Sneaky Peeks and a Skinny Stash

You may not know this, but one of my favourite pattern designers, Nikki (Nicole Mallalieu of You Sew, Girl!), has a new book coming out really soon. This will be her second book. Yes, she is THAT good. I did some pattern testing for the book last year, and I am not sure if I am able to show the full, finished bags, but above and below are some sneaky peeks for you (shh!).


The book is called The Better Bag Maker and from the small amount that I have seen, it will be jam-packed full of snazzy tricks to get a great finish to make beautiful hand-made (as opposed to "home-made") bags. It doesn't get released until May, but you can pre-order it now at a lower price from Fishpond* or from Amazon and I am sure, many other great retailers. I will try and remember to come back and show some photos of the full finished bags once the book has been released, if I can tear myself away from it long enough to make a blog post.


To create these wonderful bags, I used at least 12 FQs of fabric. I had to estimate as I didn't keep track, and sometimes fabric can get hidden inside pockets and these bags had plenty of pockets! Since these were made last year, they contribute to the SYST challenge. I also used approximately 3 FQs to make Amélie's Gingham Puppet Show Shorts. In addition to this, I gave away approximately 8 FQs of pale pink fleecy to my mum so she could make some things for my niece. It had been sitting in my stash for a while and I don't really do pastel colours. My friend, Amy (Badskirt) gave me some a metre of crazy fish fabric as well, so that adds 4 FQs back into the stash.



MY FINAL SYST 13 RESULTS!:
in = 144, out = 293, total = -149

In conclusion, I used more than double the fabric to what was added to my collection. My stash is over 35m of fabric thinner than it was 12 months ago. Whilst the totals weren't mega-huge, a lot of rather small things were made. A lot of what was added to my stash was given to me too, so my over-all spend was really quite low. I am really happy with the results, but it might be a while before I pay so much close attention to how much fabric I am using/stashing. I think I would rather just get down to it and sew, sew, sew!

My goal for this year is to sew more things for myself, at least one item a month, which I am keeping to so far, but that is another blog post!

Woodland Sailor Shorts

I made these CUTE shorts for Amélie, back at the end of November. The fabric is Woodland Fairies by Natalie Lymer of Cinderberry Stitches for Lecien. I have had this in my stash for a little while, waiting for the right project to come along and here it is. The pattern I used is the Sailor Shorts pattern from the Peek-a-boo Pattern Shop on Etsy. If you've never shopped on Etsy before, you can use this link to get $5 off your first purchase. In the interests of full disclosure, if two people use this link, I also get $10 off my next Etsy purchase. You must be new to Etsy for the link to work.

If you are making these shorts, I would recommend going up a size to usual, especially if your child is still in nappies. Amélie is not wearing a nappy in these pictures, but when she was wearing one, it poked out the top at the back. I am not sure if the "T" in the sizes actually means they are sized for a nappy or not, but Amélie still wears mostly size two pants, and these were very snug with the nappy on.


I feel that the construction of the band across the front (the short waistband) was more complicated than necessary. The seam allowances are all encased, which means there is more bulk than necessary in those edges that are just going to be covered with bias binding anyway. A pattern piece with the curved edges and button holes marked would be preferable to instructions where you cut a rectangle and add the curves yourself. If the top edge was open, rather than folded, there would be no messing about with trying to catch an edge in your topstitching. Much quicker, less bulk and no curve clipping (not that there is any mention of curve-clipping!). I would also suggest some interfacing be applied to this waistband, especially since there are button-holes. In addition to this, some dots to indicate the position of buttons on the front would be nice as would notches in some of the seams.


Having said all of that, these really are a cute little pair of shorts and it was still a pretty good pattern with great instructions and clear photos at each step. I would still recommend this pattern and I am sure to buy more from this designer. I did an extra little alteration myself, by adding adjustable buttonhole elastic to the waistband. Instead of stopping at the side seams (the elastic in the pattern only goes across the back), I put some buttonholes in the ends of the long waistband (hidden behind the front, short waistband) and threaded the elastic right the way around, making the shorts adjustable. I did this mainly because I was making size three and thought they might need to be adjusted tighter for Amélie.

