Thursday, September 26, 2013

Hanging On By A Thread

Good Morning!

Uni started back a few days before my last post, and somehow nearly two months have flown past in a whirl of study balance with work and spring-time illness. I haven't given up on sewing though.

All the blogs that I love to sew lean heavily towards making dresses (particularly Dolly Clackett's. Oh, howI love her creations. And Oh! The shoe envy!!). But I have a wardrobe full of dresses that are too lovely to part with but that I rarely wear. I'm really a pants wearing kinda gal. So my latest project is working towards making some Giant Bug Kwiksew Dungarees...which we call Overalls in Australia...out of some duck cloth that I found in Spotlight the other day. It has GIANT BUGS all over it. They are brilliant and awesome. However I am doing a practice run on some cheap, garish blue plaid suiting that I picked up for a few dollars a metre for just these kind of things. It's the kind of fabric that screams Private School Uniform, although at time of purchase I had an image of Dr Who floating around in my head. I don't know why!


There are no photos to share of the Giant Bugs at this moment, but I'll add them in later. I'm trying to be a good girl and not spend money on fabric (that I don't have time to sew) while I have an ever-growing stack of bills on the fridge. September seems to have been designated Annual Bill Overload Month.

I can however update on two earlier planned projects:

Project 1: The Practice Dress is currently still a disaster. I need to completely unpick it and then recut it. Or turf it altogether (which would be a shame, given the fabric is so lovely). Although I've gained a bunch of weight in the past few weeks, so maybe the looseness is not so loose anymore. Sigh. I've never loved unpicking things.

Project 2: The Perfectly Pleated Manequim Blouse is stalled due to a wee translational issue. That being that I missed the point that the pattern is about 3 sizes smaller than will fit me. The result of a cross between my blind enthusiasm and lack of attention when reading pattern sizings in Brazilian.
So I need the time to make serious adjustments, and more butter paper. Curious Kiwi pointed me towards Jackson's in Fremantle for Butter Paper which is brilliant for tracing patterns, but I ran out after tracing off my Elisalex pattern. So I'm contemplating buying an industrial length roll of tracing paper and installing it into one of my bookshelves on a little curtain rod.

Alright. I just wanted to do a quick update for the whole month of September (slim as those pickings may be). I'm desperately keen to make a Robson Coat after seeing Curious Kiwi's purple model, but I'm hanging out for Spotlight to have one of their ridiculous sales on Vogue patterns to see if I can get my hands on V8884 for a fraction of the price instead. I'll probably fold and get a Cambie and a Robson in one hit, but the logic saves my bank account for a bit.

In the mean time, Happy Sewing!
xo