Given my family’s penchant for flannel shirts, I am always on the lookout for high quality fabric. To my joy I found this Viyella in Hong Kong and now don’t know why I didn’t buy more.

I didn’t let this one linger too long in the stash and used Kwik Sew 3422 as per usual.

Because I didn’t want to be matching all that pesky plaid I put the pockets, yoke, sleeve plackets and cuffs on the bias. Mark made me a little device to simplify the process – just a cardboard triangle which was absolutely brilliant.

Putting these pieces on the bias sounds like a good plan and mostly it was, but I did the inside yoke on the bias too and that was a mistake because it was hard to work with two pieces together that were stretching in all sorts of directions. I think I knew the problem as I was cutting it out, but ploughed on regardless.

We took a trip to New Norfolk to visit a quilting shop and discovered an area previously unknown to us. I need to mention that Mark’s mother was born and bred in Hobart and Mark lived here until his twenties and neither of them had ever been to this part of New Norfolk (a really pretty small town 25 minutes north west of Hobart on the Derwent River). The power of fabric shopping strikes again!

There is an old hospital on the outskirts of the town and the nurses quarters have been turned into an amazing little shopping precinct, with an antique shop, said quilting shop (soon to be blogged) and coffee shop. Here is a photo of the quaint coffee shop (with lovely coffee). Mark’s Mum is in the foreground thinking that she’s out of the photograph and I was being evil and got her in!

A shot of the building – quite lovely. The building at the back contains an enormous antique shop with a dozen rooms full of stuff to keep us interested.

I bought all these buttons here except the black ones at the front. I think you can see the sorts of prices – 24 French buttons for $17? Couldn’t do that in Spotlight!

We did visit another antique shop (another fad of ours!) in New Norfolk town itself and I bought the black buttons above and this very beautiful buckle. My problem is that I find it very difficult to use anything that is carded because it instantly becomes less valuable, but on the other hand, I will enjoy wearing it more than I would enjoy having it in a drawer. The buckle is clearly part of a limited edition 773/1045.  I loved the old red telephone box and thought I would show off my stellar pattern matching at the sides of the shirt. .Mark’s pants are also new. They are made from a heavy cotton fabric that he bought in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Didn’t he do a great job of the shopping? I used Kwik Sew 3663 and used a piece of old sheeting to line the pockets to reduce bulk.

I took some random photos and being a lover of steam punk I was drawn to this old steam engine.

There was also a Sunday market down the road, but I have to say that we didn’t find anything that we wanted, but it’s worth noting.

And finally, a couple more of those hedges – why am I so obsessed?

The details:

Shirt is Kwik Sew 3422 made from English Viyella bought at the Western Market in Hong Kong (blogged here). I found the dark green buttons in my stash. Pants are Kwik Sew 3663 made from heavy cotton which Mark bought in Sri Lanka. Setting is New Norfolk, Tasmania.