Today's accidental fabric purchase....

I dropped into GJ's Discount Fabrics today to ...ahem.... drop off a sample of the Draped T-Dress for display.  I came out with this load (already excitedly-cut-into before I remembered to photograph it....).

The new range of re-released Amy Butler Gypsy Caravan, along with David Butler's new range (the name escapes me)  had just arrived.  The girls were making room on the shelves......

You wouldn't believe what was being put on the $12 table.....
Patty Young's Andalucia, Hunky-Dory by Chez Moi for Moda, Geniveve by Henry Glass, Flower Sugar by Lycien, Oh Boy by David Walker, Giselle by Red Rooster.... and that fabulous paisley by Alexander Henry, which I bought for my cousin Jan, who can't seem to get enough of the swirly stuff.

I got a little bit excited.
I bought more fabric. 
Oops.

Le Tour de Fabric

What a huge day for fabric love....

A lovely bundle arrived from Quilt Fabric Delights.  I was a bit excited about their sale page and the fact that they still had a small piece of the Patty Young "Andalucia" print that I needed, so I put in a little order on the weekend.  (And yes - they stock my patterns, too!)

 Then there was a bit of a gathering of friends at Lara's house.  Annie, Jodie and Rachel came into town for the day and we went ON TOUR.... after the exploration of Lara's sewing room....

 ..and awestuck gazing at the VERY TIDY cupboards full of fabric stash.  (How DOES she manage it....??)

And there was a fair bit of posing against the famous wall....

 

We then went to Rathdowne Fabric & Remnants and then to GJ's.  I forgot to take the camera out in Rathdowne, but managed to snap a bit of Annie in action at GJ's.

 ...and pretty-much lost everyone amongst the rows and rows of luscious fabric....

 ...and rows of toys all over the floor.  (No idea who's wee girl that is....wearing a cat-print dress...)

 I'm not sure if it was noticable, but I loitered around the pre-cut fabric shelf a few times.  It looked a bit sweet-shoppish to me, and I was feeling a bit like a child..... but I resisted.  I have to finish my quilts-in-progress before embarking upon any new adventures in the world of patchwork.

 That small child in the cat dress took up position at the counter and talked "cats" with anyone who had a cat.  Luckily (for her), Jodie, Annie and Suzanne (behind the counter) all have cats.  As does the woman who was waiting patiently in the queue behind us.

 My purchases were quite restrained, and mostly geared towards turning my quilt blocks into quilts.  (I even managed to sew on the border of this one late this afternoon).

I also found enough spotty cotton fabric to make the back of the quilt.  (The idea was to make a cot quilt, but it's now a single bed size.)

 
The only completely-without-purpose purchasing I did were these pieces, below - a mixture from both stores.  They were too cute and too well-priced to pass up ($5.95-$8 per metre) and they'll go into the stash.

The only thing that I could have used but I DIDN'T buy, was the EXACT Patty Young fabric that I was looking for on the weekend.  Along with the QFD piece that arrived today,  I've organised Lisa to send me some from Sydney.  And here's a bolt of the stuff, in my local fabric store.....

Our shopping day ended with a short trip to my studio for lunch and a chat.   (I forgot to take out the camera again).  The kids all played beautifully together (Rachel's kids are ANGELS, I tell ya - ANGELS!)

Thanks, lovely ladies, for a grand day out.  I'm counting the days until we're sitting around the table together at Sewjourn again.

Playing fabric chicken

My fabric piecing continues, and new challenges are being set all the time. 

It now HAS to become a quilt, and it has to involve as much of my stash as possible before purchasing any more fabric, and the super-bright colours at the centre have to be made to look like they link back towards a bitter chocolate base colour (I invisage plain bitter-chocolate-coloured homespun as the only fabric I will have to buy, since there is none in my stash).

I've used a lot of Tina Givens fabrics, because she manages to pull off some pretty unusual colour combinations, which - strangely enough - seem to be working in with my mad and unrelated mix.  Then I moved on to Patty Young's Andalucia ("fire" colourway). With my heart set on this particular print with this particular set of quilt blocks,  I dared not measure and estimate, in case I had proof that there wouldn't be enough.  I WANT this fabric here and don't want to have to consider anything else in its place.  I went for it, head-on, with high hopes of just scraping in with millimeters to spare.

