Sister Navy of the Beutrons, reprised. Plus - Sydney Vintage Fair Kittyhaul

I made this frock last year, but I never wore it. I think it was the huuuuge collar. It was too much for me.
So I gave it to my friend S, who has been wearing it and loves it. She can handle the hugeness and whiteness of the collar, yay!

I still love the dress, so I made another for myself this weekend only I cut the collar quite a bit smaller. I also left a bit more room across the chest, but may have taken it in a bit too much around the waist...I'll see how I go but I may have to let it out a bit.
Moggy and I have been doing the mid-zip lately. I like a back zip myself, as I find side zips often go a bit bumpy and ruin the line of the frock on me (probably because I make my frocks too tight!) but having a zip going right to the back neckline often looks a bit messy at the top, at least when I do it with my patented slapdash methods. The mid-back zip is the perfect solution, as long as the neckline has enough room for your head to pass through. Here's a pic of the mid-zip on this frock:
Neat! Only after I had finished the frock did I realise that I now have to pull it over my head, so I will have to be careful about makeup smudges on that white collar. A zip right up to the top like I put in the first version, allowing me to step into and out of the frock, would have been more practical. D'oh!

Moggy came up to Sydney last weekend and we went to the Sydney Vintage Fair. Here's the Kittyhaul:
One frock pattern with nice drapey bodice detail; 3.7 metres of 70s floral cotton seersucker; a gorgeous handbag; and a barkcloth curtain, about 2 metres in length, which I plan to hang on the wall. Lovely!
It was nice to meet a couple of you at the fair, who recognised our frocks! Thanks for saying hello!

More stitchinks

I had other play with the embroidery machine today.
I found some sweet free designs on the net - the swallow from Skully on SewForum.com, and the raygun from Henry's Home Page - he's one productive chap!

I bought some felt the other day, as it is meant to be good for test stitching designs.

They turned out well, so I made a cozy for the iPod out of them:



I think Mr Touchy McTouch will feel happy in there, it is lined with silk satin - luxurious!

First embroidery (almost)

Here is my first go at the new embroidery machine (well, I did stitch out a one-colour word first, but that isn't very exciting, ergo the 'almost').

I found the design one of the myriad sites on the internet with free embroidery (there are rayguns! and robots! and skulls! and dinosaurs!).



The white bits are the bobbin thread coming through - I need to do a bit of tension adjustment.

It is rather fun. I am investigating threads and stabilisers and all sorts of supplies. There is also the world of 'digitising' which is making one's very own designs for the machine... I think that is a way off though.

This weekend I'll be having a play making an iPod Touch cover with embroidered felt this weekend.

Latest book aquisitions

Recently I have added a few of extra sewing / pattern cutting books to the collection, to wit:

Donald McCunn How to make sewing patterns (first published 1973, this edition 1981, still being reprinted) bought from Lost and Found.
This looks like a self-published book that has gone through many editions and is still going strong. It covers making patterns to your own measurements (rather than standard ones like most pattern cutting books). I haven't made anything from it yet but I think it will be useful.

Like many of these sorts of books some reviews say that the illustrations are 'out of date'. Use your imagination, people!

This will go well with Adele Margolis' Make Your Own Dress Patterns I bought from Dover Publications a while ago.
Now this one covers all style bases by having drawings from every decade from the 50s to the 80s...

I also picked up a copy of the 1979 printing of the Kwik Sew Method For Sewing Lingerie by Kerstin Martensson.
(Not to be confused with 1990's Kwik Sew Beautiful Lingerie). I bought this off eBay without knowing much about it because I couldn't find a review of it. Well, if you ever wanted to sew a panty-girdle this is the book for you (rest assured, I am not about to do that). However it does have good instructions for all sorts of other lingerie including slips and knickers and whatnot.
Be warned she seems a little too fond of nylon tricot... a reflection of the times perhaps. The Kwik Sew Lingerie House would be fraught with danger for those prone to static shocks.

The master pattern included is for nighties and gowns, which are covered in a chapter. You'll need to supply your own patterns for the knickers, slips/petticoats etc but these are still readily available from Kwik Sew if you are a fan of the generous coverage pin-up style 'panties' (that word amuses me for some reason).

pretty parasols

I'm off to Sydney this weekend to join Kitty for an excursion to the Sydney Vintage Show, so of course I had to make a new frock.

This is another version of Simplicity 3774. Although for some odd reason it is a bit small - either I did smaller seams last time, or I've grown a bit.... I might have to bust out the superstrength girdle!
The fabric is a pretty parasol print cotton (I think) that I bought five or so years ago in the LA fabric district and has been maturing in the stash.


Oh, and I might also have accidentaly have bought one of these...

Butterick 8056

This is an 'inspired by' frock. I saw a similar frock at H&M when I was in Los Angeles. (I won't link to the H&M website, there's not much there and it's a slow-to-load flash site. Why do fashion retailers love flash so much?) I would have bought it if it hadn't been too short. No problem, I thought, I'll knock it off. I went through the pattern stash and found Butterick 8056 which was pretty close to what I was looking for. As I was using a knit, I folded out the darts, apart from the bust darts, and left out the zip.

The H&M frock had a waist seam, but I didn't do that because it would have added bulk in this double knit fabric. The shoulder buttons were what made the dress in my opinion; I used green ones I bought in the LA fashion district, the original frock was black with black buttons.

Lalaland

I haven't been sewing lately, because I've been here:




I bought a few pieces of fabric:
one yard of 'midcentury modern' quilting cotton -
one yard of 'frida kahlo' quilting cotton-
and three yards of red/white/blue houndstoothy plaid suiting. $1 per yard!

