Category: sewing

cambie, haul, sewaholic, sewing

Fabric haul! Cambie dress progress!

christinahopgood
Yesterday a friend from church emailed me saying she was going through her fabric and I should come over and take whatever I wanted!  It seems that she’s had a lifetime of sewing and doesn’t want to do it any more, and her children and grandchildren aren’t interested in sewing.  Of course I rushed over to have a look and I ended up with quite a large pile:
So let’s go through it!

Cotton – about 1 metre of this cute 70s print fabric.

Broderie anglaise

2 huge lengths of seersucker.  I really love the pattern on the left one – a pretty pale blue – and I love the deep forest green of the other.  What should I make with this?

These two bits of fabric were obviously bought at the same time with the intention of making some kind of contrasting garment.  Blue with green and white spots and green with blue and white spots!

Similar to above, these two also match – navy with white spots and white with navy spots!

I love this printed cotton – it’s a bit stiff though.  I’d like to make some kind of top or even dress.  Is it too busy for that?

This is a very big yardage of a very soft cottony silk fabric.  I’d love to make a blouse of this, it reminds me of the kind of thing my mum wore in the 70s.
“Federated Fashion Fabrics” – sounds very Australian to me.

This is a jazzy dark green polyester with geometric shapes and lines!  I’d love to make a full on dress out of this, it’d be amazing!  (“jazzy” chrissy? you sound like your nana)

More broderie anglaise, with a cute cameo on it.  Pity there’s only a tiny amount. 

This one still has the price tag so I guess it wasn’t used.  Cotton dot fabric in a peachy tan colour.

And lastly this enormous length of a floral linen fabric.  It’s huge!

There were a couple more that were too puny to show you.  What am I going to do with this??

 Also, here’s the progress on my Cambie dress.  I bought this lovely fabric from Lincraft which is a cotton-elastine blend.  I adore the print but I’m worried it’s a bit thick for this pattern. 

The shell of the dress is nearly done – I just need to sew in the zipper (which I suck at) and take it in a bit at the sides.
Isn’t the fabric gorgeous?  Unfortunately it marks, so whenever I have to unpick something I can see the white elastine showing.  I’m a bit upset about that since this fabric was really expensive – $22 per metre!  I really need to find some good online places to buy fabric.
CIT, life, sewing

My new courses at CIT!

christinahopgood
So this semester I’ve started two courses at CIT (Canberra Institute of Technology) as part of a Certificate IV in Clothing Production. Since I’m only doing it part time, two evenings a week, I’ll be doing my Cert4 for about three years!  Full time students finish in one year.  But I’ve got to pay the bills (which I now have, living in an actual rented house)!

The two courses I’m doing this term are Fibres and Fabrics, and Clothing Production 1.  We started three weeks ago now.

In our fibres course, we learn about different types of fabrics, what they are made of, and their qualities.  We also learn about the production of fibres and fabrics.  Last week we all had to present some research on any natural fibre of our choice (I chose cashmere), and it was really interesting.  That session was great because I got to learn about bamboo, angora, abaca, jute, hemp, ramie, mohair, and more.  I’d never even heard of abaca or ramie! I also learnt that just because something is from a “natural” source (plant or animal), does not mean it’s environmentally friendly or cruelty-free. Bamboo is a good example – it’s very renewable because it grows so fast and in such quantities, but to make soft delicate bamboo fabric they use harsh chemicals which are very damaging to the environment. The same is true for cotton.  And there was a lot of talk about cruelty to Merino sheep, which I had no idea about.  We need to think about where our clothing comes from if we want to be environmentally responsible.  It doesn’t just appear in the shop!  Does anyone remember that song from Sesame Street, Bert’s Blanket?  That’s what this class was like.


Also last week, we did some felting with unspun wool! I thought I’d put up a tutorial on how to do that when I’ve done some at home.  I don’t want to be a felter, because I don’t really like the results, but I’ll do some experiments and see if I can do something good.

In Clothing Production 1, we have been learning how to operate the big industrial sewing machines. We’ve only had two classes and the first was entirely talking about OH&S, like don’t put pins in your mouth, tie your hair back, etc. There were so many horror stories about people swallowing pins and getting scalped by the machines and it was scary!  This week we actually did some sewing – on practice sheets, but at least we got to do it!  The industrial machines are quite different from your home machine.  They do one thing – go in a straight line.  Fast.  They are SO fast!  The teacher gave the analogy of going from driving a Barina to driving a tank. They’re pure guts!  The sewing we did was all in straight lines to get used to the speed and how to stop without massively overshooting.  I think we’re doing practice stuff for a few weeks before we get to start on real fabric.

Otherwise in my life, I’ve started reading Overdressed, because I saw some other sewers talking about it on their blogs, and I have a (bad? good?) feeling that it’s going to drastically change my shopping habits!

And that’s what’s going on!  It’s also why I’m so crazy busy!  But I got some yarn in the mail today from Bendigo Woollen Mills (it feels so nice and smooth, it’s going to be so nice to knit with) and I’m going to start a new cardigan – because that’s what I like to make and wear!
sewing, skirt

ANOTHER Half-Circle Skirt!

christinahopgood
This is my THIRD half-circle skirt.  That makes one and a half circles, you guys!
My first one (includes instructions to make your own!)
My second one (with an elastic waist)
Pics!  Sorry for looking slouchy and sad, I was feeling a bit slouchy and sad.
Fabric: About 1.5 metres of tartan knit, I don’t know what the fibre is but it’s soft and warm.
Pattern: My own circle skirt pattern
Time to make: a couple of hours, if you don’t count when I had to rip the hem and do it again because it was SO AWFUL.

