English Rose

Jalisa looks like an English schoolgirl in this outfit - well, she is 1/4 English so I hope she gets away with it.

The patterns are from Ottobre (#301 Best Tees, #14 from 4/2007), the fabric care of some clothes found at Lifeline. These were whipped up in no time, especially as the hems were already done. The skirt has little pleats at the front and back and I will definetly be making lots more of these as they use up very little fabric and are so easy to do.

A playdate and some fab-ulous patterns

I looked after a little boy for a friend for a couple of hours yesterday. The boys had a lot of fun together.
And this is a couple of the patterns I picked up on my op shop crawl. I especially love the bottom right pattern. I am going to make up the jacket soon I think - it has be most gorgeous lines to it (there is a side panel and the sleeves are set in square).

Thank you to who ever was cleaning out their sewing book collection. I mananged to pick up Kwik Sew Sweatshirts Unlimited, a vintage lingere sewing book, a pattern drafting book, two machine embroidery books...there were other ones there that I had to leave, I had already blown the budget enough.

Oops, it's been awhile since I posted

So I took Jalisa to the park to get some action shots of her in her new pants and she goes on the slide and lands face first in the dirt. Here are her new cord pants, pink version. I used Ottobre 3/02 #14 and my only camplaint is they are a little baggy, more suitable for boys pants.
This is the purple version. Exactly the same fabric and pattern, this pair spent some time in a blue dye bath.

His and her leggings. This fabric was an op shop find.

Ottobre best tees is a great pattern. The rainbow tee has matching leggings. The purple fabric was from an op shop. I will decorate the white tee later when Mum's group has our craft day.

Ottobre curved raglan sleeve tee, from 2/2005. Blue has hand dyed by moi. I love this pattern, and there are several versions in this issue (the curved colour blocking looks great). The curve makes the sleeves only a tad more fiddly, but the results look great. I am undecided whether to leave this tee plain or decorate it.

Vintage linen dress

This fabric was a recent op shop find. I managed to get a bias cut skirt and a dress for Jalisa out of the 3m piece (though the skirt is sitting half finished in my WIP box).



I used my own basic bodice pattern. The skirt is between 2.5 and 3 times the bodice width - which makes it quite heavy and hard to gather, but the results look lovely. I added elastic to the straps so it can be slipped on. The photo is not the best - there must have been some dust on the lens, but since I have only 3 weeks til bub comes, I could not be bothered to organise to reshoot some photo (and have to drag Jalisa away from here new cubby.

Some pink for summer

Finally can show off one of Jalisa's summer outfits - I have been sewing quite a bit but until this morning, had not finished a complete outfit.

I adore these shirred tank tops (two others cut out at the moment, plus plans for others). I was inspired by a top from Ottobre (#11 from 3/2007) but since I had a pattern I had drafted myself, I just needed to shir in the same position as they did. Usually I shir most of the front or back but I quite like the gathered effect in the space between the shirring.
I picked up this vintage linen fabric while out op shopping in Boonah. My first thought was another summer dress for Jalisa, but since there is 3m I may make a skirt for me (bias cut and flared knee length).

For a while now, I have put off sewing a lot of things for me because I tell myself that I already have plenty of things to wear. But I have decided that it doesn't matter that I already have x amount of skirts or dresses or tops etc, if I have the time/opportunity to sew and the fabric on hand, I should be sewing for me as well as for my children. As long as the kids have enough clothes that fit, I will no longer excuse myself from sewing non-essential items for myself.

A little unusual

On my latest Op shop adventure, I found this fabric:

It is actually a minty green colour, is most certainly a cotton lycra knit and there was about 5 metres of it. It will be great to make into some clothes for bubba, but it is the most unusual printed knit I have seen in a while. Those are apparently pumpkims that the babies are in!

Marie Clair blouse

I love the simplicity of this blouse - it is #14 from Ottobre Winter 06. The fabric actually has marie clair embossed at regular intervals, though it did not show up in the picture. I used some mother of pearl buttons - they are my favourite. The pattern had a couple of really groovy techniques - the mitred corners are really cool.

Op shopping is such fun

Decided it was time to go and do some shopping after a 2 month forced "I am pregnant and feeling sick and tired" break. First we went to the baby store as it is moving and was having a sale. Picked up a toddler tourer, which I hope will be useful for out and about in the early times.

Next stop, Lifeline, where I spotted this delightful little sewing machine - I thought Jalisa might like to play on it while her Mummy is sewing! I also picked up this great little cash register for only $2, but that is for playgroup.

We also went across the road to the Hospice store. Got these patterns:

They also had a stack of fabrics, but I ended up with these.

The white is a pique, hopefully cotton, with "Marie Claire" kind of embossed in there. The grey pinstripe will be a winter tunic and I think I will make the check into a little kilt or dress for winter too.