SuperPops Challenge

This is my wee girl's entry in the SuperPops Challenge, over at CurlyPops. It's a drawng on paper (which I think would look cute as a calico doll.... Hmmmm... inkjet fabric...?)

Check out all the other entries here.

My Creative Space

Yesterday my creative space was going to be all about writing up a project for yet another deadline.

A trip to Officeworks in the morning resulted in the purchase of some fabric markers and a stroke of genius. My hobby-fill-obsessed child-of-an-artistic-bent would be occupied for HOURS while I was busy with my work.... She could make a calico doll!
Turns out she had plans for a production run.

I was kept busy at the sewing machine and slip-stitching station while she was in control of drawing and stuffing. We now have a family of calico dolls. And the wee girl is excited by her plans for us to "make clothes for them"....

Some days I have to just let go of plans and enjoy the moment - especially after a hectic few weeks. Recharge the creative batteries. Soak up my beautiful girl.

For more creative spaces (lots of!) pop in to visit Kirsty.

Definitely Twisted

Another slightly-wrong weather forecast (and a deadline met early) gave me reason to whip up a new top... and gave me a break from the computer.
The body of this top is a single piece of fabric - twisted, sewn and generally hacked into shape, with a couple of (freehand cut) sleeves sewn into randomly-placed (and freehand cut) armholes.

I'm not really sure how I did it or if I could repeat it... trying it on, whipping it off and doing a bit more "overlocker patternmaking", trying it on again, trimming bits off.... It's truly sculptural clothing (....as in "get a piece of fabric and cut away all the bits that don't look like a twisted, draped top").

And yes - that is the bustle skirt (again). I did a final tweaking on it and think it's ok now.

This was another sculpture piece that began as a 3 metre length of cotton-linen and a vague notion of what it might make. I have plans for a re-working of the idea. Next time I'll make some changes (and perhaps even a pattern or a formula..) and I'll document the process in case it works.

And I'll get someone else to take the photos next time. Have you ever tried to take a (preferably flattering) photo of clothing detail on your own behind...? Not easy.

Just talk amongst yourselves....

No new sewing to show... so here are a few bibs I finished a while ago....

...backs of bibs....
and tarted-up singlets.....
For a gorgeous baby boy. Safe to blog them now.

Welcome to the world, little one.

Frightfully busy!

It's head down, bustle up around here....

I've been sewing....
But I can't talk about it.


I've been playing with Kanzashi...

(Edited to add: The Kanzashi book link is in my Amazon sidebar widget).


And I'm looking forward to having time to make myself the cap-sleeve version of this lovely blouse pattern I won on Little Munchkins' recent giveaway. Bundled into the parcel was this Patty Young (Andalucia range) ribbon. Candy sweet.


Things might be a little quiet around here for a while. Serious deadlines are looming large.

I'll get back to you on the skirt when I'm completely happy with the design and/or worked out a way to photograph myself in it without tying myself in knots.

Watcha Wearing Wednesday

I wish.... I've been drooling over my latest book purchases lately (I've linked to them on my sidebar widget).

And although I won't be strutting the streets of Brunswick in this gorgeous ensemblé...

I can't help but think that there may have been some sort of influence in my "oops, I've worn the wrong trousers to work" skirt-making session this morning.

There's a bit of bustle action going on there. I had to test an idea I've been tossing around for a while now - just to get it out of my head. It's still a hack-and-sew job, but with elastic thown in and a bit of slam-pressing. It really needs a run through the washing machine to settle the austrian-blind effect a bit.

(Message to my sewing buddy: We're really going to have to conference about who gets to wear what garment in which fabric at any given function...I think I did an accidental single-white-female thing... again).

Oh - and here's a top I'll no longer be wearing on Wednesdays....

When I first made this long tunic top, I thought I'd only get a few wears out of it before the lacy weave was covered with pulls and snags. Not to worry - it was a $5 remnant.


