Alternatively, the gathers in the skirt could be converted into pleats or box pleats with this thicker fabric.

For something indulgent how about this stunning silk print? Underlined it would make such a nice light floaty dress. The photo just doesn't do it justice, it's one of those fabrics you have to feel it to believe it.

I was thinking about ways to alter this pattern, and two obvious things struck me as things that could be done but would still keep the "feel" of the pattern. The first is altering the skirt. As I mentioned above, you could change the gathers into pleats, or change it to an A line skirt. The second is altering the neckline, here are some examples off the top of my head of how could could change the neckline of this dress:

So, there's my inspiration.I think I know which one i'm going to choose to make, but I'm going to save telling you until a later post. I will tell you two things though - the first is that I plan to make this a winter suitable dress. Well Melbourne winter anyway, which really just means being able to layer with it and wear tights. The second is that the dress will definitely end up with pockets!

But tell me; which would you make?

PS: Don't forget to check out the other 6 "inspiration" themed posts:
Amy: http://sewingthroughthemotions.blogspot.com/2011/05/one-pattern-seven-bloggers-my.html
Sam: http://hand-quilter.blogspot.com/2011/05/one-pattern-seven-bloggers-1.html

Marie: http://asewingodyssey.blogspot.com/2011/05/one-pattern-seven-bloggers-1.html

Reana Louise: http://curvespatternsandpins.blogspot.com/2011/05/one-pattern-seven-bloggers.html

Kat: http://petticoatsandpeplums.blogspot.com/2011/05/1-pattern-seven-bloggers.html

Jen: http://the-paperdoll.blogspot.com/2011/05/one-pattern-seven-bloggers.html

Pin Cushion Swap - Alissa, I hope you like it

2011-05-02T09:51:00.000+10:00

Here is the pin cushion that I made for the MMQG pin cushion swap. My partner was Alissa, and as I know she likes rainbows I picked the rainbow-y-est fabric striped fabric I could find.

I made paper pieced stars with matched rainbow stripes...

... which became a double sided hexagon shaped pincushion.

I hope you like it Alissa.

Crescent Skirt - cutting time!

2011-04-30T14:49:00.000+10:00

I have some exciting news relating to my crescent skirt (exciting to me anyway); my friend Laura is making one too, so we will be sewing the skirt up together! She's bought some beautiful fabric for her skirt, isn't it fun:

Laura's fabric - a lightweight cotton sateen (I think), from Lincraft

We got together for a few hours over the easter weekend to make up muslins. We only muslined the waistband to check the fit, and measured the skirt pieces to check the length. The fit was pretty good - I am pretty happy with the "out of the envelope" fit and didn't make any changes. We made a couple of alterations to Laura's waistband, and then reminded by Tasia in her sew along post went back and also made the same changes to the waistband facing.

My waistband pieces

Then the other night we got together for dinner and cut out our fabric pieces. I realised after cutting out my waistband pieces that I would have preferred to "block fuse" the interfacing to the fabric rather than cut the pieces out separately, so that's what I suggested Laura did instead.

Me cutting out the interfacing separately to the fabric

Because her cutting layout was a bit tight we couldn't do a proper block fuse, so instead I got her to cut out pieces of fabric about an inch bigger than the pattern pieces, and then cut the interfacing about the same size. After pressing the interfacing onto the fabric to fuse the layers she cut out the final pattern piece - which means she knows that the fused fabric+interfacing is exactly the shape of the pattern piece and hasn't become distorted when the two layers were joined.

Laura cutting out her pattern pieces after fusing the fabric to the interfacing

So now our fabric is cut out and ready to go for when the sewing steps of the sewalong are posted.

Lastly before I forget, I also bought some lining for my skirt, isn't it fun:

Seasons and silver linings

2011-04-27T22:16:00.000+10:00

I don't really like winter. I definitely prefer summer. I get cold easily and it takes me a long time to warm up again when I get cold. Maybe that's a subconscious reason why I like quilting, I don't know. Either way, no matter how many lovely Autumn days there are (like today), Autumn isn't a good time for me, as I know that winter is coming. However, I am trying to be more of a "glass half full" kind of person, so have decided to try and list some "silver linings" of winter (as silly and miniscule as they may be):

- My flanelette PJs can come back into rotation
- I can wear my amazing Hikaru jacket again once it's colder
- Winter gives me more excuses to make quilts
- Funky tights are lots of fun yet functional at the same time
- My new boots mean that I now have flat black boots again, which seriously boosts my winter wardrobe
- Hot water bottles are cosy
- The sun doesn't wake me up early in the morning
- I can cook yummy meals without worrying about heating up the house
- Roast dinners are definitely a winter meal, and I LOVE them

What about you? What's your favourite season? Can you think of any silver linings about your least favourite?

