lower your presser foot

I can't believe how fast last week flew by! When you don't really have any set routine day to day (ie going to work) the days seem to go slow, except last week I had things I wanted to get done but for various reasons I didn't find the time. On Saturday night just gone I had my first night out without the baby since she was born (yes we have been joined at the hip for the last 5 and a half months), to celebrate a friend's birthday with dinner at a fancy French restaurant. So I decided I needed something new to wear to mark the momentous occasion of going out without the baby.

After seeing this gorgeous top over at Amanda's blog, I wanted to make BWOF 11/08 top 114 in a lovely red floral printed silk satin I purchased from the Remnant Warehouse a while back. The fabric is so vivid that I thought this style would be simple enough to let the fabric shine:

I envisaged wearing this with a black pencil skirt, a thin belt and a silver cuff bracelet and I would look quite the yummy mummy. Well, luckily I made a muslin for a change because this was a MAJOR wadder on me! I think maybe the sleeveless version is better than the long sleeved version, 'cos it just looked about 20 times too big on me even though I traced a size smaller. And since there are no reviews over at Pattern Review for the long sleeve version, I'm guessing that no one else thinks this one is a winner either.

Anyway I ended up wearing a dress I'd made previously and now fit back into (yay for me!) and wore a pair of super high heels for the first time in ages - I literally had to wipe the dust of them before wearing them. And dinner was great - very little baby talk since none of the friends there that night have kids, lots of swearing and obnoxious raucous chat that was very non child suitable. But I really needed some time out from Anna and being a mum because I've been very cranky with her and just about everyone else lately over the smallest things so it was definately time to recharge the batteries. And Michael didn't mind staying home since the rugby was on the telly.

I didn't get around to sewing the dress I've had cut out and pinned for the last two weeks though, because my overlocker has decided to have a few issues with the black thread I've put in it, even though I've used that thread many times previously. The tension is all over the place, and the upper threads keep snapping and I've spent time cleaning it, coaxing it, trying all different tension settings to no avail so it is probably time for a service.

Before I changed the thread though I made Anna a new sleeping bag from some quilted cotton and flannelette I picked up from a garage sale a while back because it's gotten pretty cold around here lately. Gotta love making a sleeping bag for next to nix when similar ones (albeit cuter more embellished ones) sell for $80.

I also made some simple pants in a stripe stretch corduroy because Anna wears far too much pink on pink for my liking, although I also made her this pink fleece jumper so I guess it's hard not to dress a little girl in pink. She's also discovered the joy of blowing raspberries hence the expression on her face:

This week's plan is to get the overlocker fixed so I can sew the dress because I want to post it over at Sew Retro for the June competition, as well as find time to decide on a new kitchen benchtop colour so we can make arrangements to finish off the kitchen sometime this decade! And before anyone asks, the house renovation is still not finished because there has been weeks of sometimes torrential rain so the backyard is still a muddy mess with unconnected drainage pipes sitting in puddles of water. The supposed three month renovation is now entering it's eighth month........