Tag: Fabric

How lucky am I !!

On By Sharon8 Comments

Back at the beginning of May, Sandra from The Surley Seamstress had a Double Barrel Giveaway and I couldn’t believe my luck when I found out I had won the #2 Vintage for Grown Ups which arrived in the mail last week.

The pack contained:
• Burda magazine January 1975
• Butterick dress pattern, undated size 12 bust 87cm
• About 2 metres of retro print polyester satin

The Burda magazine was printed in West Germany but has an English supplement so the pattern instructions are in English.  There is an interesting trench coat pattern as well as some interesting skirts and dresses.  The the retro print polyester satin is brown and lemon and it would be wonderful lining for my rain coat.

Then Maria and I attended the Knitwit’s Seasonal Fabric Showing at Artarmon and the following fabrics found their way to my home last week,

Left to right – Sandra Printed Knit, Waves texture knit in taupe, Adriana Printed Knit

Now to figure out how I am going to be home when it is not raining so I can get all this pre-washed and ready to play with.

Vogue 8572 – Versatile pattern

On By Sharon13 Comments

I did manage to get some sewing done earlier this year (not just the UFO skirt and pants fitting session) however the time to tell you about it just wasn’t available.

I made another version of Vogue 8572 (OOP). I first made it here with long sleeves and then here with 3/4 sleeves and this time with short sleeves.

This time the fabric is the chartreuse crinkled fabric that is at the bottom of the bundle that I purchased from Kerryn’s Fabric World in July of last year.

For some reason I thought chartreuse and burnt orange (above the patterned knit) zips would be everywhere, so I didn’t think about getting them when I was at Kerryn’s.

After checking out the many fabric shops in Sydney and having no luck, I remembered the comment the lovely ladies at The Cloth Shop said when we visited them in March 2009, “we can get you any coloured invisible zip you want”.

So I cut a swatch of the both fabrics and posted them to The Cloth Shop. This is what I received back from Kim.

Chartreuse

Burnt Orange

The fabric was interesting to work with as you do your best not to take out any of the crinkles when laying out the pattern, pressing and sewing. The advantage of the made garment is that you scrunch it up and put in in a panty hose leg to wash, dry and then I just press the small facing I have at the neckline and I’m all set to wear it another day.

Front

Back

This top has been fun to wear during summer and I can now wear it with a number of jackets and cardigans to take me through autumn and winter.

(PS: The large piece of fabric on the top of the bundles was the linen for my Shirtmaker.)

What an adventure!

On By Sharon7 Comments

I am home from the USA and it was a fantastic trip, I hope not to bore you with the details.

Our flight to LA on the Qantas A380 was uneventful thankfully and landed us in a very cool Los Angeles for the day. We then flew to Portland on Saturday and hired a car and this is where the fun started.

Sunday saw Janis, who had contacted me via Stitcher’s Guild offering us a natives tour of Portland, meet us at our hotel for a fabulous tour of her home town.

First stop was Fabric Depot, then to Mill End Store the goodies we found soon had us using our second bag.

Monday we headed to Joann’s under our own steam and then on Tuesday we headed to Rose City Textiles on our way to Puyallup for the Sewing and Stitchery Expo.

For the next four days we attend the Expo attending the classes we had booked into and meeting up with Patti B, BeeBee, karent, Karen Roth, CarloynB and Janis (again) who are all from Stitchers Guild and managed to bump into a number of the Australian Sewing Guild Group who were there as well.

From there Alison and I flew to Utah where it put on a great snow show for us. This is what the car looked like after 1 hour and thankfully we had a helper to sweep the snow off the car before we headed 1 hour back down the freeway to our hotel.

After Utah we headed back to Oakland and drove back to Los Angeles for our flight home.

Now for the goodies:

Fabric

Top Row: green/black knit, brown geometric knit, brown/red/coffee knit, purple mauve geometric knit and brown/coffee swirly linen. The two small pieces of black and green are wick-away fabric for a cycling shirt for DH.

2nd Row: 3 ply gortex, orange self patterned linen, aubergine Camel Hair for a coat and next to it is quilted fabric that I would like to use for the zip out lining that was in Threads No 152, and the next piece is a patterned fine cord for a jacket.

3rd Row: cream wick-away Lycra, aubergine knit with wool, orange wick-away and camel boiled wool.

4th Row: brown self patterned knit, camel waffle weave knit from M&L Fabrics; Missoni type knit, Rust knit, brown floral, cream stripe, cream/pale blue knit and open weave knit all from Marcy Tilton.

