I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had won a giveaway, well my bundle of fat quarters finally arrived. They are lovely & I have no idea what to make with them :)
It feels like summer has come to the south of Sweden, I’ve been out a few times this week enjoying the sun, lunching with friends & babies. I also had a lovely dinner date with my best friend, with make-up shopping for dessert. On Sunday I went for a walk alone, just me & my camera, out in the fields & the forest :D
We’ve had a nice & relaxing Easter, hope you’ve had the same!
It was sunny summer weather over the weekend, so we spent time in the garden, picking flowers & terrorising ladybugs. We went to Ikea & bought some new storage for under the stairs, which is just an empty unused space most of the time (also a dumping ground for junk). I’m going to put LL’s toys & stuff in it & the lovely yellow boxes are for me, to organise my crafty magazines, so they won’t be staying there to get all dusty.
As always with me, when I get an idea for a new project, I get very excited & want to start it, well yesterday ;) Never mind the fact that I have other projects that I’m working on, this is probably the reason why I have so many UFO’s. I know, I know, better to finish the project I’m working on before starting the next, but that doesn’t seem to be in my DNA!
I need to start a new crochet project too, but I can’t decide what to do. I’ll have to dig out all my old copies of Simply Crochet, that are currently hidden underneath part of my fabric stash that I was trying to organise. I ran out of time & had to shove everything in the closet so our house was respectable for LL’s second birthday party for our friends – which was on my Hubby’s birthday, so it was his party too :)
I’m a few days late posting this, but better late than never. Freya organised a Hollywood Sew-along for the film The Notebook, if you haven’t seen it before, you must! I love this film & have seen it many, many times, so many beautiful clothes & a lovely romantic story that is guaranteed to make you cry.
I went to Etsy to look for playsuit inspiration & found a few patterns that I liked, especially a swimsuit pattern. The others are here, here & here, I’m quite tempted to buy all of them. But for now I think I’ll either go for a pattern hack or draft my own.
Here’s more inspiration, the following pics are from Blueprints of Fashion: Home Sewing Patterns of the 1940s (lovely book, I have the 50’s one too), except the last one, that’s from my collection of vintage patterns.
That’s all from me for now, I’ll be testing away to see what I can make work.
Please come back on May 5th to see my final garment :) And in the meantime, go check out what the other sew-alongers have planned!
Freya from The Dressmaking Diaries
Charlie from This blog is not for you (Also making a playsuit it seems)
Hannah from Made with hugs & kisses
Courtney from Makesphere
Amy from Sews N Bows
Jen of Jennifer Lauren Vintage has released her own pattern, The Afternoon Blouse.
Based on an original 50’s blouse, Jen calls it a retro-vival pattern, it’s a pretty quick sew, with cool details, but still has a simplicity to it. So on Thursday night (Swedish time, which I guess is Friday morning for Jen) I was about to go to bed, but just had to check Instagram one more time & I saw that Jen had posted about the pattern.
I popped over to her blog, saw the pattern was released & headed straight over to Etsy to buy it. The next morning I printed the pattern & during LL’s naps, I stuck it together, searched for fabric in my stash to make a muslin & cut it out.
I got stuck on this cream coloured linen/cotton fabric that I had left over from a custom order I made years ago. Now what I did is not something I would recommend to beginners, but as Tim Gunn would say “Make it work” & that I did. As you can see by my bad mobile pic, I cut the back correctly following the straight grain & the front is cut on the cross grain, I also have a seam on the back, it was the only way it would work!
There are few things I need to change to make the fit better, I didn’t want to waste time making a muslin (even if it is a very good idea), so we’ll call this one my wearable muslin.
I keep forgetting that having a baby has changed my body, so I need to make adjustments to the neckline, it’s gaping a bit. It could have been the fabric, the way I cut it, or I managed to stretch it while sewing/ironing, I don’t know, but for my next one I’ll remove a bit around the neck, tighten it up slightly.
The last instruction for the blouse is “Press your blouse, get dressed and you’re ready to go for a cup of tea (or a cocktail) – you deserve it!” So I had to be silly & take photos with my cup of tea ;P
We’ve had some lovely sunny days this week, but with cold winds. I even had to put my winter coat back on one day.
I got a very nice email on Friday that said I had won a giveaway & will be getting a bundle of fabric from Amy Butlers latest collection Hapi. I don’t even remember that I entered so that was a lovely surprise & just what I need, more fabric :D
My hubby took LL out for the day, so I could sew in peace & sew I did!!!
One project completed & the next started, more on my new project later this week.
Come by tomorrow to see what I made this weekend!
Just wanted to pop in quickly & show you pics of my cake failure, as promised.
It looks ok-ish, but the image I had in my head of what they should have looked like was so much better! Oh well, I’ll just have to try again when I’m not stressed. Oh yeah, I used my apple corer (is that a word?) to make a hole in the cakes so I could fill it with some apple sauce & just popped a “lid” back on before icing.
And just for fun more pics of my new flowers & LL being thrown in the air, he loves it, just look at that smile! :D
Ta da! My crochet jumper is finally finished & I must say I’m quite proud of myself!
I finished it on Friday & wore it on Saturday for LL’s birthday party, it still needs blocking, I just did the sleeves so I could wear it :)
I started making this in large, I didn’t mind if it turned out being oversized, (not that it is). The arm length is also made in large & then I switched to medium for the rest.
Instead of making the standard foundation chain, I made a double crochet (UK) foundation & did the same on the arms where it was supposed to be chained. I used instructions for the foundation that I found on Purl Bee, it’s my new favourite way to start crochet projects :) What to crochet next?!?
How can a year have passed so quickly? It was LL’s first birthday on Thursday, it still feels like it was only a few months ago he was born. He’s at such a fun age now, he’s a real little human with a personality & a stubborn streak! He’s walking & pointing & saying something that sounds like What’s that? :D
We had a birthday party for family on Saturday, which he seemed to enjoy, I baked mini tiered cakes (Twice! first batch was an EPIC Fail) with my fancy cake mould. I was going to cover them with butter cream frosting, but ran out of time, so I went with icing (Another Epic fail). Wrong colour, too runny, looked like a halloween volcano eruption of green failure, I’ll post pics another day.
I’ve been looking for inspiration for The Notebook Hollywood Sew-along, I think I’ve got an idea of what I want to try & make, it will either involve a pattern hack/mash-up or I’ll see if I can remember how to draft my own pattern ;)
I also did a spot of gardening yesterday, I bought some spring flowers to brighten up the garden, it’s been a few years since I prettified the garden. After we gave it a complete makeover, seen here & here, it was just mud & work, work, work, so I think I needed it to regrow & settle before my enthusiasm to prettify came back. The last photo is one of my new flowers, it’s a Primula blue zebra, BEAUTIFUL flower!
Oh & that little door in the stone wall is not in our garden (maybe in the future), just something I saw while out walking & thought it was cool.
Not a lot to say about the past week, I’m happy with my bobbin tower I bought at the trade fair. I’ve been sick again :( I got some home alone sewing time :) & I finished crocheting the front of my jumper :D
Need to get cracking with the back as I plan to have it finished by the end of the month, so why am I still here talking to you?!? I’ve got hooking to do ;)
