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

So far in my year of non-procrastination......

The weather in Sydney has been warm, hot, humid, cool, breezy and more humidity. A bit of everything. Since I can really only sew productively on cool days, my sewing has been limited. But I did move the machine into the air con to sew something two weekends ago. And no, it's not pants.

It's the Dog Under My Desk Take Off tote! Yeah that's right, another bag! Erin's instructions are great but she uses different interfacing etc to Nicole Mallalieu so I had to source them, cos of course, I *had* to use the right stuff! I'm really happy with how it turned out so let me show you some of the features.

This pocket slips over the extendable handle of your suitcase. Very handy! I have a sewing bag with such a handle so this will give me extra space at my ASG meeting when I always come home with more than I go with!

The end of the zipper was supposed to have a sewn zipper tab over your chopped off zipper but since I used the correct length zip, I just left it. Plus I like it!

This is the inside and very hard to photograph. But that pocket is huge! If it wasn't divided, it could fit an iPad easily.

Outside zipper pocket which is handy for things you want easy access to.

There are a couple of things I would do differently next time. Like add handbag feet to protect the base. Mine is already dirty. :( But since I have to unpick it cos my front zipper pocket has come adrift, maybe I'll add them.


Onto the second item. When it was cool on Australia Day, I jumped at the chance to sew. And this is what I made. It's also by Dog Under My Desk and is the Get Carded bag. I made this for my DD. She has, funnily enough, a similar wallet by Vera Bradley. Cough. And she requested this fabric which is also VB. Double cough. Anyway, it's turned out FABULOUSLY! I even impressed myself with this one.

One side has a zipper gathered pocket and the other has a clear plastic ID pocket. Very handy for Opal cards etc.

This is the gathered zipper pocket. There are also options to have a normal zip pocket or a pleated pocket and a normal pocket to replace the ID pocket.

And of course, the inside. Erin uses velcro for the closure but I hate velcro. It nearly always dies a terrible death before the bag does. So I used a magnetic snap. Yes, I know...people say they wipe your credit cards but we shall take the risk.

In other news, I have decided to keep a running total of my fabric purchases for the year. Ergh...this may have been a mistake cos of 31 January I have bought 27.65m!!! Although I have to admit, a couple of pieces are specifically for the Travel Wardrobe contest on PR. But still. So this morning I did a quick purge from two of my plastic boxes in the sewing room and removed 6.5m to donate to Crowle Home. Feeling a bit better about that! But there is definitely more that can be donated so I'll be going through boxes as I feel the urge.

Last post of 2014

Time to do my traditional end-of-year wrap up. I keep a running tally down the sidebar of my blog of all the things I've sewn during the year. This year was reasonably productive but I always think I could do more. I've been working for Australia Post again this year starting from 26 October so haven't had as much time as I would've liked. It really makes me appreciate the time I have at home so a New Year's resolution is not to take this time for granted. I really admire all of you who work full-time and still manage to sew at night, in the early morning and the weekend. I don't think I could.

Anyway....onto my last project for the year (actually there is one more but it's a gift for a friend and I'm not sure that she doesn't read this blog). This was a gift for my great-niece - well actually she is my husband's nephew's daughter but close enough. I originally was going to make a totally different pattern but it was too much like hard work/effort so I decided to re-use the Vogue pattern that I made out of the leather.

The only differences from the leather version were (well, apart from the construction techniques!) the twist lock and the straps with O rings.

Vogue 8867 View C

Fabric from The Remnant Warehouse

Lining with pocket and my label

Strap attachment

Closeup of the twist lock

This year I made 7 bags (one being the friend's gift as above) culminating in 2nd prize in the PR Handbag contest. I also entered the Australian Sewing Guild Convention Challenge in the Convention Collection category (lots of Cs there!). I didn't win but I had a lot of fun, well most of the time anyway, making my wardrobe of clothes. I love planning stuff like that and I ended up with some new tops and pants which work well with all my other bits.

Here is my collage of finished items for the year.

To finish, here are some of my goals for 2015.

