Burda 02-2008-117 and other ramblings.

Thankyou ladies for all your suggestions. You had some great ideas. I love Belinda's suggestion to add a band and topstitch that. And I hear you when you say that the topstitching will be lost in the check. I was thinking I needed the topstitching to give the same silhouette and body to the style. Perhaps I may not need that either as my fabric does have a fair amount of body and may stick out on its own accord.

Tonight I have been tracing out the pattern but have run out of tracing paper! So when I get some more tomorrow, I will see if I can straighten the hem to line up with the checks and then ponder from there. Hopefully I can get as far as cutting out tomorrow. I am sure it will take my most of the day to work out what I am doing and to place and cut carefully - lots of matching to do. Then I may even thread trace. No plans for a muslin at this stage. I will compare the shoulders and lengths with my sloper. The width I think will be forgiving.

This is my first sewing project for the year. I have not been sewing. We put our house on the market and after much cleaning and preparation it was sold the third week on the market. The girls and I have also bought a new townhouse that is just 2 klms down the road. We move in early July. Unfortunately the new home does not have a spare room for me to use for sewing but there is a small sitting area at the top of the stairs that I have called mine!

Other news is that Ellen has started a Bachelor of Film and Television at Swinburne University. Miss smarty pants won a scholarship and will have all her tuition paid!!

Sofie is in year 10 at school and is studying (amongst other subjects) VCE Studio Arts/Textiles. So far she has done felting, screen printing, silk dying, transfer printing, solvent transfers, shibori, tie dye, lino printing and mono printing! She is really enjoying it. She also has made a couple of bags for friends for birthday presents.

Here they are sitting in front of their gift bags. She used fabric remnants.
Inside view. She made the label from fabric and embroidered on the words. She did have sewing help from me but the choice of fabrics and trims and the design of the bag were all hers. (I had better keep an eye on my stash..lol)

Finally I want to thank Paco and LindsayT for nominating me for for the sisterhood award. It is greatly appreciated and made me feel special when I have been so stressed and completely unable to sew or be motivated in general..sigh.

Advice needed...please

I was planning to make this coat:



with this fabric:






But the bottom of the coat is curved and the fabric has checks (obvious straight lines). I was thinking the topstitching would be easy along the lines but alas it would be curved. How would this look? Wrong? What if I cut it on the bias? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Fire update

Just dropping t0 let you know we are all fine! Well, as best you can be under the circumstances. I think all of Melbourne is in a state of shock and disbelief. We have had bushfires before but nothing of this magnitude or ferocity.

On Saturday it was so hot. It reached 46c - our highest ever recorded temperature. A scorching hot northerly gusterly was blowing. Perfect conditions for a bushfire. By lunch time the girls and I went off to Doncaster Shopping Town - an airconditioned shopping centre - to escape the heat.

When the shops closed at 5.30 we went outside to see if the predicted cool change had come yet. No. It was so hot we just about passed out just stepping outside. There was no way we were going anywhere! So back in we went and had some dinner and saw a movie. Normally from the food court you can see the city of Melbourne but on Saturday all sight was lost to dust and I presume smoke. We went home at 9.30 but still were not aware of what was going on so close to home. It wasn't until Sunday did we realise the devastation that took place. Many of the fires were at the fringe of Melbourne's suburbs - probably only 30kms "as the crow flies" from our place. Thank God the change came and the wind turned from being hot and northerly to cooler and southerly. We live on a bush block and are aware of the dangers that can present when the weather is hot and windy.

Many of the fires are still burning and at the moment do not pose a high threat. But lets pray that the weather stays cool so that they do not flare up again.

You can read more about the bushfires on Wikipedia. Or on many other sites if you google Victorian Bushfires.

If you want to help, you can make a donation to the Australian Red Cross.

Astratex sale

Astatex is having its half price sale from today to 15th February. Lots of European fabrics half the usual price. Well I did my bit to spend Ruddy's bonuses with the following:

Cottons for $10 a metre - were originally $32 per metre. I so need some summer clothes to beat this heat. But unfortunately it is too hot to sew!!

And I bought this (supposedly) silk fabric. Black and white checks with Burgundy/wine flowers. It is a taffeta with a bit of sheen - perfect for that Burda WOF trench. Sorry no numbers for now and anyway it won't be started for a while. I am thinking a perfect garment for my birthday in April. Here is a close up of the flowers:

Now, I am not convinced it is a silk as the burn test tells me it has a bit (or a lot) of plastic in it. There was no label on the bolt so I asked the sales assistant who assured me it was silk. It certainly was a silk price. So what to do? Complain as I was misled and ask for my money back or keep it anyway because it is gorgeous? I will see how I feel once I cool down (literally).

Today was the highest Melbourne temperature on record - 46.4C. And there are bushfires burning over a lot of the state - most very close to Melbourne. The weather has changed, and the temp has dropped to 26, but it is still windy. Keep us in your prayers.

Award part 2 and Burda 05-2008-104

I have spent two lunch times checking to see if everyone has received a nomination for the Kreative blog award and pretty much come to the conclusion that we all have. But I didn't check everyone's blog so if I missed you, you just may be on my Google Reader subscription list. I have updated this and now have all 136 blogs on my sidebar - phew (and no wonder not much sewing gets done around here!).

Late last year I made Burda 5-2008-104 from a remnant poly lycra jersey I purchased from the Cleggs sale last year. This dress had just about been made by everyone, so I won't mention too much about the construction.

particularly sexy pose......

As I was working with a remnant, I needed to do the facings with a plain stretch fabric and the cross over had to be pieced in the middle. It has been my go to dress for the summer as it skims nicely over the extra padding that has somehow appeared over the last 6 months! Sigh, I seriously need to make some clothes that fit me or get back into exercise.

Award and is it February already?

Hi everyone - where did January go? Well I can tell you it wasn't sitting in my sewing room, that is for sure. I did however clean it very nicely and it is there all ready for me to go. I also traced out a jacket pattern but I think I need to get back into it on a simpler style so will put this one aside for a while.


January is holiday month in Australia, but now Sofie is back at school and we have to get back into gear. Ellen will start at uni next month on a Bachelor of Film and Television degree at Swinburne. She did VERY well in her final year at school and won herself a scholarship that will cover her fees.


We are spending a lot of time cleaning up the house as we need to sell so I can settle with the X. And that is taking up most of my energy. That and the heat. Last week we had an all time record of 3 consecutive days over 43c - with Friday being 45!! (113F). And this is what happens to your garden when it sits in an oven for three days....



Our airconditioning at work failed on Thursday afternoon and we had to close down the file server. Only this morning did we have access to our computers again. Even at home it was too hot to turn on my computer (no aircon at all at home). We spent a lot of time at Doncaster Shoppingtown! lol


Now to some fun stuff. KatyS, E and Gwen all nominated me for the Kreativ Blogger award. Thank you so much ladies! I had been watching the award going around and felt a bit left out. But you all came to my rescue. Now I need to see who has not been given the award so we can all feel special.

The rules for this award are:
1. Copy the award to your site.
2. Link to the person from whom you received the award.
3. Nominate 7 other bloggers.
4. Link to those on your blog.
5. Leave a message on the blogs you nominated.

I will need some more time to see who I will nominate. I think all of those great blogs have been nominated, and we know about them anyway. It is the other little gems out there that we have not come across that are great finds when these awards go around. So, if anyone knows of someone they feel should be nominated that hasn't yet been (including yourself) you can email me.