If you want to make these shorts, and you haven't used bias binding before, the picot edged bias is really easy to use. The picot edge keeps that fold in the middle, so catching the edge of the bias on the back when you topstitch on the front is far easier than with regular bias, particularly around the curves.

Oh, I nearly forgot to mention the t-shirt she is wearing! It was a $2 plain t-shirt from K-Mart that I appliquéd with a heart shape from my scraps using a little Steam a Seam, some cut away on the back and a machine blanket stitch. It only took me a few minutes and now she has a cute t-shirt to match her shorts.


I used about half a metre of fabric to make these shorts, so two fat quarters of fabric, SYST13 Running totals: in = 140, out = 270, total = -130

Have you ever purchased a pattern from Etsy? Any you recommend?

Amélie's Butterfly Curtains

This is a way overdue blog post. I made these curtains for Amélie's room a couple of months ago, right before I headed off to Ballarat for Crafty Hijinks, and yes, there is a little girl asleep in her bed in the above photograph.

The last set of curtains I made was for our master bedroom, and the fabric was rubber backed, so really easy to put together. I really liked this fabric from Spotlight, but not being rubber backed, it needed to be lined. This added an extra level of complication to the job, which had me procrastinating for months. And then for some reason it took me a couple more months to get around to blogging them. I was really tempted to not line them, but am glad I did now, as I think they will really help block the hot afternoon sun over the summer, as well as keep her room warmer in winter.


The major difference between these curtains and the last set was the hemming. For the first set, I made up the curtains, hung them and then pinned the hem before sewing it. With this set, I did the hem first, sewed the curtains and lining together, added the pinch pleat tape at the top and then hung them. This was because there was a main hem and a lining hem and both layers were joined at the sides, so hemming last would have been tricky.

Getting the pattern to match across the seams was also a factor in these curtains, I never bothered with the first set, but it was more important with the coloured pattern. I do really need to get a more solid curtain rod, as this one sags in the middle.


Including the lining, I used approximately 106 Fat Quarters making these curtains.
SYST13 Running totals: in = 107, out = 253, total = -146

Home is Where the Heart is

My youngest brother, Allister married his beautiful Tahnee a couple of weeks ago. The setting was beneath some gum trees, on his farm, close to where we grew up. There were paper lanterns hanging from the trees, rose petals on the ground, and the reception was in a beautifully decorated farm-shed. The day was perfect and the location was ideal.


For the three weeks leading up to the wedding I was crazily making this quilt. The fabric is Road Fifteen, by Sweetwater for Moda Fabrics. The fabric features cute little houses and trees as well as roads and street names. A fat eighth bundle was given to me as a gift from the lovely Jodie of Ric-Rac, and I purchased some extra for the backing and the binding - I also used some of the backing fabric on the top.


The pattern is called Starry Terrain, by Jo Kramer and I found it on Moda Bakeshop. The original pattern is 8 squares wide by 8 squares long. I went for 5 x 5 squares. This made the quilt about 60 inches, or roughly 150cm square. I would have loved to have made it bigger, but this size worked for the amount of fabric I had and I had my doubts about being able to get a 240cm quilt under my machine to quilt it. The backing is pieced together with some squares and half-square triangles made up from leftover scraps from some of the blocks.


I used some variegated Sulky thread from Gütermann to quilt it, and went with an all-over stipple. I originally started with some feathers, but it really did not suit the quilt or the thread, so I unpicked it and started again. The un-picking took ages, longer than I spent hand stitching down the binding.


I printed the label onto some Matilda's Own Ink-jet printable fabric, which I blanket stitched to some left-over matching fabric as a border and then blanket stitched to the quilt. I spent quite a lot of time trying to come up with something profound to put on the label, about making a home together (to go with all the little houses) and then just went with "Home is where the heart is" and hopefully, home will be where this quilt is.



