The cutest kids dress I've ever made

Not that I've made that many (apologies to my nieces who are now definitely out of little girls dresses, but at least they got some...!)

It's a little cotton number with ric rac and applique details. I especially like the ric rac stems going into the pockets!

It's the simplest one I've made, in terms of shape, previous dresses have been modelled on 1950's party frocks with double skirts and whatever left over shiny fabric I had in my stash (which was great fun, but they aren't really everyday wear). I've also learnt from using those old patterns to widen the necklines greatly so that the child doesn't feel strangled (apparently in the 50's children had either tiny necks, or weren't actually allowed to play or move!)

A easy pearly snap back yoke opening, and to extend it's life, it's got deep armholes for wearing over winter longs, and possibly even might make a cute top, if the chicadee still wants to wear it when she gets bigger! I made the pattern, so hopefully the proportions are right!

I also need to get some shots of Xi's new shorts. They are not complicated, but hopefully I'll be able to find some time to make a bunch amidst all the dewallpapering!

Museum Project

So.....I've been busy. It's all been too hard/busy/brain overloading. Lots of things have happened that I was worrying about (including teeth after nearly two months of paaaaaaaaain) and an exhibition on short notice. I need to catch up on everything it seems!

I wrote in the last post about a collaborative project with the South Australian Museum. It's called SAM's place, and is a cool project which allows the artist/artists to go behind the scenes, talk to the scientists and curators, research the greater collection and respond to it with an exhibition that's held on site for two months (the research period is four months).

I proposed as part of a group with a jeweler/metalsmith/artist cool chickie Lauren Simeoni and my husband, who's a glassartist/cool ideas guy. I bring to the table textiley/sewing/printing skills (and enthusiasm).

We've put together a proposal which allows us to basically do anything we want, in terms of making and aesthetics, but that's also the problem - we wanted our fingers in every pie! It's kind of like a pass the parcel game, in terms of, someone makes something and then passes it on to the next artist to either add to any which way they want, or under direction.

I've been freaking a bit, because I really haven't been able to use my studio for any length of time, and I just didn't have much to show apart from a bunch of ideas and a sketchbook, which isn't really enough when you're working with others, and the greater organisations that are involved that want to know about your progress.

It had become a bit daunting, so thank goodness for crochet.

Fast

Simple

Don't need a space, elaborate set up time or much of anything, just some yarn and a hook.

These are just the start of a series of free-form crochet forms, not sure where they are going to end up yet, or how they will look after they've been passed on, but it's a start. And it felt good to finally be able to start.

A spot of emergency sewing

Well, another blind finished.

I'd had the top of this completed before christmas, just was delaying the actual putting together of it all, but when we came back from holidays, our neighbour had trimmed the tree adjoining our fences (which I was totally happy for him to do) and we discovered that our bedroom, which has the only window facing that direction, actually does get a lot of sun - it was just the tree making it dark and gloomy.

But dark and gloomy were perfect for settling a baby, so I needed to do something about it quick smart.

The fabric is cottons that my mother in law brought back for me from China (since I couldn't fit any in my luggage). The cotton is a really nice weight, not quite as heavy as a drill, but just nice and sturdy and soft to boot. The shop assistants thought it was pretty funny that we were interested in it, because apparently it's the standard material and patterns for waitress' and shop uniforms.

Happy Birthday Mum, sorry it took so long.

This is a cross stitch that I started for my mother in 1996. Yes, that's right, 1996. She bought the pattern book, materials and notions because I promised her I'd do it for her. I've had it with me for the last couple of years, and have thought about dragging it out and finishing it for numerous birthdays and christmas' but to no avail.

This is me two weeks into the project, more than a month ago. Yes, you might wonder how long does it bloody take you to do a few leaves and flowers and the answer is -almost everynight for six weeks, or 13 years, depending on your maths.

I am a maker, but I am a one step removed maker. I am a printer rather than a painter, a drafter rather than a draper (in terms of patternmaking) and a machine sewer rather than a handsewer (same goes for knitting and embroidery). I love buttons, but don't like sewing them on. So that lack of patience, coupled with the fact that I had to figure out where I was up to when I stopped it all that time ago and figure out what mistakes I'd made, well, it was slow going.

But here is the finished piece: I started taking a bit of license at the end. I omitted the wheat stalks (since she picked it for the poppies and not the wheat) and added a bee character that I'd always drawn and printed on things for a bit of a personal touch. The actual finished piece is something like 15cm x 25cm.........like I said, not very impressive, but I finished it, and now am waiting to hear from mum to see if she even remembers it from all those years ago!

I also took the liberty of posting the pattern book of wildflowers to my Aunty Kathy, who I know has produced cross stitch before and also to save me from that crazy temptation in case I one day think, 'that wasn't too bad........ I could do another'

Yay! It's up!

Here is the roman blind/window blanket that I finished during the sewing day with darkcloud - only a little delay and it's up and usable! yay! Another project finished that got started oh so long ago!

It's funny, you'd think it'd be overwhelming and make your eyes hurt with the optical nature of the stripes mismatched into squares, but it kinda just blends in with the rest of the decor (which says something about our house)

Here it is half up, showing the lovely view of the lane between our house and our neighbours. We have been encouraging ivy to grow along the fence line, it's just not up to that point yet.

A backlit view, the internal work isn't as bad as I thought it'd be..............lucky!

saturday sewing (another view)

Darkcloud got this up first, but then she's all about the organisation :)

This was such a fun day - I hadn't had a sewing day with her since November (way too long ago) and I really needed the company to have the strength to finish this project!

I was putting together an insulated roman blind for the living room window. I had the top finished earlier in this year, but I actually started it.....in 2003. I feel pretty sheepish about that. It was originally going to be a doona cover, so was going to be queen sized. A couple of things hampered the project, one, I cut all the triangles out without adding seam allowance on them, so instead of the three different sized squares forming perfect bigger rectangles....it was a hodge podge. I didn't realise this until I had cut hundreds of triangles and sewn together most of them into squares. That disheartened me enough to put it away for a couple of years. In my defence, it was quite a while ago, and I definitely put seam allowance on everything now!

It was from a Kaffe Fasset pattern, I can't remember which book, but mine actually is louder than his - if that's possible (if you know his work, you'll be amazed).

Another thing that stopped the project from finishing, is that I realised, well, it's fabric that has a white background, and if it's a doona cover, it will basically get really dirty and muddy looking really fast (on account of sootcovered glassblowing husband). So I needed to find a place for it where it wouldn't get feet on it - a window!

Hopefully it'll be up by next weekend *fingers crossed*.

Oh, and the insulation is a pure wool blanket I picked up from an op shop for $1!

Student work

So as well as making clothes for people, I also do a bit of teaching. I currently have 2 students, a 10 year old and a 15 year old. It's been good practice getting used to being around kids again. Interesting and a bit daunting at times!

So this is M's work, she's been learning how to use her machine, and how to patternmake her creatures and generally learn how to sew so things will stay together. She's been making these really cool monster toys, and my project for her was to design one as a bag.

Here it is! It's got an appliqued face, and stuffed legs that dangle. There is an inside zip pocket (for those treasures that can't be lost) and also an elasticated pouch pocket that will fit lots of things, but we've been talking about how many apples it'll carry.

I quickly designed this bag to be quite a simple project that you can adapt really easily (and add lots of things on) and M decided to make it bigger, so we scaled it up, but I'm thinking I might make a couple smaller ones out of my knitting samples and see how that goes.