5th Row: multi coloured stripe and pale green waffle weave from M&L Fabrics, coffee/grey/cream knit from Joann’s; aubergine/grey/blue silk and brown/pale pink silk from Vogue Fabrics.

Notions

Wonderful rhinestone zippers, buckles, brown and coffee sharpies, sewing machine and coverstitch needles, snap source goodies, Palmer Pletsch Interfacing packs, scissors and more.

Other goodies

2 Ottobre magazines, Sandra Betzina Power Sewing Books 1 and 2, Merino wool and pattern, beads and of course 2 rolls of Press “N” Seal, 2 Cross Stitch Fob kits.

We were entitled to 2 suitcases on our trip and luckily we didn’t have any excess baggage costs and didn’t have to post anything home.

I will be back soon to let you know about the Sewing and Stitchery Expo and the classes I attended.

Umm more fabric

On By Sharon8 Comments

I receive emails from Gorgeous Fabrics about their sales and there have been a couple of pieces of fabric that I have had my eye on. So when Ann announced her 24% off birthday sale, these two pieces migrated from My Wish List to the Shopping Bag!!

The first piece is “grrr baby! lining” and it will be used for a jacket at some point, just haven’t picked the pattern yet.

The second piece is “designer raincoating – chocolate brown”. Now I haven’t been able to find any sort of raincoating here in Australia and have been wanting to make a new trench coat (my current trench was purchased in Melbourne in 1985, it is a cream colour and still going strong but hey isn’t this what sewers do LOL).

I would really like to have this ready for the trip to Puyallup next year where Velosewer, Alison and I are planning to attend the Sewing & Stitchery Expo as reading the attendees comments on PR it can be wet.

I received Threads May 2010 Number 148 the other week and it has a wonderful article titled “Sew Fashionable Rainwear” which I am keeping my fingers crossed will assist me in making a “chic and functional wet-weather” trench coat.

Pattern Review get together…

On By Sharon7 Comments

Last weekend Jenny and I attended the get together for the Australian girls on Pattern Review in Melbourne and stayed at the new Travelodge.

Mel did a fantastic job of organising the 3 days for us.

It started with fabric shopping on the Friday which was co-ordinated with precise timing by Dorothyn with G_l_e_n_d_a’s assistance making the necessary telephone calls. We visited 12 fabric stores, NSW Leather and Jimmy’s Buttons, so by the time we got back to the Travelodge we were exhausted. I didn’t get to NSW Leather, this is now on my must visit list here in Sydney, as this was the same stop as Jimmy’s Buttons. This place is an Aladdin’s cave, with trim from floor to ceiling on the four walls and two rows in the centre of the shop, it was awesome.

I was rather restrained with my fabric shopping, purchasing only 4 pieces:

From the left is a Wool Blend Knit in a Teal colour, next a mixture of browns in this knit and the last blue is also a Wool Blend Knit in a lighter shade of steel blue. These 3 are from an unnameable Brunswick distributor (you will have to come on the next Melbourne PR weekend to find this secret out).

The cream piece 3rd from the left is a remnant of Silk Habutai from Tessuti that I just had to have.

On Saturday a number of us headed over to Nicole Mallalieu’s studio to do a workshop on straps and D rings. Most of were not sure how this would take all morning, however with Nicole’s directions and then practice we realised that such simple things make the difference between a homemade sack and a handmade bag! (Dorothyn I couldn’t say it better.) I came home with the Small Tote pattern and Purse Kit to get me started.

On Saturday afternoon there was a skirt drafting & creating variations session with Anne one of the PR members. I didn’t do this workshop, instead I finally got to see an industrial binder working on a Coverpro machine, thankyou misschris.

Saturday night was a very enjoyable dinner out with the group and Maree Pidgon and her daughter Jacqueline.

Maree ran a workshop for us on Sunday morning on creating a designer t-shirt. This was a very inspiring and informative workshop and I am looking forward to seeing what the other PR ladies produce as there were so many ideas floating around. Also I am kicking myself for not buying that trim at Jimmy’s Buttons that I kept playing with. I think I need to make a phone call.

Sunday afternoon was spent saying goodbye to everyone and Jenny and I headed back to Sydney thoroughly exhausted but so glad that we had attended.

If you want to see more of what we got up to, go to the first link at the top of this post.

When the cat’s away …

On By Sharon7 Comments

I’ve been working some incredible hours over the past month, so today, as the boss was heading to the airport to fly overseas for 5 days, I took the opportunity to have a massage and then go to The Fabric Store as they had a 30% off Sale for today only.