Meanwhile, my house now smells like fresh baked apple pie, thanks to this candle I bought on sale while I was in LA. Mmm, pie.

It's raining...

I feel like I haven't sewn for yonks. Last weekend I had a cold so I did the old sitting about doing nothing thing. This week I had a spare few hours, so while a batch of Chipotle en Adobo simmers on the stove I finished off the dressing gown I started weeks ago:


It is made of a light sateen cotton from Darn Cheap using New Look 6443 . I needed a nice light dressing gown... which is of course coinciding with the cooler weather. (But, yay for cooler weather!)

I also finished off the stretch cotton sateen-ish leopard pinafore I cut out when I cut out the dressing gown. I bound the neck and armholes with bias binding, and did an invisible zip in the middle of the back seam. I think this must be the fourth time I've made this pinafore.

Baby knits

So I have mostly finished the hoodie, except for the buttons and snaps:

...but I got a bit distracted this weekend when I decided the hoodie would be too big for baby E at the moment, so decided to make another jumper, putting the measurements I wanted and my gauge into Elizabeth Zimmerman's yoke sweater pattern from this book:

I graphed out the letter and duplicate stitched it. The main colour is a moss green, it looks a bit variegated in the pic, but it's solid green.
Now to decide whether to give him both on his birthday, or keep one for a random gift for when he's a bit older.

Vintage Neglect Syndrome

I haven't done any sewing, unless you count sewing up a certain knitted hoodie (which I haven't finished sewing up by the way. I blame pure laziness.)

Today one of my spies texted me that there was a vintage fair at Leichhardt Town Hall.

Now, how I didn't know about this when I walk past the place on a regular basis is still baffling me. It's on once a month apparently, and within walking distance of my house. I do flick through the local paper every week.

Only one thing can explain it. I have developed Vintage Neglect Syndrome or VNS.

This rare disease occurs in the sew-er and vintage shopper who, having spent many of her younger years straining her pecs and hands pulling through racks of polyester, faux fur and napthalene scented rayon, and risking her knees and back squatting on her haunches lifting boxes and old suitcases of vintage patterns and fabrics, has lost all of her vintage radar through overuse.

Obviously, I now have to rely on others to let me know about such things as vintage fairs, rather than being able to sniff them out myself. Symptoms include not seeing flyers, banners, signboards and newspaper ads for vintage fairs in plain sight. I can only think this loss of independence is due to the mothball odours that have ruined my vintage-sniffing-out abilities. Full time carers are required to point the person afflicted with VNS towards vintage shops and fairs.

I should have realised what was happening, when I was in Melbourne in December, and was in the vicinity of Lost and Found, but somehow didn't make it there.

This afternoon, thanks to my kind spy, I was able to make it to the fair 15 minutes before closing time. The lady at the desk let me in for free (obviously a kind person who recognised my condition when she saw it) and, although I didn't have time to fully explore everything, it looked excellent. It's probably best I didn't go through the racks and exacerbate my problems though, don't you think?

Oh and apparently the ability to buy vintage boots is unaffected by VNS.

ChildHood from Knitty

I haven't done any sewing lately, because I have been knitting this:

It's ChildHood, from Knitty.
E's first birthday is in early April, and I only have the hood and finishing to do. I should make it.
I will follow the pattern's suggestion and use snaps as closures with buttons sewn on the band. If I can find the right buttons that is. Curse you buttonmania for not being in Sydney!
I'm using Moda Vera bamboo/cotton from Spotlight, which is lovely and silky, being mostly bamboo. It is a bit splitty, but nothing too bad as long as I use bluntish needles.

Makeover!

No, not me, how could I possibly dress any better (quiet there in the back row!).

I've been thinking about a bedroom makeover lately. Now, I'm one of these people who has a room which is less than pristine: clothes all over the place, every book I read in the last year stacked on the floor; you get the picture. Since I have the luxury of a spare room AND a delightful purpose-built sewing space, I could easily move most of my clothes and stuff to the spare room and have a more targeted approach to what lives in the bedroom.

It started when I was browsing eBay, and checked out the seller who sold me the fab atomic fabric I made my loungeroom curtains from.



It looks so fabulously 1940's boudoir. I showed it to Kitty and somehow we decided it would look marvellous as an upholstered bed head (and I already have some vintage bed jackets to wear with it!) I have a big old original brass bed (black and silver, no brass and white for me thanks!) that does somewhat dominate my small (4x3.6m) room. I have had it for 15 years or so, and parting with it now wouldn't pain me too much.

Surfing on the web showed me all sorts of ways that people had upholstered their bed heads, including using some IKEA frames as the basis. Here's one (I did the bounce test for sturdiness) which seems like a good basis for covering: Heimdal

So I'm contemplating. I haven't bought the fabric yet (oh Australian dollar, how I wish you were back at last year's levels!).I also looked at what upholstery stuff I have in the stash to see if anything is suitable. These ones are possibles:
First two are gen-u-ine vintage fabrics

Second two are repro Hawaiian barkcloths, bought when GJ fabrics always seemed to have some in stock (I have two frocks from other ones bought there):

Thoughts anyone? I know they aren't as spifftacular as the feathery one, but the great advantage is that I already possess them (says the lady who bought 17m of material yesterday)

I've also got a strange desire to get some Queen Anne stuff bits such a dressing table and bedside tables (in white). When I confessed this to Kitty, she did point out that was a very fifties look. So now I have half an eye out for such things...