The Laura Skirt

 

This skirt is the love child of some fabric pinched from Mindy's stash before she went overseas (miss you Mindy!!) and stealing the idea that Laura had beautifully implemented on a skirt she made a while ago (hence the name of the skirt).

I took my standard pencil skirt pattern, and converted the darts into princess seams on the front and back of the skirt. Then, rather than having a vent or slit at the back, added a lovely little flounce between the back princess seams.

In these photos the skirt is shown worn with my silk portrait blouse.

 

(I really should have ironed the skirt before taking these photos)

I deliberately left in the centre back seam above the flounce. I considered removing it and moving the zip to the side, but decided I would rather have a centre back zip.

This skirt is SO comfortable. I have no idea what the fabric is, but it's got a slight bit of stretch in it, and just enough body and weight that it doesn't get pulled around by my tights when I walk.



A fairly simple staple, with a little bit of interest, which has been a fantastic addition to my working wardrobe. I hope to make a few more of this skirt.

Mindy's Picnic Blanket

I think it's about time I showed you something I've made and finished, don't you? It's been a while! As the temperature has increased so has how busy I am. I've come out of hibernation and am struggling to get much sewing done, which is frustrating as I really want to sew!

What I have to share today I actually finished quite a while ago, but as it was a gift I couldn't share it straight away, and I didn't actually get any pics before giving it away, so I only managed to get photos of it this weekend.

My darling friend Mindy turned 30 in October, so I decided that a special present was in order. I teamed up with a mutual friend, Laura, and together we made Mindy a picnic blanket.

Getting photos was, of course, easier said than done. Obviously the picnic blanket wasn't allowed to steal the show, so it was first auditioned as an 'accessory' (read 'cape')... Thankfully the girls soon decided that the sprinklers were too hard to resist in 30 degree weather...

We chose the fabrics with Mindy very much in mind, going for the brightest, most cheerful floral prints we could find!

I was inspired to make a picnic blanket by Rachel at Stitched in Color who has made some beautiful picnic blankets.

Mindy on her picnic blanket

While a few people have called it one, it's not technically a quilt as it only has two layers. We stitched the front to the back inside out, then turned it, top-stitched the edges, and tied it with some perle 8 thread in the corners of the squares.

I think it's the only time in my life where I've described a hot pink and purple polka-dot fabric as 'calming' compared to the other fabrics it's being teamed with! But that's what we chose for the back, using that theory.  It's also got two ties on one edge so that it can be rolled up and dropped in a bag.

I'm super jealous that I don't have one now, so one for myself has been added to my to-sew list.

 Laura & Mindy on the picnic blanket

(Incase you're wondering, these pictures were taken outside the Royal Exhibition Building, in the Carlton Gardens. Isn't it beautiful there?!)

A Pair of Skirts

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

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.

Two new skirts

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.

A foray into jewelery making...

I recently identified a gaping hole in my jewelery wardrobe - I was seriously lacking a bright red necklace, preferably something chunky. After a look in a few places, I found some great chunky red wooden beads in Spotlight, so I also bought some red thonging, and after my friend Mindy generously gave me a clasp I ended up with this great necklace:

It sits just at the bottom of my neck, and goes beautifully with my new red lipstick.

Aaaaand, as a bonus, while we were looking through Mindy's jewelery making supplies for the clasp I discovered that she had a heap of fake pearl beads, and she was even more generous to let me have some of the beads and the other bits and pieces to go with it to make this set of fake pearl jewelry

So Mindy, thank you so much for the bits and pieces that let me make them, I'm uber grateful!

Op-shop find

In an op-shop a while back I found this gorgeous dress pattern (which is impressive in itself, as I never find nice patterns in op-shops). Even more conveniently, it is the right size for my friend Mindy, and exactly her style.

And even better, it was only 50c!

Pendrell Blouse - Finished!

As promised last night, I now have better photos of my finished Pendrell blouse. Not bad for about $3 all up, eh? (excluding the pattern)

Here I've paired it with my grey Jenny skirt, except I've folded the waistband in half as the wide waistband made my proportions look a little odd.

I didn't really know what to expect from the draped sleeve, but it really is ingenious. It sits really nicely and adds interest to a simple pattern. I'm not sure how it'd hold up to layers over it though, which may prove to be an issue.

It doesn't look too bad untucked but feels a little sack like. That might be because I'm used to more fitted tops, but it probably wouldn't hurt to be a little tighter around the waist. For future version I might bite the bullet and do the smaller size with a FBA, I think that'll help with the baggy-ness issues.



And lastly, a big thank you to Mindy for coming to the Carlton Gardens with me to play photographer.

(also, as you can see in these photos, my arm is out of the splint, and I just have a bandage to keep it clean until the stiches come out - yay! I can't move it completely yet and sometimes it hurts, but much less than when the splint was on.)

And the award for most ingenious use of shoulder pads goes to...

I've mentioned my friend Mindy here before; she's the one that made the super-fantastic-star costume for last year's Christmas party. Well, she's been at it again - making awesome fancy dress costumes that is.

Last weekend we were invited to a Birthday party with the theme "80's Cartoon Characters" so Mindy decided to go as Jessica Rabbit. She bought some red sequined fabric and got creating... she used a corset/bustier she owned as a 'base' for the dress but wanted to increase coverage in the breast area, so got creative... and used shoulder pads for a nice supportive addition to the top edge of the dress (which also succeeded in making the costume even more Jessica Rabbit volumptious). Very ingenious!

Mindy spent most of last Saturday afternoon using my sewing machine while I worked on the stats for my thesis - sadly that's what my sewing life has come to, living vicariously through others.

My costume (deliberately) didn't require any sewing - only a little bit of cutting and sticking to fashion some ears. However, I wanted to show you as I LOVE the dress - Mindy lent it to me, and before returning it I sketched out the design and made some measurements so that I can replicate it, as it was super comfy, it even had in seam pockets in the skirt!

Super-Star!

You saw the beginnings of Mindy's Star costume for our Christmas party the other day, here is the rest.

After cutting out the star shape it was sewn together:

Then tried on:

And a face hole promptly added to allow for breathing (sadly essential):

After adding a cardboard cone to keep the top point of the star up, and some fantastic silver make-up the costume was complete:

Mindy even took the tram down to the party with us:

*three cheers for Mindy's star*

She didn't win the costume contest, but was in the top 5. In my mind she should have won!!

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star...

This evening I had another sewing date, this time with my friend Mindy, who I have assisted (mostly by the use of my sewing machine) to make her costume for the Christmas Party. On the weekend we went on a field trip to spotlight and bought this fantastic holographic silver fabric:

We drew around Mindy and fashioned a Star shape on of the fabric, which was cut out and sewn together. Not much more to do to finish it!!

I've been instructed not to post photos of the actual costume until after the party ;)