So.....

I come in to do my end of year round-up only to discovered I haven't blogged since September. Oops!

Convention was fabulous as usual. It was in Brisbane this year. Not as hot as I expected which was a surprise. My clothes worked well so I'm happy about that. Oh & I WON one of the categories of the Convention Challenge with my tropical silk-cotton top & lime linen/cotton pants. Part of my prize was one of those Guterman thread albums with 42 reels of thread. Ooooooh.....love. Everyone who came up to me to see what I'd won oohed & ahhed over that baby. Hilarious!

I managed to get an almost there TNT pants pattern with Roberta Thompson at Convention. Pretty happy about that. Turns out that most of my problems were the front thigh. That in turn created wrinkles at the back. Who knew? So I have been making pants like some mad woman, still trying to get them "perfect". At this stage, they are not but I'm still wearing them. I made two cargo style pairs based on New Look 6005 for work but I have no photo of those. I need to review them too so will put that on my 2016 to-do list!

What I can show you is the cardigan I made for the sweater knit contest on PR and the colour blocked top I made for DD for another contest.

McCalls 6996 Size L

Fabric from All About Fabric, Tamworth

$25.50 per metre

I probably picked the wrong fabric for this particular cardigan as I don't think the stripes are suitable, especially for the back. I don't think it's that flattering on my bum either but ha!...I don't have to look at it!

New Look 6875 size M

Red & print fabric from 2 RTW T-shirts

Stripe from stash

DD has been waiting months for this top which I promised her in early August. We saw the Tshirts on spesh at a fat woman's store for $10 each so we bought the biggest ones and I cut them up. There will be another Tshirt coming when I get my A into gear. :)

Something else I made recently was this bag from Little Moo designs. ASG did a sew along on their FB page so I got sucked in. Let me just say that there were issues with this pattern! As I am discovering with bag patterns......ergh.

The last thing to show is a bag I made last week for my mother. I realised that I only had 1 present for her for Christmas so whipped this baby up quick smart. I have to admit it's pretty good. :) But the pattern is pretty good too. As above, I realised you get what you pay for with PDF patterns. DUMD patterns may be a little more exxy than others, but you get FABULOUS directions.

Date Night bag from Dog Under My Desk

Fabric: Vera Bradley purchased from China

Cost US$10 per yard

It's been a while....

Apologies for the lack of posts. After sewing up a frenzy for the ASG Convention, I was all sewn out and haven't touched my machine since the beginning of October!

So to make up for all that, I'm here to show you a myriad of photos. They are mostly items I made for the Convention and the Convention Challenge. You've already seen the purple cami top and mesh overshirt so I'll spare you those. First up is the outfit I wore in the fashion parade on the Challenge awards night. It consists of ponte pants, rayon top and the vest which had 2 pairs of removable lapels.

Here is a collage of close-ups of the vest. I used Snap Source snaps to affix the lapels to the vest. This worked really well. The snaps don't show on the outside of the aqua lapels but they do on the felt ones so I used an aqua snap rather than a silver one. The lapel above is just various embroidery and pearl thread fed through the overlocker and held down with random straight stitching. I then used my Bejeweller to add some more bling via swarovski crystals. I'm quite happy with how the lapels turned out.

Here are some closeups.

This is another of the tops I made for the Challenge. It's Simplicity 1592 (as is the vest) made from a Kaffe Fasset quilting cotton. The cardigan over the top is my new fave, Simplicity 2148. I love the pockets! Apologies for the quality of these shots...my daughter didn't want to venture onto the grass so shot them from a loooong way away!

This top and cardigan were not part of my Collection. I made them just to wear at Convention when I decided to wear aqua and purple all week. The top is Simplicity 2148 again but I made the sleeves short instead of long. The cardigan is New Look 2759 without the front band. I simply turned the fabric over and coverstitched it. It's a DKNY jersey I bought in Auckland, wool/rayon/spandex blend. Very yummy and a different colour purple on the inside!