Ok.  So there wasn't enough, and I have 3 more 5" blocks to turn into 9" blocks. 

I've googled and searched Etsy and trawled through my favourite fabric shop websites.  No joy.  Does anyone (preferably local) know if it's in any bricks & mortar shops or have a bit in their stash that I could purchase...?

Bravery is finished.  I'm on to begging.

Itchin' for Stitchin'

Great shop name.  And a very lovely shop.

On a trip out west to see family today, I dropped in some patterns and samples to Itchin' for Stitchin at 11 Grant St, Bacchus Marsh (just up the road from where I finished High School). 

While I was talking patterns and snapping photos, I set the wee girl a task to find her favourite fabric....

In her own words, "There are too many that I really, really love!"

 There really is a fabulous range of fabrics, ribbons, embroidery threads and all sorts of everything.  There are Phaff sewing machines.... and now, You SEW Girl patterns!

 And yes - we found an absolute favourite fabric.....

PS. The girl is wearing an A-line shift dress, adapted from THIS book, in Martha Negley fabric.

Kokka-loco and purse-mania

Yep. Purses. Production-line style. This one with a (completely intentional, of course....) wrap-around bird.

The odd playground scene...Cutesy stuff.

Gotta love those Japanese prints. These are all from Duckcloth a year or so ago. I've been thinking about Echino (by Kokka) fabrics as a panel in my A-line Skirt.

(BTW - Did you know that Duckcloth are now stocking my A-line Skirt pattern? As are GJ's and Addicted to Fabric. You can now buy the pattern and the fabric together!)

Then it was onto a bit of quilting fabric.... Shell purse and 90mm purse frame purses.

And then I gave up on old and goopy glue. Things were not coming together as they ought, so production has been suspended until new glue arrives.

I have a few more purses to frame and a few more made in various stages of construction to take to Canberra on Thursday. I'm also madly sewing up step-by-step samples of bag bits for two purse frame workshops and two Sharper Edge classes at Addicted to Fabric.

Busy days.

Kid Stuff

Oh, the cuteness of this Aunt Lindy's Paper Dolls fabric.... I'm in lurve.It inspires all manner of cutesy-wutsey bags and hats for littlies. I made my Small Tote and Kids Hats patterns up in a patchworky mix-and-match style. Tonight, I was trying to beat the fading daylight to finish and photograph these (no time for a final press)....but the light beat me.

Yes, things look better with a bit of a press and proper lighting.... see? (I'll have to press and re-shoot this one).Earlier in the week, I'd made the winter kiddie set, using the Kids Beret and the shorter version of the Small Tote (a variation included in the Small Tote pattern) in pinwale corduroy. And I discovered a new page-load craft.... Kanzashi flowers! (Previously, they'd only been TV craft).

A Couple of City Chicks

I'm doing a bit of a revamp of bag samples. I want to have lots of fresh and inspirational things to take up to Addicted to Fabric next week, I want to overhaul the look of the pattern covers and... well... I keep coming up with new ways of interpreting the patterns, and want to SHOW you!

Among other things, the City Bag got a freshening up.
I made this one from a few (garment-sewing) offcuts of fairly heavy green linen and patched over a panel of a scrap left over from one of my original A-line skirts. I used 32mm flat o-rings in antique brass colour.

This one, I made from quilting fabric I bought at GJ's for a completely different project..... but I thought it might work as a City Bag. I put a tri-glide on the strap to make it adjustable. (Tutorial for an adjustable strap HERE).

And here are two I prepared earlier.... but hadn't photographed properly. You can see my original post about them HERE. This red and black one is a quilting fabric I bought at GJ's about three or four years ago. The orange one below is made from the last few scraps of orange moleskin I had left over from hat-making days. The panel is a bit of Kaffe.

As a handbag to use and carry, I really love the City Bag. I've all but completely worn out the original cover-girl one, which I made in upholstery-weight microfibre 'suede' (and machine embroidered a huge bug on it). It always gets lots of comments.