Then it shunk in the wash and became an interesting little drapy top.... and then a fitted top....


But after a wash in my new whizz-bang front loader.....

My girl will be wearing it from now on. I know how to get value out of a $5 scrap of fabric.

The lovely Fi (coincidentally in that picture of my back!) is the gracious and graceful host of WWW. Drop in and visit her here...

A very... very... deep breath....

and press "publish"....

Take a peek here, and let me know what you think.


When we set out to upgrade the website we had no idea what a can of worms it would be. (Poor Joe, our ever-patient web-developer had no idea what we handed to him, either...). We eventally tamed those worms and we now have a functional shopping cart that ties in with the "brochure" pages of the original website.

Page redirects are still being done, so there may be a few links to old pages today. Links from this blog (and from others) to my old website may or may not work after the page redirects are done (depending whether the bookmark is to a particular part of a page or to a simple page address) and there may be a few other "quirks" left to iron out. Please bear with us and let us know if you can see something that needs to be fixed.

But mostly - have a look. Tell your friends to have a look....

Weekend catch-up

I feel like it's been a massively busy weekend... but strangely like I've had a big break away from the madness that was last week. By Friday night a deadline was met (phew!) and the new website was fixed (woohoo!). I could breathe again.... catch up with things.... enjoy.

There was lots of fun (and cute hats) in a hat-making class today....
Rose St Market (photographed by my assistant) on Saturday.
I'm finally getting around to posting these photos that I took the week before last... (always good to tick something off a list!). This is the Belle (above) and the Hobo (below)
This is the Large Slouch...


...and the Baguette...
the Small Slouch...
...and a Kids Hat.
These samples are all now in My Little Patch in Wangaratta, along with my patterns and lots of beautiful fabric.

I also thought I'd throw in these photos of the whiteboard art I've had to rub off before patternmaking classes lately. I have to preserve them before they disappear, and I've not had time to post them until now. The picture above is "horses" and below is "An underwater scene" (complete with a diver, shark, fish and "a mask with writing on it ...like in Nemo").

I caught up with friends, family, reading blogs.... and I sewed a bit. Gosh, I even did some laundry.....And now I'm going to catch up on sleep!

I hope that you had a good weekend.

Flickr Favourites Friday

Mojo Sling Bag
Originally uploaded by FionaJT

I love the simplicity of the Sling bag in striking fabric.

Well done, Fiona! Love it. If you've made a bag using one of my patterns, please feel free to join my Flickr group. If you're just looking for some inspiration, take a peek at the photo pool.

A question...

Inspired by the wonderful Jodie, I thought I'd seek some help...

If you could design a (hypothetical) book - written by someone who knows quite a bit about sewing... someone a bit like me (only much more hypothetical than I am) - what would you like to see in it...?

A lot of "AAARRRRGGH!".... a bit if "Oh!" ... and a big "Awwww!"

Well.. after MONTHS of editing and linking and tweaking.... checking and tweaking and testing... at last the new whizz-bang shopping cart was ready to go live. I installed the SSL certificate to make it all secure and hunky-dory....

And now THIS MESSAGE is popping up all over the place!!

AAAARRRRRGGGGGGH!

The offender is the new Internet Explorer (and yes - I've happily switched to Firefox, but 67% of people using my website use Explorer). The worst thing is that it's the embedded Flickr images that are not SSL compliant.... the images that are right throughout the website....

So... the last few days have been fairly stressful - phone calls and emails and fiddling with web code.... and whichever way we do it, it's going to be a LOT of work.

In the meantime, a bit of information about the message is a good thing. Thanks to Carmel, I have this very useful link - including a way to stop the message popping up. The other option is to keep clicking on "NO" every time the message pops up. It's safe to do that but it's very, very annoying.


Oh, and there has also been good news (which will involve a lot of work, too). I'd rather be doing that than the web stuff. More on that later.