Advice for Vicki?

2011-04-26T09:00:00.002+10:00

Vicki has had a super productive Easter weekend working on her quilt that she bought fabric for last week and has cut out and sewn up 100 half square triangles. Now I can share with you her planned layout. She is going to have 5 zigzags each in a different colour going across the bed:

Around this panel she wants to have a thin border of a colour/print and then a wide border of plain white to bring the quilt to queen size (the zig-zag panel is about 1.5m across I think)

She now has some important decisions to make (which might affect each other). The first is what order to put the zigzags in, and the second is what colour to make the coloured border.

(just to remind you what the fabrics look like with slightly more colour accuracy)

So what would you do? What order would you put the colours and what kind of coloured border would you use?

Pin Cushion Swap - Sneak Peek

2011-04-25T09:00:00.000+10:00

I took some time this weekend to make my pin-cushion for the MMQG pin cushion swap, here's a sneak-peek:

Happy Birthday Mum!!!

2011-04-24T15:05:00.000+10:00

The embroidery supplies that I posted about a while back have since been transformed into the above cushion covers for my Mum for her Birthday.

I was inspired by these map quilts. However, I don't have the time (or the probably the skill) to make a quilt like that, but they inspired this idea.

I marked maps of some locations hopefully significant to my mum with a washable marker (not the transfer pencil in the above photo, as that doesn't come out again and I don't trust my drawing or stitching well enough). I then embroidered the outlines with a basic backstitch.

After all the maps were embroidered the fabric was cut to size and sewn into cushion covers with invisible zips down one side (something like these tutorials: 1, 2, 3):

Once again - Happy Birthday Mum - I hope you like them.

When there's a sale...

2011-04-19T22:52:00.000+10:00

There's a 25% off sale on at GJs at the moment (until the 20th), so I took the opportunity to get the fabric for my pin cushion for the current MMQG swap:

I can't tell you anymore at the moment as I want it to be a surprise, but I know exactly what I'm going to do and I'm going to work on it over the Easter weekend so it's ready before the 1st of May deadline. I hope my partner likes it.

I went up to GJs with Vicki, who has been scheming up her first full sized quilt - she's going for a queen sized quilt! She's come up with her design, which is going to be amazing and now she has these gorgeous fabrics. 10 pastel-y prints and white... you just know it's going to be fantastic when it's made up!

I wish I'd taken some photos of the huge stack of fabrics that she picked out as possibles before narrowing down to this 10. There's no need to worry that you won't find what you're looking for, there's so may beautiful fabrics. The ladies at GJs are so nice and friendly and didn't seem to mind at all having to put them all back for us, so thanks so much ladies for your patience and advice!

AQC - My Best in Show

2011-04-18T09:00:00.000+10:00

This was my absolute favourite from the AQC. If I'd known how to get a little voting slip this would definitely have gotten my vote.

She was painted, appliquéd and densely quilted, and is soooo incredibly beautiful!

The combination of painting and amazingly skilled quilting even gave the background so much detail.

Look at how intricate the stitching is:

Incase you hadn't guessed, I'm still in awe of the skill in this quilt.

Sadly I didn't write down who made it, so sorry that I can't credit the incredibly talented creator properly.

AQC - Some more favourites

2011-04-17T14:18:00.000+10:00

As I couldn't pick a small enough number of my favourites from AQC on Thursday to fit into one post here are some more:

This one was definitely my second favourite quilt at the show:

Isn't it amazing how part of the landscape has been made up of squares and triangles?

It kind of feels like you're looking out of a window that is partly some kind of wonky glass

Some "Dear Jane" blocks on point, and the hand quilting was stunning

These two quilts really show that using different fabrics but the same pattern can make such a difference.