Oh & I wanted to show you a closeup of the neckline of that rayon top in the first photo. I used my coverstitch machine and a bias binder attachment to do the neck. I absolutely adore it and it was really easy.

Last but not least are the 2 leather bags I made at Convention. The first one is a larger version of the bag I made at Adelaide Convention in 2012. I originally was going to give it to my mother but I may yet change my mind in that regard. :)

And this, dear readers, is the bag I made in the second part of the week. It's just gorgeous! But...as I am finding the more I use it, it's a little big for me. A bit too deep and stuff gets lost in the bottom. But gorgeous just the same.

I couldn't resist buying these 2 little coin purses from our tutor to match my bags. They are so cute. It was only when I got home I realised the top one is actually navy blue not black. Oh well.

So that ends my photo wrap up of what I've been doing with myself for the past few months.The Convention went really well, the food was good, the classes were good and the company was great. I highly recommend you all try and go once in your lives. I will leave you with the view from my room that I had for the week. I can't guarantee you will get a view like this but I can guarantee you will have a fabulous time!

Leather bag

Not to be outdone by Sharon, I thought I should post some photos of the gorgeous leather bag I made last week in Adelaide at the Australian Sewing Guild Convention. :)

This class was a 2 day one with Yvonne Twining. She is a great teacher - even managed to stop us all talking at times to get instructions. We were a very eager group! The leather she brought with her was magnificent and it was very hard to choose but I went with my signature red and black (duh) but later discovered that the patent croc leather I chose was actually brown. That's cool....it still works fine. My friends at coffee this morning were incredibly jealous and amazed that I could sew this. I am too.

Here is the inside with the pig-skin suede lining, 2 zip pockets & an iPhone pocket at the end (& my junk).

The back leather is really soft & lovely. Larger sizes had a zipper pocket here but the small one can't fit one on. The kit for this baby was $48 which included all the leather, the bits to make it, feet, zips & all the tutoring we could take. :)

Convention 2011 wrap up

I'm back from Launceston and almost fully recovered. This Convention malarky takes a lot out of you! I'm also on the Committee now so have to pull my weight in that regard. The Convention this year was held at Launceston Church Grammar School located in Mowbray, Launceston with a fabulous view of the Tamar River.

My room was situated in the boys dorm (I forgot to take a pic...again!) and it was heated which was a good thing as it was quite cold down there. The dorm rooms are furnished in various styles ranging from 1800s school house to modern on-site caravan so you can imagine. I was lucky in that I had the Vice Captain's room and got a mirror, power point & dressing table! Others were not so lucky.

The food was magnificent - hot brekkie every day, a selection of hot & cold stuff for lunch and a 2 course dinner. Morning & afternoon tea were also catered for, varying from cakes to scones & sausage rolls. Really good. I think I gained weight. :)

Anyway, onto the classes. I only did 2 cos I was needed elsewhere. The first one I did was Fabric Colouring for the Non-Artistic with Cindy Watkins. The kit for this was quite expensive at $60 but included 5 different colours of Genesis Liquid Radiance paint. What can I say about this class? It was FANTASTIC! Cindy showed us lots of different ways of using the paints. We had 12 pieces of white cotton fabric & basically just played all day. The epiphany for me was that I can now dye my own fabric & not have to worry about trying to find stuff in the colours I need. Yay!

We also dyed some socks using shaving cream. That was fun too. Don't mess with a woman waving a squeegy!

The other class I did was also with Cindy - making a quilted bag with fabric you've created. This time, we painted the fabric and dried it in the microwave & then made it into a bag. I decided to make a mega mug bag out of my absolutely gorgeous piece of fabric. Unfortunately, I didn't take a pic of the fabric before I cut it up. We also did free motion embroidery on this fabric. I did a little but then just used a stitch on the sewing machine for the rest. Very easy!

The following pics are the various sides of my bag. The colours are much more vibrant in real life.

I thought I’d write a review (sort of!) of the Australian Sewing Guild 2009 convention. For those with no interest, you can look away now! LOL.