As for the Sew Your Stash Thin challenge, I used approximately 36 fat quarters making this quilt.
SYST13 Running totals: in = 107, out = 147, total = -40

Nani Iro gets a New Look

I originally purchased this Nani Iro double gauze to make the Oliver + S Jump Rope Dress, but changed my mind. I had ordered 150cm from Ballarat Patchwork (closing down in 4 days, 50% off all stock, get in fast!), but it turned out that there wasn't a full length available. I ended up with one length of about 1m and another length of about 115cm, meaning I had over 2m instead of the 150cm I had ordered. Since I had that much extra, I decided to make something for myself instead.


I have had the New Look 6891 pattern sitting in my stash for awhile, waiting for the right fabric, and decided that the Nani Iro would be perfect. Whilst this top is "growing on me", I kind of wish I had done a toile first. I chose the pattern size to match my bust measurements, but the model on the pattern is obviously wearing a couple of sizes larger than the size recommended; there appears to be more pattern ease than there really is. Had I done a toile, I would have made it a size or two larger.


The neckline is also quite wide. I need to add some little bra clips to this top as it keeps sliding off the shoulder and won't stay on an ordinary coat hanger. I love the bound neckline, but if I were making another one of these with double gauze, I would cut the binding wider and use some starch as it was quite fiddly with fabric that frays so easily. The rest of the top was a cinch to put together though, and I love the sleeve detail, and the little button at the centre front. The gathers around the bustline are also nice.


The pattern had a weird cutting layout, where you cut the whole piece in half and lay one half over the other. This suited me alright as I had those two pieces of fabric. There is a seam down the centre front and down the centre back, so no pieces are cut on the fold. It would make it really difficult to match patterns but I wasn't concerned with this fabric as it had a kind of randomness to the dots anyway. Whilst the pattern recommends woven fabrics, I am tempted to give this one a try with a stretch fabric as well - I love, love LOVE the double gauze, it is beautiful and floaty - perfect for a sunny spring day.


For this pattern, I used eight fat quarters.
SYST13 Running totals: in = 107, out = 103, total = +4

Crafty Hijinks

Last Weekend I got up to some Hijinks. Crafty Hijinks in Ballarat. The day was organised by Jodie and Gillian of Ric-Rac and Silly Gilly. If you are not familiar with their blogs you should go and check them out now. I promise I will wait here for you. If you decide to come back, that is.

Ballarat is not just a hop, skip and a jump from here, so when I first saw that the Hijinks was happening, I dismissed it as being unfeasible. But the idea was niggling away at me. You see, I really, REALLY wanted to go. When I eventually checked the train timetables, I could see that it could be done. So I got on it and booked myself a place at Crafty Hijinks, ignoring the fact that this would see me using/waiting for public transport for almost eight hours. I just told myself it would be worth it.


I left home at a ridiculous hour and upon arrival in Ballarat, I was met by Annie Flowergarden and Little Red Hen (Jan). You should go and check out their blogs too, they are lovely, lovely ladies. Annie and Jan were entrusted with picking up the 50 scones for morning tea. Ah yes, we'll have three coffees and fifty scones please :) Haha. And then we set off for Hijinks.

Everyone got a little "sample bag" at the Hijinks, it contained all sorts of little samples, some of which you can see here.


Everyone who attended received a door prize. Rebecca's and Cathie's daughters were barrel girls and drew tickets out of the barrel. We all had a number on the back of our name badges. When the girls drew out number 40, I won this awesome pack of Cosmo embroidery threads from Gum Valley Patchwork.


In addition to sample bags and door prizes, there was also a raffle. Tickets were only $1 each and the proceeds went to charity. There were seven prizes in total. Each prize had a bucket in front of it and we could choose which buckets our tickets went into. I put most of my tickets into the bucket in front of the lightbox and was very, very excited when my ticket was drawn out!


Another thing we did was have a take what you want table. Everyone brought stash items that they no longer wanted. I filled a suitcase with fabric from home. I was really good and only grabbed this small piece of fabric to take home with me. Some of the fabric I took is going to be used to make a rag rug. It will be interesting to see if any of the fabric I took shows up transformed on someone else's blog someday.


