Prints Charming/ BH&G kit and Camera play!

Research & Development

I've got some research to do.

Another "similar but different" jacket in the works

and some progress shots.

and a new DSLR camera on it's way.....

Who I am...... in Fabric

Sew Mama Sew does a section where guests come and create a fat quater sets, and they publish them on their blog, and you can purchase the sample pack on line. I subscribe to Sew Mama Sew in Bloglines, and this morning while I should have been doing shop paperwork I saw this entry.

If fabric could describe who you are, well then, this is EXACTLY who I am.

I now am seriously lusting after ALL of this fabric. Two lines are sold out, but some serious google-ing may be in order.

From the Sew Mama Sew Blog:

First Row

Four Square Piney Woods ~ Hope Valley

Boxes White ~ Mingle

Fancy Floral Black ~ Cutie Pie

Second Row

Dot Black ~ Attitude Girls

Honeycomb Sunglow ~ Modern Meadow

Huevos Gray ~ Michael Miller

Third Row

Napsack Sunglow ~ Modern Meadow

Nancy Black ~ So St. Croix

Bird Swing Gray ~ Michael Miller

Fourth Row

Dumb Dot Black ~ Michael Miller

Herringbone Grass ~ Modern Meadow, out of stock

Divine Damask Gray ~ Michael Miller, out of stock

 

I see an entire wardrobe based around these fabrics, jackets, dresses, skirts, shirts,tops, bags, fabric jewelery....OMG, the list, she, goes on......

 

Bones are all you See...

This is the start of my first knitted shawl. Well, to be honest not the very first shawl I've started, I frogged 2 different designs before I cast on this pattern. I just haven't been able to get my head around lace shawl patterns and charts yet. I don't think my ADD allows me too, not just yet. At ths stage in my life I think I just have to stick with simple, straight forward, uncomplicated knitting. Kind of a fight-the-battles-you-can-win stratergy. It's working, because I am knitting a section a night, when I'm normally unable to concentrateon anything. This is two nights worth, and I'm looking forward to watching it grow.

The design is Boneyard Shawl by Stephen West and it's downloadable via Ravelry. I'm knitting it on size 5mm circs, using Spotlights Moda Vera brand, Alpaca Blend. Soft and squishy. I like soft and squishy. I want to finish this and then hopefully move onto the Noosa Sunset Shawl using Malabrigo Sock. Time will tell!

And I can start watching my DVD box collection of Bones! I can't help but sing Luka Bloom's Bones too.

I've sewn buttons on the jacket, and have pre-washed the next lot of fabric for jacket number 2. I've worn the first already and received loads of compliments about how much the style suits me, so when you're on a good thing.... I've also sewn another pullover top, the same as the pink spotty one, but it's in the wash, cos I wore it to Farmworld yesterday. Lots of walking, and it was warm, dry and dusty at Lardner Park, not to mention hilly! The pattern is so comfortable to wear, I'm going to cut into my fave peice of stash fabric, the one in the pic up there, for another.

I'm off to take some pics of the finished jacket and the drying finished tops.

99% there....

Indygo Junction Midtown Trench pattern Veiw A

Denyse Schmidt Flea Market Fancy decorator weight fabric (3m approx)

Stll needs buttons!

My only complaint is my own fault, I made it too short, making a 5" hem for veiw A, rather than a 2" hem, ued for Veiw B. I didn't read the back of the pattern page!

a productive cough

I've been sick for most of the week, just a cold, but with a nagging, stop-you-in-your-tracks cough. Which sucks the life out of me. Plus the little man has been quite ill with a dodgy bowel, currently under investigation, which is making him very sick and lethargic. To put it bluntly, he looks like crap. And it kills me when he wakes up sick and says to me, "Mum, I'm so tired of feeling sick all the time!". But we are getting to the (LOL!) bottom of it, and hopefully things will improve, because he's missing too much school! So we have been holed up at home two days out of five, hence the production of finished objects! But now for some WIP's!

I found this fabric at Spotlight a couple of weeks ago. I do a nursing shift every three weeks on a Saturday, and the hospital's just up the road from Spotty,(Up to 40mins either side of where I live, that one's the smaller one) so of course it makes sense, complete sense, to drop in on the way home, doesn't it? This fabric was $2m, and  think it's winter lawn? Not what I'd normally buy, but it was, like $4. Hmm. It's so soft and it was prewahed in that nice new Surf Twilight Sensations range of liquids...Anyways, I saw a vision of a top, with an undershirt in winter and a grey scarf, black jeans and boots. I had this pattern, from Indygo Junction, Garden Party Pullover, and it is seriously going together like a dream. Except I don't have the thread for the topstitching. The fit is perfect, a slight alteration to the side seam, but overall a good fit. I'll finish it today, when I get the thread....

Also on the cutting table (oi, too low, my back is killing me, Iwant a better one!) is my new light winter coat, version one. Also an Indygo Junction pattern, this is an unlined trench coat, Midtown Trench, and I'm sewing it with Denyse Schmidt furnishing weight fabric I got from Candelberry Country (which is for sale, and I'd love to buy it!!!) I'm so excited about this jacket and already have plans for another coat in a gorgeous red furnishing weight I picked up from Spolight in Fountain Gate. But once again, I don't have matching thread for top stitching! Yet.

This stash also came home from Spotlight, because I have a few gift orders for a few scarves. Plus some grey, for me, for the top up there! And I've got some malabrigo itching to become a Destroyed Cowl. (Rav Link)

opy jacket dreaming

I caught a glimpse of Nicole Ritchie's Winter Kate Opy Jacket in Who Weekly.

Love. It. So. Much.

Immediatley my sewing mind jumped into action and I was dreaming of a Raches origninal....So I scoured the internet, my pattern box, and my library. I think I may have found a pattern to draft my own Opy Jacket.

Even though it's not so "flowy", I was imagining a similiar kimono style jacket in Amy Butler's Love fabric range, such as the two lower right fabrics, which I think I can get locally.

I brought a couple of patterns on-line from Indygo Junction which are yet to arrive, and I also found this Kwik-Sew pattern, 3585. I also got some fabric from Spotlight to give it a go, while I wait for my delivery.

I picked this jacket from Indygo Junction, the Easy Artisian Jacket, as a close match to the Opy.