The ASG Convention is now held annually, usually in September/October. This year it was held in Perth, Western Australia. Next year is Ballarat, Vic and 2011 will be in Launceston, Tasmania. Nice cold locations! (note my comments re the weather cos if you’re going to either of these places, you will need to heed my advice!).

The location for this year’s convention was St Brigid’s School in Lesmurdie. It’s a boarding/day Catholic high school situated in the hills of Perth. A wonderful venue..the school has its own heated swimming pool and gym! The food was fantastic – we had a hot lunch on most days, breakfast alternated between hot and cold and dinner was 2 courses. Ergh…I ate too much! Grog is BYO except for Friday night and much embibing was happening. Classes were held on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday. Wednesday is a much needed day off where we had the option of a bus trip viewing the sights of the Swan Valley (ie wineries) or fabric shopping and Kings Park in the city which was my choice. Alternatively, you could stay at the school and sew or even (horrors) sleep which, in hindsight, might have been a good choice.

So…onto the nitty gritty. Day 1 – Monday I had a class with Elizabeth Morley called Rags of Light. Elizabeth is a fabulous teacher & I would recommend her classes to anyone. There was a requirements list we had been sent which involved much gnashing of teeth (as normal) in order to find just the right fabric etc. I used scraps of some of my convention outfits plus some special black/silver silk another black fabric I got at Pitt Trading. I ended up with this:

We started out with a piece of Romeo stabliser, then drew some lines on it, sewed a bit on fabric on & then just basically chucked on other bits. It was a little tricky to start with but then you got the hang of it. The bits are then free machine embroidered together and the romeo washed out. That’s a very basic overview of the class. There was much deliberating and agonizing over fabric choices but once everyone was settled in, it was great. Mind you, I was the only one in the class to finish her scarf & actually wash it out.

Day 2 Tuesday – I had another class with Elizabeth on the Tuesday. This time doing an evening bag. My colour scheme had been planned so both the scarf and the bag would match a couple of my outfits for the week. However, I had no plans to wear the scarf. Nor could I as it needs a bit more of a soak to get all the romeo out. Erk that stuff is disgusting..it looks and feels like mucus when you wash it.

Anyway, back to the bag. We started with a base fabric and made of sandwich with pellon & calico, then laid our main fabric over the top. This was all sewn together around the edges into the shape and size of the bag we wanted. The bag could be big or small, square rectangular or oval. Whatever we liked. I decided to go with a smallish rectangular evening bag. So over the top of the sandwich we placed our fabric pieces. I also had various pieces of braids (aqua & silver) which I literally threw on top and just let it sit wherever it wanted. Then over the top of all this, you place black bridal tulle. Sounds funny doesn’t it? Then you free machine embroider right over the top of the tulle. It was fantastic! The method is great cos the tulle holds everything down until you’ve sewn it and it doesn’t show as much as you’d think. You can also cut it back if you have a particular texture you want to show through like velvet or such. Once I had everything placed, Elizabeth suggested a focal point on the front so I ended up with a flower. I’m still not sure about that! LOL.

Here is a closeup of the abovementioned flower.

Back and inside of my bag.

Day 3 – Wednesday. As I mentioned before, Wednesday was a bus trip and I chose to go fabric shopping. I have no pics of fabric shopping. After all, how exciting could that be? Well it was but I still don’t have pics. So you’ll have to make do with a couple of pics of Perth from Kings Park. It was a glorious day & I actually got sunburnt!

Day 4 – Thursday. Usually by Thursday I am almost over convention so I chose a couple of non-thinking classes. Both classes were sample classes. The morning was with Cheryl Glew a local teacher. We did standard dressmaking techniques including mitred corners, slash openings, cuffs and faux sleeve vents. I actually learnt a bit in this class!

Thursday afternoon was with Patricia Clark from SA. I did Collars, Points & Corners with her and it took all afternoon for the class to make a revere collar with lapel and lining. We were supposed to make a one piece collar with front facing too but didn’t get time! So I have the sample and notes to do that at a later date. No pics though!

