Sunday, January 24, 2016

Skiing Henley

The planets have finally aligned and I have been home when Mark has put on his Anniversary gift from September last year.

The modern gift guide for our 14th anniversary suggested Ivory or gold jewellery and seeing he doesn't wear any jewellery I put my thinking cap on regarding Ivory.  Luckily I remembered that I had some Ivory Bamboo Interlock purchased in 2009 from The Bamboo Fabric Store in my stash which would work perfectly for another Strathcona Henley, maybe the t-shirt with short sleeves this time.

My next quandary was how to make it not so plain and then remembered Mark had a purchased t-shirt from Japan back in 2005 which was looking very sad, but had a tone-on-tone embroidered skier on it.

Now how to do this as I don't have an embroidery machine, but this is where talking to your sewing buddies is great, Alison volunteered to do this for me.

So I headed over to Great Designs and purchased a skier design for Alison to use on her machine.  It took Alison a few test runs with different threads to get the skier to look like I had imagined, and we ended up using Mettler No 703.



The only adjustment I made to the pattern was to lower the front neckline by 2cm.

And to make the t-shirt look more RTW I dug out some white twill tape and stitched it around the back neckline like Mark's RTW t-shirts.









Mark is very pleased with this t-shirt, it has had a lot of wears already.

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2015 Stash Out: 25.55 m
2015 Stash In: 32.8 m

Friday, January 8, 2016

2015 in Review

Happy New Year!

I am a bit late to the party but once again Gillian from Crafting A Rainbow has again encouraged us all to have a look at what we have achieved in 2015 and where we would like to go in 2016.

Top 5 of 2015

It has been another quiet year for me for my sewing, I seem to be missing the time in my sewing room before work, part is due to exercise but that is not every morning.

Sewing Hits

These are the pieces that I have constantly worn, or are favourite makes that due to the weather has resulted in very little wear so far.

KS 3740 long sleeve in orange swirls and short sleeves using yellow slub jersey

Rose Hip Tights by Seamster Patterns
Jalie 2908 Jeans
and this one I can't wait for it to get cooler to wear

Jalie 2320 cord jean jacket
Sewing Misses

There is only one and that is due to more adjustments that need to be made to make it more comfortable to wear, the Diane Von Frustenberg wrap dress



Highlights, Reflections and Goals

Highlights

There are a few highlights this year, all sewing related but that is what I love to do.

1.  Spending a week with Claire Sheaffer for a week of Couture at Armidale



2.  Being a joint winner for the Pattern Review Jeans Contest which are above as I just love my Jalie Jeans.

3.  Having a fantastic week with my sewing buddies at the ASG Convention in Brisbane!


Reflections

I have again this year taken my time to sew and after spending a week with Roberta Thompson at the ASG Convention in Brisbane this year, I know that I need to go back to some of Roberta's notes from years ago.  Going back to basic steps when I want to work on a new pattern long before you cut the fabric e.g. the DVF wrap dress for instance.

I am also addicted to fabric, thankfully not as bad as last year but still too much fabric came in 32.8 when only 25.55 went out.  These figures are quite different to what was on this last sewing post as I have two items for hubby which I need to get photos of and then there are a number of new pieces in the stash that I haven't shared, so it is time to come clean.


Goals

My goals for 2015 weren't semi successful:
  1. Pants - well I am closer to what I want but not there yet.
  2. Sewing basics - short sleeve summer tops, well I have made two but they aren't really work appropriate.
  3. Enter a Contest - two this year at Pattern Review, the jeans above and the Kate Top which I entered for the last contest of the year.
and for 2016,
  1. Yes pants again this year!
  2. Lingerie - I really want to make my own.
  3. I enjoy entering contests so lets see if my plans can be completed.
  4. Not sewing but knitting it is what I do when I can't take my sewing machine so I want to learn Picking (Knitting) instead of Throwing and to have a garment knitted.
Most importantly I want to thank everyone who visits my blog and leaves comments.  If you are having problems commenting please let me know as I believe there have been some issues with Blogger, my email address is under my complete profile.

Finally here is the annual collage of my makes for 2015.