 The waistband was also cut on the circle.  I just followed a pattern instruction for how to put it together.

 The innards.
So here’s my question: Should I wear it with the tartan vertical (zip at the back) or diagonal (zip at the side)?  Here’s the diagonal view:

I think I prefer the diagonal view, but I might have to re-jig the zip a bit. Please tell me your thoughts!

dress, life, sewing

I have a (sewing) problem – Luck Be A Lady Dresses

christinahopgood
I admit that I have a problem. So far I have bought two versions of the beautiful Luck Be A Lady dress from Modcloth. I love them both to bits – they fit well, look great with or without tights and cardigans, are work appropriate, come with a cute belt, and have pockets. Pockets, you guys. I wear them ALL THE TIME. They are quite pricey, so I thought I was done.

The dress in ‘dots’, which I wear a lot to teach and work.  I love that it looks like an aboriginal dot painting.

The dress in ‘Blue Dots’, which is now totally sold out and gone.  This is more of a party dress, but super comfy and rad.

Then, recently, I went through my dresses to assess and downsize. I realised why a lot of my dresses don’t get much wear: they’re all made of patterned fabric, which makes it hard to pair with other patterned things. I need some solids! Enter the Luck Be A Lady Dresses in the original green colour and in Violet. Two beautiful jewel-toned dresses perfect for upcoming autumn and perfect for my wardrobe. I can just see myself bustling around in that gorgeous purple one with mustard tights and a ponytail…

Gorgeous, amirite?


And forest green!  Beautiful!

I decided to wait until I’d earned some money this year, since they didn’t look like they’d sell out and ANYHOW, Modcloth usually sends me an email before things on my wishlist sell out. I did a few hours work and earned $100, then sold a dress online, so I figured I could buy them.  I went online to do so!

VIOLET IS SOLD OUT.

Whaaaaat.  Modcloth, y u no email me? I don’t want to buy just one, because it’s expensive shipping and also, violet was the one I wanted MORE. Which brings me to!

CAN I SEW MY OWN?

I have looked on the McCall website (which has the patterns from McCall’s, Vogue, Butterick, and Kwik Sew) and couldn’t find anything like it with those lovely neck-pleats. The skirt part is easy enough without a pattern.  I’m going to keep looking. Imagine how great it would be to be able to make my own Luck be a lady dress in whatever colour I like! More like Christina be a lady. Dress.

So please fellow sewers, keep an eye out! I’m even considering unpicking one of my own to copy, and we don’t want that to happen!

Has this ever happened to you? What would you do in this situation?  Would you just buy the one in Autumn Plaid?

sewing

The Anna Skirt progress!

christinahopgood
Well, things are slowly settling down at my new place.  We now have two desks to work at, and both our instruments are in!  I’ve resumed work on some sewing projects.

Currently I’m making a skirt for my friend Anna (she lives in Melbourne so if it doesn’t fit when I sent it to her… bah, it WILL fit).  It’s a McCall’s pattern M5591 view A.

The fabric is some I bought from Spoonflower, which was an absolute pleasure to use!  For those of you who don’t know, on Spoonflower people can upload their own designs which can be printed on fabric.  There are thousands of designs to choose from, and if you don’t like any, just do one of your own!  This is the fabric we chose, it’s called Seedpods, but we thought it looked so much more like marimba mallets (she’s a percussionist like me)!

n.b. The fabric came in the mail beautifully wrapped and their business card is printed on a piece of fabric, you guys. So cute.


It turned out that the print was a bunch larger than I expected… These guys are the size of bass drum beaters, not marimba mallets!

Here’s my progress! Skirt part done, pleats and pockets all went very well.

Today I went out and bought some more thread and a matching zipper to finish.  I need to attach the waistband and hem it yet.  The hem is going to be huge.  I made a boo boo with the length! Like that bottom-most seed pod will most likely be folded over entirely. This is because in the pattern the bottom section is a contrasting fabric, with a giant hem.  I didn’t realise the hem was going to be giant when I cut T_T

The hold up has been my sewing machine situation.  I picked up an unwanted sewing machine that was by the side of the road.  At the time I had NO sewing machine, and thought “Something’s better than nothing!” and to be fair, it does work.  But.  It’s a Pfaff 1196, which I estimate is more than 30 years old.  It’s clunky.  So I’ve been avoiding sewing which is lame.  Also, I just got my desk.  So hopefully I’ll be able to finish this in the next few days!  Fingers crossed that the machine doesn’t clunk off its mortal coil.

In other news, damn it’s been hot. Anyone who doesn’t believe in climate change ought to come to Australia right now and tell it to our faces.  I can hardly remember a time when it’s been so hot for so many days.  We don’t have an air conditioner (only just cracked and bought an evaporative cooler) so it’s pretty uncomfortable here right now.  Not exactly weather for sitting at a sewing machine.  My day goes like this:
Get up -> Put on nice dress -> change into cooler daggy dress -> Try to do something useful -> too hot -> watch tennis with a cool drink.  I’ve also been getting into kids TV since it’s been on.  I’m a big fan of Horrible Histories and Good Game.  And the Aquabats Super Show, obvs.

Ok no more blogs for now bye!