The best part of Crafty Hijinks was catching up with all the fabulous bloggers. Some I had met before, and others who I hadn't met before, but felt like I already knew...


Rachel from Four Wise Monkeys



Lara from Thornberry and Karen from And So, I Sew



Brianna from Rolling in Fabric and Cathie from Melbourne Epicure.



Rebecca from Beccasaurus - Rebecca held a little hexagon workshop. Speaking of workshops, Jodie also did a rag-rug workshop at some stage, which I totally missed, and also Wendy of Harty Little Peaces did a bit of a workshop on colour theory.

It was nice at the end of the day to grab a lift back to Melbourne with Nikki of You Sew Girl. Thank you Nikki, I enjoyed talking with you. Thank you to Jodie and Gilly for organising the whole shebang and also, thanks to Annie and Jan for getting me from the train station to the Hijinks. And a really big thank you to all the businesses who donated items for the door prizes, raffles and goody bags - especially those prizes that I won! Thank you to those that ran workshops and thank you just to everyone who came because it wouldn't have been that much fun without you all. It was an awesome day and I have only just recovered from it.



The end result of my massive donation to the take what you want table is that I reduced my stash by 148 fat quarters. There was more fabric than that, but some of what I took was from a bag of stuff someone recently gave me. I will take that off my "fabric in" total rather than adding it to my fabric out, since I donated it, rather than sewing it.

SYST13 Running totals: in = 107, out = 95, total = +12

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

So, about that "Sew Your Stash Thin" thing I am doing...

It's not going that well, since the object of the exercise is to REDUCE the size of my stash, not increase it. But you know what? It's a win-win thing. If the fabric stash is getting bigger because of fabric as lovely as all this, then it can't be that bad, can it?

The fabric above was given to me by Jodie of Ric-Rac for helping her out with some pattern testing earlier in the year. It's a F8 pack which is the equivalent of 21 fat quarters.... I have decided to make a very special quilt using the fabric, and have ordered another 22 FQs which should hopefully arrive this week. Hey, you have to buy fabric to use fabric, right??

A couple of weeks ago, I was at Spotlight and happened to find this lovely drill fabric with the map of the world on it. Ok, I will admit, I heard about it from somewhere and I was at Spotlight during their 40%-off-sale actively seeking this fabric out. I had vouchers for my birthday and one of those scratchy things and I was really good and it was the only fabric I bought unless you want to count the sheer curtain fabric that I shortened and hung the very next day (so if we were to count it as in, we can count it as out as well, but I won't count it, because there wasn't really that much sewing involved). The boys are really into maps and flags and things like that at the moment, and I have a plan, so it's all good. The drill is craft width and I got two 60cm panels, so I would say that is about five FQs.

I had a little extra money after tax time and decided to treat myself to some delicious knit fabrics from Crafty Mamas Fabrics. This is what has come so far, but there is more on it's way soon. I love those Lillestoff Pirates! There is roughly the equivalent of twelve FQs in the image above, and I still have another six on their way to me.

I did some top secret pattern testing recently and received some of this gorgeous Hello Tokyo fabric from The Red Thread and some patterns as a thank you. The total amount of fabric I received was about five FQs. I promise I will tell you about the pattern I tested as soon as I can. You will love, love, LOVE it!

I also had a little spending spree in my cousin's shop Two Blue Birdies, along with some delicious felt*, some Heat'n'bond iron on vinyl and a bunch of brightly coloured zippers, I grabbed half a metre of each of these moustaches and glasses, adding a further 4 FQs to my stash. Yep, that's right, I now have stashes in my stash!

So, in summary, I have added an incredible 75 Fat Quarters to my stash in a very, very short period of time. Luckily, I have a few secret projects up my sleeve that I also haven't talked about - but that is worthy of another blog post (or several).

SYST13 Running totals: in = 255, out = 95, total = +160

*I am not counting felt in my SYST count as I am not trying to reduce my felt stash - it is under good control and fits in it's designated box.