I wear my City Bag hands-free style - across my body - and the curved shape at the top sits comfortably around my body, but it can equally be worn over one shoulder. The zip at the top makes it secure and it has a zippered pocket and compartment pocket in the lining.

I'm a bit inspired to make a few more, but I have other samples to make.

The Roses of Success

One of the things that I love about making purses, is just how little fabric is required. The scrap bag is full of treasures that can be transformed into useful, beautiful objects. I've been a bit obsessed with scraps of machine-knitted experiments and disasters. Waste-not-want-not and all that....

I'm also enjoying the challenge of working with new materials within a familiar form. It's a magical mystery tour of design decisions, based on what the fabric will and will NOT do. I moved on to felted woollen jumpers (and stayed with the purse frames).

The green boucle was particularly thick, so I had to re-think the construction process somewhat. The seams are blanket-stitched (by machine) and exposed. The lining is attached to the outer fabric in the same way. I didn't reduce the seam allowance, so the finished purse is bigger than the usual Shell Purse. I like it.

Cue: The song from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Occasionally (...ahem...) I'm still inspired to buy new fabrics, because they speak to me about the potential of future projects.... I dropped into GJ's on Saturday and found lots of inspiration... Stay tuned...

Things I am doing (and not doing)

I'm spending a lot of time fondling Sarah Arnett fabrics (belonging to my sewing buddy). I've been Facebook chatting with Ms Arnett and I think there might be some hope of seeing more of her gorgeous printed silks in georgette, stretch satin, liquid jerseys (gorgeous drape), gossamer voiles and shimmering crepe de chines as yardage.
If you haven't checked out Sarah's work, I'd recommend that you do so NOW. She's amazing.

I've also been making jam and picking lots of apples from our tree. Celebrating my mothers gifts and homecrafting wisdom. Treasuring a tiny (and probably useless, since I've never seen SPC's "Baker's Choice" apricots") find.

On 8th March, I'll be speaking at the International Womens Day Lunch in Melton . The theme this year is "Turning your passion into profit" and there will be three of us telling our stories. It'll be a fun day, with lots of opportunity to meet and mingle with like-minded women.

I'll be attending the Australasian Quilt Convention (April 14-17th) in Melbourne, too. Come and say hello!!!

This weekend I won't be going to the Julian Roberts workshop, as originally planned. Instead, I decided to take up the offer to jump on a Sewjourn bandwagon. I'm off for a crafty weekend instead.

Likewise, I'm not going to Sew It Together after all, but I'll be in Sydney later in the year. Plans have to change sometimes.

********

There are many things in the pipeline at the moment: some big and exciting and some are fledgling ideas. I'll tell you about them later. Right now, what I am doing is going to bed!

All manner of newness.

Things have been a little quiet here on the blog front, and it's not because things have been dull... There have been lots of photos taken and blog posts planned, just none written.Another trip to GJ's Discount Fabrics for yet another load of cheap knit fabric resulted in some gems from the $2 Fat Quarter table (can you spot the fabrics chosen by my wee girl and those chosen by me?) and a major haul of razzle-dazzle from the $2 per metre remnants.... (guess who chose that?)
There was a lovely bundle of skirt-length fabrics from Quilt Home...

and we had some new bits of shiny arrive.... 50mm D-rings, now in stock. We also have some new colours in the 48mm plastic grommets. This matt black....
And "copper" (for which we don't have an option on the colour-picker in the shop, so when you want to order theses, call them "antique brass").

NOTE: The silver grommets are temporarily out of stock, so if you order a Fan Bag, you can choose black or copper for your grommet colour. On the family front, we've had a bit of bullet-dodging going on lately. We're all appreciating the fragility of life a bit more and counting lucky stars. We're taking time to smell the roses ...and read under the shade of the lemon tree... ...sometimes with friends... ;)None of this has thus-far been blogged because I've been very busy with pre-school craft projects, the construction of razzle-dazzle dress-ups, hospital visits and a slight obsession with a little idea I've had....It's all happening.