Sunday, February 17, 2013

Glittery Jersey

I mentioned in this post that I have started working on my Evening Collection for the 2nd half of my SWAP.

My wardrobe has very little evening styled garments in it, and during the year I do have a number of dressy occasions to attend and this hopefully will reduce the mad sewing for an event for a while.

When Ann from Gorgeous Fabrics posted her Gala Top I quickly popped over to her online shop and found some fabric named Disco Glam Jersey - Bronze and just had to have it.  Luckily my boss was in the USA at the time and he so kindly agreed to be my courier. 


When this arrived, I knew exactly what it would be, it has such a wonderful drape! 

Another KS 3740 the wonderful cowl top, but this time I have made it sleeveless.

For this version I have:
  • taken out 1cm (3/8") from the underarm to tapering back to nothing 4cm (1 1/2") lower
  • as the fabric has a bit of weight to it, I have added a ribbon across the back neck to keep it from falling off my shoulders.

So here is my first top for the Evening Collection of my SWAP.




******************
Stash Out:  4.95m
Stash In:  0


Monday, February 11, 2013

Sydney Sewers Social

Last Saturday I went to the Sydney Sewers meet up with a few of us going to The Remnant Warehouse first and then we met up with the rest of the group at Tessuti, and then moved onto The Fabric Store.

This is the 2nd meet up that has been organised by Little Betty, (who has a large list of the bloggers that attended) and the number of attendees has increased so a lot of new faces to meet and chat with. Rachel and Leith travelled from Melbourne for the weekend and Renee from Canberra made the trek.

There was a lot of temptation even with the discount and sale but nothing jumped out a me!

This a just a few of us at Tessuti.

Picture from left: Leith, Christy, Rachel, Wendy, Renee, me and Rachel


Saturday, February 9, 2013

Lemon Peplum and Suede Skirt

I have joined the large number of people at Pattern Review to make the peplum blouse Vogue 8815.

After reading the pattern information and checking out all the reviews, I noticed that the peplum starts 1" above your waist and I wanted mine to start on my waist.

I decided to make up a quick muslin of this top and found the following:
  • The waist/peplum seam does sit on my waist, no adjustment!
  • It needed a square shoulder adjustment of 8mm (1/2")
  • Took out 1cm (3/8") from the underarm tapering too nothing at the waist
  • Changed the neckline to that of my Vogue 8572 blouse
This lemon fabric is Vienna, 100% polyester purchased From Kerryn's Fabric World in 2010 and this colour works so well in my wardrobe and you have seen it before here.

The pattern instructions have you finish the armholes, neckline and hem with purchased bias binding, so I have cut bias strips and used my Clover 18mm bias tape maker to make them as there was no way I was going to get bias to match this colour.

As this fabrics frays madly, I have used French Seams and added a Hong Kong finish on the zip seams.

The hem is on the bias so I have finished this the way that the Vogue instructions advise.



This is my 3rd top and final top for the Everyday Collection of my SWAP, so I now need to focus on the 2 bottoms for the Everyday Collection.

The skirt I am wearing is my Self Drafted Skirt pattern and I have used a brown suede like poly spandex fabric from Kerryn's Fabric World purchased June 2012.

The lovely thing about this pattern is that I managed to cut it out (fabric and lining) before heading off to one of my ASG Groups and had it completed (including attaching the lining) ready for the hem to be levelled by my DH so I could finish of the hems.

What I forgot was that this skirt used to sit on my hips and seeing I had adjusted this pattern the same way I did this skirt  my hem allowance ended up being a mere 1.5cm oops.  I prefer a hem allowance of at least 3cm, so off to Spotlight to purchase some 25mm brown bias tape.

I finished the hems for both the skirt and lining as I have for all my skirts.

This skirt is my first piece for the Evening Collection of my SWAP.



******************
Stash Out:  Skirt and Top = 1.6m (not including lining)
Stash In:  0


Wednesday, February 6, 2013

I just can't help myself,

I have signed up for another sew-along and made a public commitment to reduce my stash this year over at Cation Designs and the awesome badge is on my sidebar.

I, Sharon of Petite and Sewing, commit to sew ¾ of all projects in 2013 from Stash. Fabric purchases will be less than the yardage used during the stash sewing in 2013. 

Notice I haven't said I won't purchase fabric Facebook smileys


This now means that I need to keep tabs on how much fabric goes in/out of the stash, and I am definitely not measuring how much is in there, all I will say is that there is plenty for me to play with.

I have a new top and skirt to show you and they are both from Stash.

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Look what the postman delivered ...

it is the top Quilt Sew Sew Sue made using New Look 6648 in a lovely silk jersey.

Now Sue wasn't that happy with this top and her photos showed this pretty clearly, and seeing her post was titled "Should it stay or should it go", I cheekily said that I might know a home for it, if it is going.

Sue very generously offered it to me.  I did check with Sue what size she had made and it was a size 12 and by the pattern measurements I would have made up a size 10 so with that in mind I accepted Sue's offer.


Unfortunately I still have the same pull lines across the girls, I think this is mainly due to the fabric only being a 2 way stretch and Sue did tell me that it only just made the stretch guide.


The rest of the top isn't tight, in fact the neckline is quite low and the gathers disappear due to too much fabric in the hip area.

Problem is I love the colour and the feel of the fabric, but not sure if I will wear it with those pull lines?

What do you think?