And the "AWWWW".....?


My assistant went out on her own yesterday. "I want to make a bag," she said. I gave her the fabric and scissors and threaded up the machine - electricity ON. She needed help with the strap placement but she did the rest all by herself. It's just the right size to hold a small post-it note pad, and we're all as proud and as pleased as punch with it, I can tell you!

Didn't we have a lovely time...?

What a grand day out the Northside Makers Market was today! A perfect blue-skied, breezeless day, a relaxed family atmosphere with food, coffee, music....

Gorgeous handmade things (these baby shoes by Polly Pratt) and more crafty bloggers than I have time to link to (!!). Friends old and new.

The wee one wasn't bored once.
Between cupcakes, babycinos, face-painting, balloons and about 3 hours at the kids' craft table (I'm actually not exaggerating here!).....there really wasn't time for boredom or digital photography.


A big congratulations to the hard-working organisers for putting on a great event and for getting the Northside Makers Collective off the ground. Hip Hip Hooray!

The next Northside Makers Market will be November 28th. Just in time for Christmas shopping.

Edited to add - to all those people either congratulating me or sorry that they missed my stand at the market, I have to qualify that I was simply a VISITOR to the market... not involved in the organisation and not actually exhibiting. I was just walking around eating cupcakes and chatting. I spent most of the day near the kids craft table (!!) and had such a lovely time I thought it was worth blogging.

One more sleep....

Images blatently stolen from here.... and you'll find heaps more information and links to the talented people who'll be there too!

Northside Makers Collective is a not-for-profit craft association, encouraging and supporting craftspeople, hobbyists and micro business in Melbourne's northern suburbs.

A few very hard-working people have put a lot of work into this first market, and I think it'll be well worth a visit. There'll also be a craft table and face-painting for the kids. Oh... an don't forget your digital camera...!

Fuzzy Felty Flex Frame Purses

So the flex frames have been a bit of a hit... but the most commonly asked question is "How do you use them?".... This afternoon I pulled out a scrap of pattern card and did this.
The bottom shape was just drawn freehand. You could make it any shape you want - oblong, square, completely abstract... as long as the top section is 4.5 x 8.4mm (give or take a mm). Fold the card in half and cut the shape out.

Cut 2 pieces of felt from this shape.

When I made the scarlet purse (in the top picture) I used beautiful Winterwood wool felt, so I only needed these outside purse pieces. With this burgundy purse I wanted to test cheap acrylic felt squares (from Spotlight). This felt is weak and thin, so I folded down the top 2.5cm of the pattern piece and cut two lining pieces in a contrast colour.

Using basting spray, stick the lining to the outside purse pieces.

Do some simple embellishment...

As simple as you like...

And as quick as you like...

Using the top of the lining as a folding edge, turn the top of the purse over. Give it a gentle press with steam so that it sits very flat.
Stitch the turning down to create an open-ended casing at the top of each purse piece. The backtacking at each end must be very secure here.

The two pieces are then stitched together (right side out) about 4mm from the edge - again with super-secure backtacking.

You can then either trim the edges with straight scissors (so that all the layers are level) or use pinking shears. Alternatively, this could all be lovingly handstitched - or blanket-stitched by machine - and there would be no need to trim edges at all.
Thread the frame through the casings at the top of the purse.
Line up the open end pieces and push the hinge pin in....

...and fold over the ends of the hinge to hold the pin in place. Use pliers, the sides of your scissors or whatever works to fold these ends over. (I'm yet to find my ultimate hinge-closing tool!).

Admire your purse....

...and squeeze it to open and close it.

Cute huh? And really quick. Quicker than it took me to write this tutorial.

...
A quick note on the frames: We've had to add a little packing surcharge on the single frames (it's those itty-bitty pins that take all the time!). The single frames are now $3.90 each (CODE: FLEX90) or a packet of 5 for $18.15 (CODE: FLEX90/5).