Sydney Sewers Social

On By Sharon4 Comments

Last Saturday I went to the Sydney Sewers meet up with a few of us going to The Remnant Warehouse first and then we met up with the rest of the group at Tessuti, and then moved onto The Fabric Store.

This is the 2nd meet up that has been organised by Little Betty, (who has a large list of the bloggers that attended) and the number of attendees has increased so a lot of new faces to meet and chat with. Rachel and Leith travelled from Melbourne for the weekend and Renee from Canberra made the trek.

There was a lot of temptation even with the discount and sale but nothing jumped out a me!

This a just a few of us at Tessuti.

Picture from left: Leith, Christy, Rachel, Wendy, Renee, me and Rachel

Lemon Peplum and Suede Skirt

On By Sharon22 Comments

I have joined the large number of people at Pattern Review to make the peplum blouse Vogue 8815.

After reading the pattern information and checking out all the reviews, I noticed that the peplum starts 1″ above your waist and I wanted mine to start on my waist.

I decided to make up a quick muslin of this top and found the following:

  • The waist/peplum seam does sit on my waist, no adjustment!
  • It needed a square shoulder adjustment of 8mm (1/2″)
  • Took out 1cm (3/8″) from the underarm tapering too nothing at the waist
  • Changed the neckline to that of my Vogue 8572 blouse

This lemon fabric is Vienna, 100% polyester purchased From Kerryn’s Fabric World in 2010 and this colour works so well in my wardrobe and you have seen it before here.

The pattern instructions have you finish the armholes, neckline and hem with purchased bias binding, so I have cut bias strips and used my Clover 18mm bias tape maker to make them as there was no way I was going to get bias to match this colour.

As this fabrics frays madly, I have used French Seams and added a Hong Kong finish on the zip seams.

The hem is on the bias so I have finished this the way that the Vogue instructions advise.

This is my 3rd top and final top for the Everyday Collection of my SWAP, so I now need to focus on the 2 bottoms for the Everyday Collection.

The skirt I am wearing is my Self Drafted Skirt pattern and I have used a brown suede like poly spandex fabric from Kerryn’s Fabric World purchased June 2012.

The lovely thing about this pattern is that I managed to cut it out (fabric and lining) before heading off to one of my ASG Groups and had it completed (including attaching the lining) ready for the hem to be levelled by my DH so I could finish of the hems.

What I forgot was that this skirt used to sit on my hips and seeing I had adjusted this pattern the same way I did this skirt  my hem allowance ended up being a mere 1.5cm oops.  I prefer a hem allowance of at least 3cm, so off to Spotlight to purchase some 25mm brown bias tape.

I finished the hems for both the skirt and lining as I have for all my skirts.

This skirt is my first piece for the Evening Collection of my SWAP.

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Stash Out:  Skirt and Top = 1.6m (not including lining)
Stash In:  0

I just can’t help myself,

On By Sharon6 Comments

I have signed up for another sew-along and made a public commitment to reduce my stash this year over at Cation Designs and the awesome badge is on my sidebar.

I, Sharon of Petite and Sewing, commit to sew ¾ of all projects in 2013 from Stash. Fabric purchases will be less than the yardage used during the stash sewing in 2013. 

Notice I haven’t said I won’t purchase fabric Facebook smileys

This now means that I need to keep tabs on how much fabric goes in/out of the stash, and I am definitely not measuring how much is in there, all I will say is that there is plenty for me to play with.

I have a new top and skirt to show you and they are both from Stash.

Look what the postman delivered …

On By Sharon12 Comments

it is the top Quilt Sew Sew Sue made using New Look 6648 in a lovely silk jersey.

Now Sue wasn’t that happy with this top and her photos showed this pretty clearly, and seeing her post was titled “Should it stay or should it go”, I cheekily said that I might know a home for it, if it is going.

Sue very generously offered it to me.  I did check with Sue what size she had made and it was a size 12 and by the pattern measurements I would have made up a size 10 so with that in mind I accepted Sue’s offer.

Unfortunately I still have the same pull lines across the girls, I think this is mainly due to the fabric only being a 2 way stretch and Sue did tell me that it only just made the stretch guide.

The rest of the top isn’t tight, in fact the neckline is quite low and the gathers disappear due to too much fabric in the hip area.

Problem is I love the colour and the feel of the fabric, but not sure if I will wear it with those pull lines?

What do you think?

Bra sew-along

On By Sharon9 Comments

I have finally succumbed to the inspirational posts from Carolyn showing us her gorgeous bras and have signed up with Amy from Cloth Habit for the Bra Sew-along.

Back in 2005, I did try and make a bra at the first ASG Convention I went to in Adelaide, and I still have the partly made bra and the adjusted Booby Traps B003 pattern.

I will start with the Booby Traps pattern and with Spotlight having half price patterns at present I have also purchased KS 3300 which is another style I like.

On the way to work last Thursday I called into Metro Fabrics at Tempe to purchase some underwires and check out what other goodies he had, major overload of all sorts of goodies!

So I have taken my measurements and worked out what size I should make and next up is to make a test bra to see how it fits and of course what adjustments I need to do.

I am wondering what I have got myself into!

