Tag: Gift

February Stashbusting

On By Sharon12 Comments

I did have high hopes this month, cutting out 2 skirts and also making a new top, however the skirts haven’t progressed very far at all and the top, well all I have left to do is put in the sleeves and all I can say is that we are not talking to each other at the moment.

Thankfully my Marfy top was finished in February so I did manage to get one garment completed.

My other news is that a few weeks ago I received an email from Becki wanting to know my address as she had some fabrics that were orphans and they needed a new home and look what the postman delivered.

and inside packed in a Mood Designer Fabric bag was 5 pieces of gorgeous fabric:

Top to bottom:

  • Liberty of London Tana Lawn
  • Brown Wool that has a pattern woven into it
  • Silk charmeuse animal print
  • Silk cotton
  • Aubergine Wool Gaberdine

as well as two of the cutest Marfy labels

This is a very generous gift and has saved me from trying to find the Aubergine wool that was on my wish list!

Now February’s Curating Challenge was to find 10 of your most favourite pieces of fabric and here they are:

Why do I love them so much!
Most of them are wonderful memories of friendship and travel, as well as being in my colour palette and fitting in with my lifestyle.  Some are fabrics I wanted to challenge myself with e.g. 3ply gortex for a jacket and there is cashmere and camel wool for coats and jacket and the bottom row is for tops and a cardigan and a denim jacket, they were all purchased with a plan and so far that plan has not changed.

Doing this has now made me realise that I need some bottom weight green in my stash, I have the rust and browns to go with the multi coloured sweater knit and fine cord on the end, but some lovely moss or deep olive could be very handy!

******************
2014 Stash Out: 3.2 m
2014 Stash In: 31.75 m

Beading

On By Sharon8 Comments

My sister has decided to give beading a go and to try and help her I went looking for a bead shop in her area, and guess what I found, Tribute to Tribal beads at My Beads.  Oh my I knew exactly what I would be dropping hints for for Christmas!

I definitely wasn’t disappointed when I opened my present on Christmas morning.

We were at Mum’s for Christmas and she mentioned that she had a new top but had no necklace to wear with it so of course I asked her bring it out and it worked perfectly with some of my new beads.

Last week I made up this necklace and posted it to Mum and she is thrilled with it.

Now to get organised to make myself a new necklace or two!!

Leather toiletry bag

On By Sharon13 Comments

My darling husband is a mad keen skier and will make any excuse to go and play in all that white stuff.

When he travels he packs as little as possible and as light as he can and this includes his toiletry bag.  This bag has been with him for as long as I have know him and he mentioned earlier this year that he would like a new one, but it had to be the same size!

Now this bag is made from one piece of vinyl with a zip joining the two edges together and measures 33cm x 23cm in total.

I decided to make it a bit special and headed to NSW Leather Co Pty Ltd at Alexandria and purchased a small back leather skin, and then to the Remnant Warehouse where I purchased some black water proof fabric.

Then I had the brain wave about personalising it and found this perfect vintage leather stamp at Thrifty Earth, an Etsy store.  Crissy was the best in getting this to me in time for Christmas.

Now the stamp doesn’t have a handle, so another trip to Birdsall Leather & Craft at Botany to purchase a stamp handle.

Next up was to figure out how to use the stamp to get the best impression in the leather and this is where YouTube is so fantastic.  It was at this time I realised I needed some granite, definitely not in our house, but thankfully my neighbour had a small piece that I could use.

I am very happy how the stamp turned out!

The rest of the bag was a very easy sew.

It is wrapped under the Christmas Tree and I will be interested to see what he says, especially after we watched the Great British Sewing Bee Christmas Special and all the talk about how special home made gifts are!

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?

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!

More Spice of Life

On By Sharon16 Comments

Over at PatternReview they have just held a 2 week contest challenge to make a handbag between 1 and 15 August.

Now when I showed Mum my version of this bag, I had a request for a black and white one for Christmas, but seeing it is Mum’s birthday this month the opportunity to make her bag earlier was perfect timing.

Thankfully I had been on the lookout for black and white fabric ever since Mum had said she would like this bag and had purchased 2 fat quarters at the Craft and Quilt Fair at Darling Harbour in June.  I already had the Ghee’s Tubular Frame from a joint order that I placed with Maria.

My main challenge was then to source some black fabric for the contrast for the bag and then remembered I had some black denim left over from the jeans I made.

This bag uses Matilda’s Own Bag Batting which makes the bag quite stable by itself, however one of the requirements of the competition was that interfacing had to be used.

So I fused interfacing to the Sun Silky that I wanted to use for the lining to make it more durable,

As you can see I don’t like a dark interior in bags, you just can’t find anything.

This bag pattern goes together really well and surprisingly quickly.

I did use a Jeans 110 needle for all the denim sewing and it all went very smoothly as when you sew on the tubes for the frame you are sewing through some very thick layers.

This is the finished bag,

The zippered pocket with my label on it,

and for the other pocket I divided this for Mum’s phone and a space for her to carry a  pen.

The bag was wrapped and posted to Mum last Wednesday and I was very surprised when I got a phone call on Thursday night from a very excited Mum to say that my parcel had arrived and she was absolutely thrilled with her bag.

I have entered this bag in the PatternReview challenge and my review is here for those interested.