This dress is made from the oldest piece of fabric in my stash. February has been a month of challenges – all from the Stashbusting Sewalong group, with the aim of ridding our stashes of red fabric, most disliked fabric, longest piece of fabric, and now, the oldest piece of fabric. I left this particular piece […]
Read more1960s Lutterloh
I have made a prototype of a 1960s Lutterloh shirt dress, testing the pattern for another make with some special fabric. This is clearly not 1960s fabric but some Japanese Tana lawn that I bought at Spotlight a couple of years ago, and which I used for this blouse. In the ’60s I’m sure we called […]
Read morePeignoir in Japanese silk
I was given this Japanese silk blend fabric by one of my lovely work colleagues. It was a massive 16 metres long, but only 72cms (28″) wide. It was given to me to use to make bags for charity, but, given how many bags it would make, I thought I might take some for a […]
Read moreCarolyn pyjamas
I’ve made the Carolyn Pyjamas It is going to get cold here at night fairly soon and my mind has turned to pyjamas. Mark and I have been wearing those free ones you get on long haul flights and, whilst they are nice, soft cotton, they are grey and have a giant kangaroo emblazoned on the […]
Read moreKaftan copy
I found this top at the Art and Design Market in Sydney. It is silk and rather gorgeous and cost all of $20. I am sworn off buying RTW, but I did buy this as I am going to use it as a wearable pattern. I make wearable muslins so I like the concept of a wearable […]
Read moreBe my Valentine
One of the Stashbusting Sewalong challenges for February is “Red”. Well clearly I needed to make a Valentine’s Day dress! You may notice that it is very similar to this dress, and yes, indeedy, it is McCalls 5512, but this time made of fabric that is luxurious and nice to wear. Having said that, Cupid […]
Read moreA casual tourist’s view of Sydney
Warning: this post has very little to do with sewing and a lot to do with being a tourist. It is media heavy! We are home now, but I thought I would just put up some extra photos of Sydney and will start with the magnificently beautiful Royal Botanic Gardens. Here is Mark in that red […]
Read moreThe real thing
I often make a wearable muslin of something and then never get round to making the real thing. Well stop the presses, because I have actually had another go at the 1954 blouse which I made for the Lutterlohalong, and I am quite pleased with myself. I improved the fit considerably by moving the front darts closer […]
Read moreMirror mirror on the wall…
…which is my ugliest fabric of them all? Part of this month’s challenge on Stashbusting Sewalong 2015 is to sew the piece of fabric in our stashes that we most dislike. So I went to my stash. Deep stash. I found these three contenders. I thought I had more than this, but they must be […]
Read moreHow blogging expanded my world
I’ve always made things, but I have had several periods of hiatus in my life, usually brought about by life changing events. When I had children I loved making them clothes and I made clothes for both my husband and me, then we all grew out of my home-made things, and I channelled my creativity into […]
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