Do you have a fabric addiction? Anything to confess???

Super Jak

Another weekend, another birthday party. This time it was for Noah's friend, Jak. We hope Jak is super-pleased with his super-Jak cape, with his own personalised logo on it.


This one I made on the morning of the birthday party. Whew! Talk about last minute! I went through my stash and I was unable to find any suitable fabric, so I had to head out to buy some.


This does not bode well for my SYST13 Challenge. I used up 4 FQs, but I also bought 4!
SYST13 Running totals: in = 180, out = 70, total = +110

Lantern Bloom Belle

After I finished my super hero cape, I got stuck into testing the Belle pattern for Nicole Mallalieu of You Sew, Girl! It is one of her earlier patterns, but it has now been re-mastered into a digital download. Nikki has updated her pattern with new techniques that she has improved over the past few years.

I surprised myself with this pattern, managing to complete the entire bag in one day. Usually, after one day, I have a bag cut out and the interfacing fused; so this is quite an achievement for me.

As Nikki says in her blog post, the Belle is the perfect size for a little bit of knitting. Of course, you would need to be using circular needles to be able to fit them in the bag.

If you make the straps from the pattern, rather than using purchased bag handles, they are the perfect size for popping over your wrist and knitting away. So you could knit standing up, or on the train without having to worry about your ball of yarn rolling away.

I used Laura Gunn Lantern Bloom fabric for the exterior, and the lining is Dogwood stripe from the Poppy Collection. I love the way some of the blooms magically joined at the seams, I have used this fabric before, to make my Teardrop Purse.

The best part is that the Belle is digital, so you can download the pattern and get started right away!

For this project I used fabric only from my stash.
SYST13 Running totals: in = 176, out = 66, total = +110

Super Alex

Right after I finished my turtle hottie and posted him off, I got stuck into this super-hero cape for Noah's little friend Alex from kindergarten. Alex turned five and had a scooter party at the local skate rink on the weekend. All those little kids looked so cute on their scooters (and their little brothers and sisters on their push-along bikes were pretty cute too).


I made this cape a little longer than Liam's and Noah's as I saw Amélie running about with one on the other day and it made me realise how much taller the kids have gotten since I made theirs. The super-logo A on the back I designed especially for Alex. I hope he enjoys it. The capes I made for my boys still get heaps of use and I'm pretty sure my nephews like theirs.

For this project, I used four fat quarters of fabric.
SYST13 Running totals: in = 176, out = 63, total = +113

Turtle Hottie

I would like to introduce you to my little turtle friend that I made for the 2013 Hottie Challenge. Except he doesn't have a name. If we gave him a name, he might not have been allowed to leave. Noah was a bit sad to hear that he couldn't stick around, but I told him that he was going to help some people with sick lungs and hearts to get better. I may have to make a special turtle, just for Noah.


My turtle is on his way to Open Drawer to be sold to raise funds for the Margaret Pratt Foundation, who fund research to give donor-organ recipients better outcomes. He is part of a group of hotties (hot water bottle covers) that was organised by Curly Pops, who herself is a recent recipient of a lung transplant.


Open Drawer will holding an exhibition in their gallery, where all the hotties will be displayed. The exhibition will be held from the 5th to the 28th of July, with the Gala Opening on Sunday, July 7 from 2-4pm. Open Drawer is situated at 1158 Toorak Road, Camberwell (Hartwell). During the exhibition, people will have the opportunity to purchase a hottie, or make a donation on behalf of their favourites. The hottie that raises the most funds wins a trophy.


If you can make it to Open Drawer, it is well worth seeing all the different interpretations that everybody had. I really enjoyed visiting last time. If you can't make it to the gallery, but would still like to see some hotties, you can check out #hottiechallenge2013 on instagram.


I wonder if someone will want to buy my turtle and take him home? What do you think we should name him?



For my turtle hottie, I used about 5FQs. This included some that got trashed, testing out ideas to see what would work.
SYST13 Running totals: in = 176, out = 53, total = +113