• Stop procrastinating!
• Make the most of my sewing time.
• Finish off some UFOs that I've just found in my sewing room (chocolate brown jeans I'm looking at YOU!)
• Master pants fitting - if I could only pick one goal, this would be the one

Happy New Year and see you on the other side!

Bridesmaid yet again!

I suppose now it's all done & dusted, I should show you the handbag I made for the Pattern Review Handbag Contest. Maybe I should've done this earlier and got some more votes! LOL. I came second in the contest but only by two votes.

I've had this faux croc patent red goat leather since the 2011 (or was it 2012?) Aussie PR weekend. We visited NSW leather where I picked this baby up for around $13. Such a bargain! Anyway, it's been sitting in my stash just waiting for the opportunity to be made into something wonderful.

As the goat skin was quite small, I couldn't really make anything big out of it so this bag was ideal. The pattern is Vogue 8867 which is apparently now OOP. I originally wanted to make View C but ended up with a slightly modified version of View B with the shorter flap. I couldn't get all the pieces for View C out of my leather.

A more detailed review is on PR....I described there how I sewed, taped & glued various seams and also how I sourced and attached the gorgeous little push lock. But I will show you a couple of pics.

The first one is modelled by my daughter in a similar pose to the pattern envelope.

 It was really hard to get a decent shot of the bag - flash, no flash, close up, far away - they all came out like this! Eventually had to go outside & use natural light.

Closeup of the gorgeous little push lock

Side view

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!

Nicole Mallalieu Beauty Case

I got this pattern from Homespun magazine ages ago...bought it especially for this bag. He he. Of course, now Nicole has brought it out as part of her range of patterns. Had I know this would happen, I would've held off cos there were a few problems with the magazine version that I'm pretty sure wouldn't be in Nicole's real one.

Vera Bradley make an almost identical bag to this which I wanted but then remembered I had this pattern so decided to make it myself.

I'm really happy with how this has turned out even with all the problems. Luckily they were problems that could be fixed such as one piece being cut too big or not enough bias pieces to bind 2 different seams. Luckily also I had enough fabric to make more bias but of course I could've used something else.

I did change the fabric for the handle due to fabric limitations. It's supposed to be the lime colour rather than the black print. My fabric is, of course, Vera Bradley. And I've got none of this one left. Sniff. It's a really pretty print with the splashes of lime but they are rather few & far between hence this bag doesn't have any on the front. The bottom is a different story.

Rather blurry view of the inside.

Close up of the back hinge and my label.

Close up of the handle & ring.

Closeup of the lid pocket. If I made this again, I wouldn't divide this pocket as it makes them rather small. I'd also consider using a contrast here.

This shot shows how the lid opens.

Closeup on the inside wall pockets.

View of the lid.

Closeup of my fancy zippers. This pattern calls for one zip that goes all the way around. In my best Vera Bradley knock off sewing, I wanted two zipper pulls so used 2 zippers. While a bit tricky, it's worked well. Luckily I've made lots of Nicole's zipper coin purses so knew what to do with the end bits. My zippers are from The Remnant Warehouse and are silver satin with metal teeth and fancy pulls. I love them!

Mother's wristlet

I finally sat down at the sewing machine long enough to finish this. Not that it took long - I just couldn't get into it. Onto the pics.

The bag is made using Nicole Mallalieu's makeup bag pattern. The only thing I did differently to the pattern was the addition of the D ring in the side seam to attach a lanyard. Mother can fit all her necessary items in it for the cruise and can swan around without a huge bulky bag. 

Here's a close-up of the lining fabric:

 

And a close-up of the D-ring & lanyard:

Lisa Lam's book - A Bag for All Reasons

Just before I left for Convention, I ordered Lisa Lam's latest book from Amazon. It arrived last week and I couldn't wait to try out her patterns.

So on the weekend I sewed up her Terrific Tri-Fold Wallet pattern.

Hmm...some of her instructions are...well...let's just say, she's NOT Nicole Mallalieu. Maybe I'm spoiled. But I managed to get through and here is the finished item.

A rather blurry photo of the inside.

And a closeup of the coin pouch.

I'm not 100% sure about the finished item. I think coins would fall out of that flap thing since there's nothing to secure it. But I'm very happy with the snap on the front which is from Snap Source. Love it!