Wednesday, January 21, 2009

My new skirt!

Green Floral Wrap Skirt 3


Green Floral Wrap Skirt 4


It has been fairly hot in Melbourne this week, so I decided to make myself a new skirt. Most of the ones in my wardrobe are getting a bit old, and I am sick of them! To tell you the truth, I drafted the pattern and cut out the pieces for this skirt during the last heatwave we had, but that is as far as I got. When I found out that the heat was on the way back, I worked quickly to finish this one off and managed to finish it in time for yesterday, which ended up being 40C.


Green Floral Wrap Skirt 1


I used this pattern from What Did She Do Today?. The pattern is fairly straightforward, I used the pieced version, but alternated my fabrics instead of using the same one all the way around. I had a tiny bit of trouble with the waistband, but that is probably because I am a newbie! I did find I had to add some more on to them and the ties still could have been longer in my opinion, but I will keep that in mind for next time. I love this skirt so much I already have plans to make another one using the butterfly and floral materials below. Can you believe I bought them on two completely different ocassions? They match so well it was like they were made for each other! I think on this one I am going to use the same fabric all around except for on the flap, like the pattern suggests, but we will see.


Material for my next skirt!


I've also made a little bit of progress on the Ragged Squares quilt that I have planned. I have cut out all the squares and 'randomly' assigned which squares are going together, but I haven't figured out where they are going in the overall scheme of things yet. But still, progress is good!


Squares Cut for Ragged Quilt

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Sew, You Made That?

It has taken me a while, but I have finally got my butt into gear and started a blog for my sewing and crafts. If there is ever a hobby I enjoy as much as cooking it would have to be sewing and crafts. There is something about creating something from raw materials that makes me very happy... and the little glow of warmth that comes when someone says, 'So you actually made this?', well... all you crafters and sewers out there know what I mean!



I don't make stuff nearly as much as I would like to, but at the moment I am feeling the sewing itch big time and so I thought there was no better time to start a new blog, especially as it is a new year. Hopefully this one stays active longer than my mail swap blog, but lets face it - taking photos of everything you send and recieve in the mail gets quite tedious! This blog will serve as a place for me to document the things I create and my progress on larger projects... which will hopefully spur me on to actually finish them!



I came across a simple quilt on Crazy Mom Quilts that doesn't involve much cutting and piecing, it is called the Ragged Squares Quilt. I am totally in love with it! Mostly because it is gorgeous and has a beautiful old style feel to it... but also because I haven't made a quilt since high school (and that one is still only a quilt top sitting somewhere in a cupboard) so I thought something simple that I can get finished in a reasonable amount of time would be good to start off with... So the other day I went out and bought a walking foot for my sewing machine (which was on sale for 20% off - woohoo!) and some material for my quilt...


Fabric for Ragged Squares Quilt



This was the first time I have tried to coordinate fabrics for a quilt completely by myself and I am quite happy with my efforts! I absolutely love purple and I was going to go with purple and green to match the colours in my room, but then I found a fabric with purple and blue in it (the 5th one down in the pile), so I decided to go with purple and blue instead. It all started with this retro style floral print that I loved (the lime green version of it was on sale, but not the purple that I wanted - boo!)...


Purple Retro Floral


...and I also fell head over heels for this one, the heart leaves and all the swirlyness remind me of a fairytale forest or something... beautiful! It's not the best photo though, the light pink pattern is in the same style as the darker and white patterns, it just got blurred in the photo...


Purple Enchanted Floral


I also bought a few cottons because they were on sale for $4 a metre... I don't know what I am going to do with the top 2 yet, but the green floral and the coordinating greens are going to be made into a skirt, quite possible this wrap-around one from What did she do today?... made into an adult size of course ;)


Sale Materials


That's all for now, I will be posting some pictures of my stash later this week...