Please Miss I need more time...

A little over a month ago Ms Buttontree Lane , Kuka and I decided to have a month dedicated to Big Girl's Blouse. A month dedicated to sewing for the errr more well endowed amongst us.

Despite the best intentions I've failed to deliver...so please Miss I need more time - perhaps another month.

...and to help this whole thing along I went out this morning and purchased some fabric to go with this pattern which I intend to start TOMORROW - I promise Miss!

Well it is a start...Butterick 4987

OK, OK the blog posts since my return to the paid workforce has been, well, nothing short of appalling...and I totally forgive all those readers that have given up and since departed.

Whilst it is true that:
a) I've had little time to sort out how to fit my creative fix into my daily life, and
b) My contribution to Big Girl's Blouse Month has been zip!

...there has been some sewing, albeit a few weeks back. The garment was made for my niece's wedding. When I bought a carla zampatti tuxedo about 4 years ago I tried on a cute top nearly exactly like this. After spending way too much on the suit I declined buying the top, but have always wanted to replicate it. Butterick recently discontinued the pattern which threw me into a totally tizzy, but my local Lincraft, never known for its organisation had yet to return their discontinued patterns...lucky for me.

Here is why it works so well with the suit..




















...and here it is how I wore it for most of the day in balmy
Queensland.


The details of the pattern and alterations made will appear on the side bar in the sewing pattern review...but as discussed in an earlier post details of what I learnt from sewing this garment will be in this post, namely:

• how to sew fine fabrics such as silk, using embroidery thread in the machine seemed to work really well
  
• that I should only pretreat the fabrics (ie washing/dry cleaning) exactly the same way as I will when the garment is complete
• that mixing and matching fabrics (I used silk satin and silk chiffon) and including unusual features such as gross grain ribbon and a mix of two different fabrics can turn a simple patterns into something more special.
  

So whilst this isn't a contribution for Big Girl's Blouse Month, I think that it works quite nicely on a big girl anyway.

Big Girl's Blouse Month!

For the month of March, fellow sew-mad blogger Kuka and I are conducting a sew along titled - Big Girl's Blouse...and who better to be the poster girl of this said sew off, none other than the bubbliest bustiest big girl herself - Dolly!

Well, both Kuka and I share something with our poster girl - and it ain't her money, or her smile, or the penchant for surgery which the above picture seems to show so well...

This "attribute" does require some technical expertise when sewing your own garments, which is something that Kuka and I want to improve on, ergo the reason behind this month's sew along.

There is really only one criteria if you want to join us - you must be greater than a B-cup. Now for this don't blame us - the pattern companies size all patterns for the B-girl.

So come along and join us for some needle and thread!

Falling out of love with Sandra

Well I think it's fitting that tomorrow is Valentine's Day and I find myself falling OUT of love with Sandra Betzina! I don't actually celebrate Valentine's Day, never have - although I am smiling to myself to realise that the acronym is what STD's were once referred to!!! hahaha

Anyhoo...I already own her Fast Fit book, and I love it, so I borrowed Fabric Savvy (the link is for the updated version) from the library. She is right in saying that the hardest thing about learning to sew is what fabric to chose and how to sew it - seams, hems, needles bla bla. So I was prepared to be told EXACTLY what to do.

So I'm making a little camisole top, using silk satin and silk chiffon - sweet! Sandra recommends pre-shrinking the silk satin, but not to bother with the chiffon. I thought long and hard about pre-washing silk, as I will most likely dry clean the top once it's finished and from then on...but I believed her and it's WRONG! Although it's not water marked, apparently silk satin doesn't do that (Sandra says), it has lost it's luster and sheen, something that draws you to satin in the first place really. I made a test garment out of calico, but decided to use the ruined satin to try the design out, so now I just have a very expensive toile and I will have to go to Spotties today and buy some more....aarrrrgggghhhh!

New rule - if I'm going to dry clean the garment always, don't pre-wash. Does that sound fair fellow sewonistas?

PS - sorry for the hiatus - two week shock to the system - back to being a working mother!

I'm trying...

I'm trying to load my stuff on ETSY so I can make my (self-imposed) deadline of launching tomorrow. But my photos are too large...my banner doesn't work - aaarrggghhh! But I will keep trying and fingers crossed will have some good news for y'all later in the day.

psssstttt...the above photo gives a hint to what wares suzy will be selling.

Ikea haul (Part Two)

As I alluded to last week I have been on a bit of a shopping spree at Ikea of late...especially fabric! I just love it. It's simple design at its best, great decorator weight for the home (or bags for that matter ) and cheap. These cushions above were made from pieces found in the remnants bin. I'm not going to insult y'all and tell you how to make cushions. But I will say that I decided to use an invisible zip on these babies, because my invisible zip presser foot is my latest crush...and I'm loving the result.

The second set of projects that I completed from Ikea fabric are these stack of tablecloths. Finally, after years of searching I've found fabric wide enough for our six seater table that I actually like....The top one has a bit of a Marimekko feel to it don't you think?

Suzy's got it covered...

Yes it's me again, suzy of the cheesy blog titles!

I've quite a bit to share this week, because for once I managed to tick off and complete 3 wips over the weekend. But don't worry this won't be a monster blog post I'll spread them out over the week.

First up is this sewing machine cover, made of course from some fabric that I bought at Ikea! My sewing corner (well it's really a wall) is in our family room and is on show all the time, which makes it a challenge on two levels. One - keeping it tidy and clean and two - stopping everybody dumping their own treasures all over it!


I got the idea from Benita at Chez Larsson - who else I tell you? Between her and my Ikea fixation maybe I should just move to Sweden, but I digress...

The process for each of ours is a little different, same result. Here is the suzy way:

1. Choose a decorator weight, or mid to heavy weight fabric. The Ikea fabric is perfect because it is quite stiff, almost canvas like. I needed 0.5m of a 150cm fabric width.

2. I stood my machine cover on some newspaper and traced the end. For the main part, I kinda rolled the cover along the newspaper tracing away to get one single pattern piece.
So you should end up with 3 x pieces, 2 ends and a main piece.


3. For cutting I was quite particular to make sure that the pattern design on the ends was vertical. I couldn't stand looking everyday at dodgy positioning.

4. Sew the pieces together, right side facing (you know, here's me telling you the bleedin' obvious!). I pinked the seams. It would have been to hard to overlock a u-shape piece, you could have done it before you made the seams up, but this baby won't be washed a lot, so it didn't seem necessary.

5. I really wanted the hem to sit right on the table, so I fitted the fabric cover over the machine cover, turned it upside down and marked the hemline. I then overlocked about 1/4 inch outside of it, turned it up and voila perfect.


6. Last but not least, Suzy added a tag to the front so that I can tell easily which way is the front...and more importantly so I don't forget my name!

Now I've got to go and rip this cover off and do the final push of sewing before my ETSY shop opens next Monday - how exciting!