Day 5 – Friday. As I was well & truly over convention by Friday and knew I would be, I chose an arty-farty class for the Friday. It was a class using disperse dyes. None of us knew what we’d be doing and I figured if I didn’t like it, I could wag LOL. However, it turned out to be a fabulous class. We painted dye onto litho paper and then after it dried, ironed it onto fabric. Oh lordy. I could really get into this even though I can’t draw! We ended up with the most fantastic things.

Friday night was our gala dinner where I was presented with a Certificate of Appreciation for all my hard work for the Guild in a previous life. I knew I was getting it....it had been mentioned at least 18 months ago but had hopes of nothing happening this week but it wasn’t to be. How lucky I am that I have no photos of that. ☺

So the convention was a great success and the team that organised it should be very proud. I heard no complaints during the week…well…except for the cold. So now we come to that. Our bedrooms were in the boarding school and were unheated. I don’t usually feel the cold that much so had brought my usual PJs plus a thermal in case I got cool. OH MY GOD…it was freezing! I had on the thermal, a long sleeved Tshirt, a wool cardigan, my interlock dressing gown, 2 blankets and my polar fleece shawl and I was still cold! I don’t think the rooms ever warm up in the day as it was even cool in there in the daytime. It was warmer in the corridor so I have no idea how the boarders cope in the middle of winter. So here’s my tip for future conventions: Take lots of warm clothes you can wear to bed! Especially for Ballarat & Launceston. Assuming, of course, that the rooms aren’t heated. I wish someone would invent a half size doona. One that just goes over the top half of your body. That would’ve been perfect! Maybe I could make one? LOL.

All done

I've finished all my convention sewing so now I can relax for the rest of the week. I'm very happy. Happy happy dancing going on here. I've even taken up the hems of my newly purchased black pants and jeans (size 16 & 18 respectively). Woot!

So here are the finished items. Simplicity 3894 is first. I only did a couple of adjustments on this one - high round back adjustment, shoulder dart and shortening of sleeves.

Simplicity 3894

Fabric: 100% silk

Purchased at Pitt Trading Sept 2008? $20 p/m

This is Simplicity 3894. Adjustments on this include:

• 3cm FBA
• 3cm extra in front
• 1cm off shoulder length
• 2cm gaposis tuck on chest
• 1cm extra added to C/F when pattern cut out (I wanted more gathers)

Simplicity 2891

Fabric: Cotton/spandex stretch woven

Purchased at Pitt Trading September 2009 $8 p/metre

As soon as I saw this one, I knew I wanted to embellish the yoke. It's just variegated Madeira rayon embroidery thread and plain rayon emb thread run through the overlocker (3 thread). I also used a metallic for one piece. I then just caught it down with straight stitches on the machine. Then I added some hot fix Swarovski crystals. Personally, I think it could do with some more!

$5 patterns!

I attended an Australian Sewing Guild industry day today at Simplicity patterns here in Sydney. They had patterns for $5 so how could I resist?

First up, we have Burda 8292, a princess seam button-up-to-the-neck coat althought you wouldn't know by the pic! The middle pattern is Simplicity 4403, also a princess seam coat. Finally, Burda 7832 an unusual Tshirt pattern with an almost raglan sleeve and scoop neck.

Next up, is Simplicity 3894 a skirt, v-neck cami and jacket from the Khaliah Ali Collection. I bought this one for the jacket. The middle one is Simplicity 3624, a long-line T with interesting neck and sleeve finishes. On the right is Burda 8082, another T with a similar sleeve to the one above and a slight gathered bit at the V. There is also a dress but I'm not sure if that will ever see the light of day!

One of the guest speakers at the Industry Day was Annebelle van Tongeren who was there basically to promote her book, Dress Like a Star. She had some very interesting things to say about styling and lots of ladies took notes. I bought the book instead! Annebelle also told me the jacket from Simplicity 3894 would suit me so that's the reason I bought that pattern. She was very generous with her advice. I think our Prime Minister's wife would do well to employ her...have you seen some of her outfits lately?