Tangerine Alma Blouse

On By Sharon15 Comments

When Sewaholic announced her new pattern, the Alma Blouse, I was very tempted as the cute neckline on View A had me intrigued so when the special was on, I jumped at the chance to purchase this pattern.

Due to the fitting issues I had with the Minoru and not being a pear shape, I realised that the Alma Blouse is very similar to my very modified TNT blouse, Vogue 8572 (OOP).  I traced off another copy of my TNT blouse pattern and then added the neckline detail from the Alma Blouse as well as drafting the facing pieces.

Next up was what fabric to use.  I’ve had this piece in my stash since 2003 so thought it would be a good time to use it as it was one of the 2012 Pantone colours (better late than never).

I’m not sure what the fibre content of this fabric is but polyester seems a very good choice, it takes a lot of pressing to get reasonable looking seams or darts using steam and a clapper and it frays like mad.

However after all of that I am rather pleased with this blouse.

The creases are from wearing this top all day.

This is my 2nd piece completed for SWAP 2013 – Everyday Collection.

It wasn’t until I typed up this post that I seem to have a bit of a citrus theme going on, so do I continue it with the lemon blouse or make the brown denim style skirt out of linen?

I wonder which it will be Skype Emoticons

Another year has disappeared

On By Sharon13 Comments

and my sewing highlight of the year was to be announced as the winner of the Stitcher’s Guild 2012 SWAP Competition, I still get a thrill when I think about this.

Interestingly with all the sewing focus for the first 4 months of the year, I felt that the remainder of the year wasn’t as productive, lets see:

1 x Pants
3 x Skirts
8 x Tops
3 x Cardigans
1 x Jeans
2 x Dresses
1 x Jacket
1 x Vest
1 x Hand knitted garment
3 x Jewellery pieces
3 x Craft
5 x Bags

Wow that is a total of 29 items sewn, however the craft items are listed as 3 when each of those had a least 3 pieces to each of them, so not a bad year at all.

I never thought I’d make a bag, now I have made 5 in 1 year, a bit scary!

Patterns used:
Sure Fit Design – 1
BWOF – 2
Simplicity – 1
Vogue – 2
Jalie – 3
Kwik.Sew – 1
Moonshine Bags – 1
Nicole Mallalieu – 1
Hot Patterns – 1
Sewaholic – 1

Favourite Me Made Items

This would have to be the Minoru jacket, I love it, it gets worn every chance I get and the Jalie Jeans are still in high rotation.

The other item is my Leather Handbag, I’m just loving this bag.

2012 Sewing Goals – How did I go?

  • Complete 1 garment a month – 20 garments means I have certainly done that.  I think I am going to reword this goal, I manage to do the sewing but not cut out and sew that garment in the same month.
  • Complete at least one competition either at Stitcher’s Guild or Pattern Review – I definitely achieved this one, SWAP 2012 at Stitcher’s Guild, and I entered in the Handbag, Best Pattern and Jeans contests at Pattern Review.
  • Play with the binders for my Coverstitch machine and get comfortable using them – Oops this didn’t happen.

2013 Sewing Goals

  • Complete at least 22 garments (20 in 2012, 24 in 2011).
  • Play with those binders!
  • Complete at least one competition either at Stitcher’s Guild or Pattern Review 

And finally, a collage of the pieces I made in 2012.

Orange Circles

On By Sharon21 Comments

This is another version of my TNT blouse, Vogue 8572 (OOP) in a wonderful orange self patterned linen that I purchased in the USA last year.

For this version I chose to do French Seams and use Hong Kong finishes on the zip seam as well as the armholes so this has taken this blouse up a notch or two.

There is not much else to tell you, so here are the photos:

Note the colour of the zip pull.

The zip itself is very different in colour to the zip pull, but the zip pull is what you see!

This wasn’t planned to be in my SWAP, however it will go with my everyday collection and can be counted as the “one garment may be sewn before the official sewing start date” so my first SWAP piece is completed.

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Thank you for all the comments on the Hot Patterns Riviera Summer Breeze Tie Front Top, you have convinced me to have another go at this pattern and I will let you know the results, it may still find a new home.

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Wishing you all a wonderful New Year and all the very best for a fantastic and sewful 2013.

Christmas sewing

On By Sharon10 Comments

This is what I have been up to since my last post, well sort of, I also have an orange linen top nearly finished that I cut out on 1 December, but more about that one later.

Again this year, I left it to the last minute to produce Christmas gifts, even though I knew very early in the year that this is what I would be making.

First up was the Spice of Life bag for my very good friend with the fabric purchased whilst we were at the ASG Convention in Adelaide.  This is the 3rd time I have made this bag, so it was pretty straight forward.

Then it was time again to sew for the nieces and nephews and late last year I found this great tutorial for Circle Zip Earbud Pouch by Erin Erickson after seeing a whole lot of them on various blogs thinking they would be perfect for this Christmas.  My friends can tell you that at every craft show I attend this year the search was on for themed fat quarters and the effort was very much appreciated by the recipients.

Lastly was a necklace for my Sister as she already knew that she was getting the bag so using some 10mm Black Rutifated Quartz and 8mm black beads I made this for her.

I also found via Pinterest this great tutorial for making a Necklace Display by Bea Graansma.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and I plan on being back before the New Year!