I just love this one, it keeps drawing your eye to different spots.

Hundreds of origami cranes on a quilt, so beautiful!

(Well I just counted, 104 cranes)

This one was 3D, so much fun to look at.

I can't pinpoint exactly what about this one I love, I just know I do.

I love the minimal design, and the quilting was amazing.

I'll be back tomorrow with one last AQC post - my favourite quilt in the show.

AQC - Quilting Challenges

2011-04-16T12:12:00.000+10:00

At ACQ there were two kinds of "challenges" that I saw in the show part. The first was making a quilt according to a particular theme, and the second was making a quilt that contained a particular fabric.

One of the themes this year was the 7 deadly sins, from which some gorgeous quilts were made. Here is my favourite of the sins themed quilts:

What skill to make such realistic looking faces just from thread and fabric!

The challenge that required the use of a particular fabric used this fabric:

And here are a few of my favourite quilts from this challenge:

Isn't it amazing what different people come up with from the same starting point?

AQC - Some favourites

2011-04-15T09:00:00.000+10:00

Some gorgeous appliquéd gum leaves

Yesterday I visited the Australasian Quilt Convention with Kirsty, Marg and Esther. I missed out last year because I was over in Perth while it was on, so I've had it in my diary since this time last year to keep this weekend clear.

This set of quilts were all quilted so accurately with quilting patterns that really added to the simple designs.

There were heaps of stalls from different companies selling soooo much stuff, and I was well behaved - I stuck to my "fabric diet" and didn't buy any fabric. The only thing I bought was a pair of medium sized scissors which I've been meaning to get for a while, I can throw away the crappy ones I have now and stop using my shears to snip delicate little things.

An entire alphabet of so so so intricate flower fairies - amazing!

I know it's unfair to compare it to the Festival of Quilts that I went to last year, but it's hard not to, as that's the only quilt show I've really been to before this one. The show part of this one was much much much smaller, but there were still some AMAZING quilts on show.

I think it's the black and white background that draws me to this quilt the most, the flowers just stand out so much more.

I left the others mid-afternoon, but went back later in the afternoon to have another quick look around before it closed (well, the show is about 200m from my house and was on my way home, what can a girl do??!) and snapped some photos.

What Pomme doesn't love a good union jack quilt??

I forgot to take my camera so these are phone photos so apologies for the fuzziness. Smattered through this post are some of my favourite quilts from the show.

So many beautiful dresden plates, and hand quilting on top of that.

Do you see the detail of the dresdens overlapping with the corners of the borders? amazing!

If you're in or near Melbourne and free this weekend I highly recommend paying the show a visit.

"Oh Beehave" - May Block

2011-04-14T10:00:00.001+10:00

This is the block that I made (a little early) for Shirley for the MMQG Quilting Bee "Oh Beehave":

Shirley asked for a 14.5" Mondrian style blocks made from the solid fabrics she sent us. Lots of fun to make!

My previous blocks: October, November, January, February, April

Book Review: The Fashion File

2011-04-13T10:00:00.000+10:00

"The Fashion File - Advice, Tips and Inspiration from the Costume Designer of Mad Men"

I borrowed this book from a friend a while back and thought I'd share what I thought of it.

The book aims to help you define your own style, it discusses things like silhouettes, colours, styles and accessories, guiding you through from making self-reflective choices to tips for executing the style. I like that the suggestions are realistic, there is a focus on quality rather than quantity, for example with a section on variations of a little black dress.

I enjoyed reading the book, although I did prefer the earlier chapters such as "defining your silhouette and secrets for dressing your shape" over the later ones like "a passion for vintage". One thing that disappointed me was that despite the frequent references to altering items to suit your style and altering them to fit you perfectly, it was always in the context of taking them to a tailor. I would have liked it if even the idea of generating your own style didn't just rely on what could be found on the high street or in vintage stores, but what your imagination allows you to create by sewing it yourself. But then, I'm slightly biased in that regard.

It was a lovely book to read, inspiring photographs, illustrations to die for and really well written. I'm not sure it's an essential book to have in your library, but I would recommend reading it.

