When the cat's away ...

I've been working some incredible hours over the past month, so today, as the boss was heading to the airport to fly overseas for 5 days, I took the opportunity to have a massage and then go to The Fabric Store as they had a 30% off Sale for today only.

This is one of my favourite fabric shops in Sydney and there is always something there to tempt me.

Whilst wandering around I heard a "Sharon" and turned around and Sandra (who was also signed up for the "Go Chanel Go Home Sewalong") introdued herself. We had been emailing each other about our Chanel jackets as we had both purchased the exact same fabric for our jackets at The Fabric Store. Needless to say Sandra's Chanel jacket is a lot further progessed than mine.

It was so nice to meet up with someone that you have blogged/emailed with and the fact that we fell right into chatting about fabric and what we were going to do, was such a treat and reinforces even more to me that the friendships that are created in the internet world are wonderful.

Now do you want to guess what colour I purchased?

This is a Japanese cotton that I plan to make a top out off and it will go brilliantly with the burgundy wool pants I made in August. I also have enough of the burgundy wool fabric left over for a skirt.




Yes, you guessed right, here is the brown linen and I couldn't pass up this cream linen either.



I've seen a Chanel Inspired jacket and I am really keen to try and get the same sort of look. I ended up with what was left on the roll of the brown linen 4.5m (paid for 4.3) and 1.5 metres of the cream linen.

The plan for the linen is the Jacket (cream with a brown band or brown with a cream band), a simple sleeveless shift dress, pants and a skirt and with careful cutting out maybe a sleeveless shell top.

Now I'm not saying when this will be done, however I am in desparate need of summer clothes so I had better get back to finishing the LBD.

What a weekend!

Well I'm home again after spending two whole days with 10 other wonderful real life sewing buddies.

I arrived around 8am to make sure all was set up and the others slowly followed me. By morning tea we were all there and getting stuck into our various projects.



The Mercure at Parramatta did a fantastic job in feeding us at regular intervals and were happy to assist with some very unusual conference requests e.g. a power board for each table and two irons and ironing boards please.

I chose to start on Vogue 8280 LBD and after doing the toile thought it would be finished that afternoon. How wrong can a girl be!

This is where I am up to after 2 full days of sewing. The wool I used gave me some challenges with easing the back onto to the flange (tighter weave) and there are just so many seams and darts that need pressing and clipping it just didn't seem to stop.



Left to do is:

• insert the sleeves, how come one always goes in with no pain and the other one just wants to fight you every step of the way,
• Finish off the back neckline,
• Hem both the fashion fabric and lining.

I'm extremely pleased with how this dress is fitting me (my body double needs to be updated) so I am keen to get this finished.

Needless to say the blouse didn't even get a look in.

Sewing Weekend

For a number of years now my real life sewing buddies have been organising a sewing weekend away each year for us to attend. This year it is my turn.

So far we have been to Panthers at Penrith, Ferndale on the Hawkesbury River and The Mecure Hotel at Pararmatta.

This year we are going back to the Mercure Hotel at Parramatta (right across the road from the Rosehill Races which hosts the Craft Show in August).

We arrive on Saturday morning and sew to our hearts content until Sunday afternoon with food being delivered to us on a regular basis.

I really like to achieve as much as I can at these weekends so today's job was to check that all the bits for my two projects are all there.

First up is the LDB which I cut out last week and now have made sure that all the pieces are together in a zip-lock bag including zip, wound bobbins and organza bias strips for inserting the sleeves.

I then plan to work on a lemon blouse that I started to make a while ago and made sure that I had interfaced all the pieces, wound bobbins, found some buttons so it is also ready to go.

Here they both are in their bags ready to be put into my sewing case.



I think I will purchase one of those collapsable crates to hopefully hold:

• Table ironing board and iron
• Table lamp
  
• Pressing tools e.g. sleeve roll and ham

If I have time this week after work I would like to trace off Burda 5-2008-104, which is the dress version of the top I made in January this year. I have already done the adjustments to the bodice, so only need to add the skirt to the pattern. Then use this fabric to make it up.



There is a lot of "fingers crossed" going on to get this last dress achieved, so wish me luck.

So at the end of next weekend I will at have at least two garments to show.