This is one of my favourite fabric shops in Sydney and there is always something there to tempt me.

Whilst wandering around I heard a “Sharon” and turned around and Sandra (who was also signed up for the “Go Chanel Go Home Sewalong”) introdued herself. We had been emailing each other about our Chanel jackets as we had both purchased the exact same fabric for our jackets at The Fabric Store. Needless to say Sandra’s Chanel jacket is a lot further progessed than mine.

It was so nice to meet up with someone that you have blogged/emailed with and the fact that we fell right into chatting about fabric and what we were going to do, was such a treat and reinforces even more to me that the friendships that are created in the internet world are wonderful.

Now do you want to guess what colour I purchased?

This is a Japanese cotton that I plan to make a top out off and it will go brilliantly with the burgundy wool pants I made in August. I also have enough of the burgundy wool fabric left over for a skirt.

Yes, you guessed right, here is the brown linen and I couldn’t pass up this cream linen either.

I’ve seen a Chanel Inspired jacket and I am really keen to try and get the same sort of look. I ended up with what was left on the roll of the brown linen 4.5m (paid for 4.3) and 1.5 metres of the cream linen.

The plan for the linen is the Jacket (cream with a brown band or brown with a cream band), a simple sleeveless shift dress, pants and a skirt and with careful cutting out maybe a sleeveless shell top.

Now I’m not saying when this will be done, however I am in desparate need of summer clothes so I had better get back to finishing the LBD.

Bits and Pieces

On By Sharon8 Comments

I’m not sure where the time has gone, we have been home for 6 weeks and so far and all I have managed to do is add to my stash 🙂

Just before I left to go overseas I purchased this Milano Printed Gold knit from Knitwit to make the Burda dress 5-2008-104 adding long sleeves as I have seen something very similar in the shops. I have already made the top 5-2008-103 so I have a lot of the fitting issues already worked out.

I managed to find some fabric shops during our travels and purchased a gorgeous piece of Cashmere in London – 2 metres which DH commented that he had never seen me make a decision so quick LOL. I plan to make a jacket of some sort, not sure of the style as yet.

The Fabric Store in Sydney had a sale night the other week and Velosewer and I went to see what they had to offer. I purchased this brown spot knit and two pieces of Merino Wool in a mauve and brown colour.

I have a lot of ideas floating around, so need to focus on getting the patterns cut out and adjusted LOL.

Fabric Shopping in Melbourne

On By Sharon5 Comments

Last weekend my sewing buddies and I headed to Melbourne for 4 days.

We stayed in the city and caught trams and trains and did a lot of walking and had a wonderful time.

Arriving lunch time on Thursday we booked into our accommodation and caught the #19 Tram from Elizabeth Sreet to visit Brunswick Fabrics, Anne’s Discount Fabrics, Hahn Fabrics, Spotlight and Unique Fabrics (which are unfortunately closing down).

At Spotlight I purchased a 100% cotton called Blossom Printed Khaki for a blouse and then at Unique Fabrics I purchased this beautiful burgundy wool, enough for a suit. It wasn’t until we got back to our accommodation that night that I noticed they also worked well together.

On Friday morning we caught the #8 Tram from Swanston Street, for our first stop at GJ’s Fabrics where I purchased this colourful mesh for a top.

Next stop was Clegs where I fell in love with this Mongolia Pattern Acrylic Knit, I’m not sure what I am making with it yet, and any suggestions are most welcome, but I just couldn’t leave without it…

We then went Rathdown Fabrics where this natural wool/cotton jumped out at me and I’m thinking of making BWOF 131-10-2008 Jacket

After lunch we caught the tram back to the city and then caught the train out to Darn Cheap Fabrics at Heidelberg and then back one train station to The Cloth Shop at Ivanhoe. When we got back to the City we still had time to go to Clegs as I had been thinking about the Picadilly Cocoa Lace I had seen earlier and had decided that it had to come home with me after seeing the wonderful lace garments at Stitchers Guild.

We woke on Saturday to a very wet day but this didn’t deter us, we caught the #70 Tram from Flinders Street and headed to Richmond. Luckily we were a bit early for Dancing Queen to open so we just had to check out all those wonderful shoe stores and I found chocolate brown shoes, what heaven.

We then wondered up the road to Astrotex and drooled over all the wonderful fabrics and then headed to Bridge Road for lunch and more retail therapy.

Sunday saw us go to Victoria Markets where there was even more fabric 🙂

We are all back home and are busy planning what we are going to do with our fabrics.

Thank you my buddies for a wonderful time in Melbourne.