MMQG April SASD

2011-04-11T10:00:00.003+10:00

Yesterday was the April sit and sew day (SASD) for the Melbourne Modern Quilt Guild (MMQG), so it was nice to have a scheduled day of sewing away from any guilt that I should be working on my thesis.

This month we were at our south melbourne venue, which is only one tram ride away from my house (unlike our other venue, Ashburton, which is a tram and two trains) so I decided to take my sewing machine to a meeting for the first time. Thankfully my machine fits perfectly into my suitcase, so with some cushions as padding it was very easy to transport.

I took along my genome quilt to work on, which has been stashed away in a shoebox and not touched for the best part of 9 months.

I made good headway and finished 4 more 5x5 blocks, bringing my total number of blocks to 12. There are 35 of these blocks, so only 23 left to go...!

The advantage of having this project stashed away for so long was that the fabrics were no longer at the forefront of my mind and I could rediscover my love for them as they popped up in the blocks I was piecing.

Beautiful, beautiful fabrics! Although given how involved the project is, I'm really glad I'm still in love with this quilt

"Oh Beehave" - April Block

2011-04-10T11:00:00.002+10:00

This is the block that I made for Marg for the MMQG Quilting Bee "Oh Beehave":

Marg asked for a 12.5 inch block made primarily of flying geese and/or half square triangles.. Something I'd never done before, so interesting to learn something new.

My previous blocks: October, November, January, February

Esprit dress: restyled

2011-04-09T10:00:00.000+10:00

Do you remember the "Esprit Dress" that I wanted to recreate?

I finished the dress quite a while ago, after making some alterations indicated by the muslin

Most of the alterations were definitely necessary, however it turns out adding to the side seams was a mistake - the finished dress turned out a bit big and overall a bit frumpy. It was worn a couple of times and then shoved to the back of my wardrobe and not worn again... until me-made March prompted me to re-assess my me-made items.

I couldn't really take it in at the side seams, as that would have made the pockets too narrow and unusable, so I wasn't really sure how to make the dress more fitted.... so I didn't. Instead I hacked about 4 inches off the bottom of the skirt and re-hemmed it.

The skirt is still as un-fitted as it was before, but the shorter length has given it a bit of a 60s vibe, and it is finally wearable. More than that, it's super comfy! So comfy that I wore it two days in a row after modifying it.

An interesting thing that I want to mention, incase anyone else can learn from my mistake, is the placement of the pockets. When working out the pattern I didn't quite thing through the height the pockets should be - I forgot the seamline for the pocket was the top of the pocket, not the bottom. So the pockets on this dress are a little low... I can only just reach the bottom of the pockets with the tips of my fingers. But that's definitely a mistake I won't be making again!

Good Luck Coin Purse

2011-04-08T10:00:00.001+10:00

Did you know that elephants are supposed to be good luck? Apparently so, but only if their trunks are pointing upwards.

A while back I embroidered this elephant, and I decided it needed to be made into a little coin purse. If elephants really are good luck then on a coin purse is a good place to have one don't you think?

So I followed Florence's tutorial to make one. The elephant on one side, some coordinated paper pieced hexagons on the back, and some green fabric for a lining.

This purse has been gifted to my good friend Kim as a Birthday present.

Discoveries Need Dollars - Protect Medical Research

2011-04-07T10:19:00.000+10:00

(Apologies in advance to any international readers, this post is for the Aussies)

I don't usually like to go too far off topic with my postings, but this one is an important one and I'm hoping that by posting this it will teach someone about this issue, and hopefully prompt someone to act.

There are proposed cuts of $400million government funding of medical research - which, given that current funding is around $700million, is a huge cut. Cutting medical research funding may seem like a short term solution to help balance the budget, but it's long term ramifications would cost a lot more than it would save.

As a member of the medical research community I can vouch first hand for the passion of Australia's medical researchers and the outstanding quality of the research they are conducting. If the proposed cuts go through these researchers will either have to move overseas, or even worse, stop their research altogether.

Please go to the discoveries need dollars website and see how you can help. There's a heap of things you can do, most of which will take you less than a minute: sign this online petition, like the facebook page, tweetiabout the issue, vote for the issue on getup, and writie to your minister.

Please take a moment out of your day to support this issue.

If you have any questions, take a look at the discoveries need dollars website, or comment below and I'll do my best to answer them.