The opposite of a fabric diet

So, it's been a while since I posted here hasn't it? I did realise how long it's actually been until I received two emails this week from lovely readers enquiring whether everything is ok in my world given my blog silence (thanks Shibani and Esther!).

There is no particular reason or exciting tale to tell, just the usual boring excuse of being very busy and not having anything interesting to post. You see, we moved house shortly before Christmas and it took weeks to pack, move and unpack as well as being totally exhausting. Thankfully I didn't have to pack up my sewing room though it's currently full of half of our belongings - we've moved into a two bedroom apartment temporarily while our old house is demolished and a new one constructed.

This is very exciting to me, because I designed our new house to be a compact two storey dwelling that will be highly energy efficient with all the space we currently don't have (a butlers pantry! a large walk in wardrobe! more than one poky bathroom!). Our old house is a 1950s weatherboard dwelling that was very hot in summer, very cold in winter and had small rooms with no storage at all - even though we did a partial renovation about 8 years it just wasn't great.

The garage, with my sewing room above it, is in a separate building to the house and it won't be demolished. This is why I don't need to pack up my sewing room (phew) although I can't use it for the next 9 or 10 months during construction. So it's back to sewing on a little desk in the corner of my bedroom just like I did my single days when I lived in a small apartment in the city.

Given I have next to no storage space in my current sewing space, you would think that I'd be sensible and not buy fabric. Or possibly, you're just like me and really can't help yourself! I haven't sworn off buying fabric for many years now because I know I just can't do it. But I like looking at other people's fabric purchases and I hoping that posting these here will make me a bit more mindful of future purchases, so I thought I'd share my acquisitions over the last 6 months (plus this post needs some photos to liven it up).

I mentioned a few posts ago that I'm enrolled in Susan Khaljie's French jacket course in February, so I went to Bewitch Fabrics in Leichhardt in search of some suitable boucle fabric. They were having a closing down sale and the fabrics were marked down by up to 50% which was lucky because those very exquisite fabrics were very expensive. The funny thing was that they had rolls and rolls of fabric just shoved in their little store, even though the fabrics were $100/m plus. This is Toby pointing out a fabric I should buy:

I ended up buying a multi coloured chunky wool fabric which was marked down to $60/m for my jacket, and a lovely navy blue with gold floral motif in a silk / wool crinkle blend (soon to become a Frocktails dress) and a grey wool herringbone which will become  pants or a jacket this winter:

Back in November the Sydney Spoolettes had a fabric swap day. I took a bag of fabric, and meant not to return with more than I brought. I was doing ok until the very end when I stayed behind to help pack away the leftover fabric and then I added very significantly to my haul and took home more than I brought. I did score some lovely fabrics (no immediate plans) and some amazing patterns, plus just generally had a great time chatting with lots of lovely ladies:

I also ventured to the Fabric Cave to drop off some more donations and came away with some more lovely pieces. These beautiful wool fabrics at a bargain price will become a jacket some winter soon:

At the Fabric Cave I also found a large piece of red printed John Kaldor print cotton which will become my December Burda project soonish and a candy stripe cotton drill. I also stopped by Spotlight two weeks ago to get some thread and walked out with a blue rayon print for some drawstring pants and some neon yellow stretch denim:

You read that correctly - neon yellow stretch denim! Unsurprisingly it was marked down to $2/m, but I bought it to make some pants for a dear friend's young daughter who specifically requested yellow pants. She has spent far too much time in hospital with some chronic health issues these last two years so I was very happy to oblige. I made these from Burda 11/2010 #146, and recipient was delighted:

For my birthday late last year my parents gave me some cash, which I happily spent on more fabric! I happened to be in Parramatta for a work meeting, so I popped into My Hung fabrics which has some great fabrics. I bought some cotton sateen in light purple, peach and white to make summer jackets (probably next summer at this rate), dark blue fabric which has been made into a birthday dress for Anna, and check cotton which I'm currently making into a dress:

And finally, I swung by Tessuti fabric last week in Chatswood to buy some tracing paper.  Well, I didn't get any tracing paper, but I bought some glorious wool suiting fabric in emerald green and electric blue which I've had my eye on all last year to make some new work jackets, plus some stripe jersey which will become a simple t-shirt dress.

So I popped into Tessuti in Surry Hills a few days ago to get that tracing paper, but walked out instead with a new sleeve board and another piece of fabric which is currently being washed and no tracing paper. Sigh, I will never be able to control myself......

Anyway, I hope sharing this has made you feel better about your recent fabric acquisitions and overall stash. But I would like to finish with this statistic - last year I made 43 garments for myself, 1 for Anna, 1 for Toby and 29 gold sequin jackets for Anna's school, so I am sewing - just not fast enough to possibly use all the fabric I've ever purchased ;(

Japan: inspiration overload

Apologies for the blog silence around here lately, but I've just come back from an amazing few weeks in Japan so actually I'm not really sorry at all! It's my ten year wedding anniversary and my parents kindly offered to watch the kids while we went on holidays without them - so the holiday was doubly fantastic.

Japan was just amazing and overwhelming with inspiration - the architecture was a real highlight for us, not only the ultramodern skyscrapers that dominate the cities but also the beautiful and serene lines of the residential dwellings. The food was outstanding, the culture very interesting and I loved people watching for Japanese fashion, from the crazy and colourful young girls in Harajuku, to the head to toe designer labels in Ginza and the simple chic in Kyoto.

And of course I did a fair amount of fabric shopping!

I hadn't planned to buy much fabric given that my stash is already overloaded and the fabric prices in Japan are comparable to Australia, but the huge range and variety of beautiful fabrics in Japan that are not easily found here soon persuaded me to buy more that just one piece per city! I came to Japan travelling very lightly, with one small suitcase that was carry on size:

But left Japan with another bag filled with fabric (but still well under my luggage allowance so I should have bought more):

Fabric shopping in Tokyo

Of course I went to the Nippori Fabric Town in Tokyo, which is as exactly as everyone describes it: one really long street with so many shops it's impossible to go into each on one day only. We came here the first day we arrived but it turned out to be a public holiday, so we made a second trip at the end of our holiday the day before we left for home. In hindsight that turned out for the best, because by the end of the trip I had given up my commitment to only buying one piece per city and I ended up buying a lot more fabric than I intended!

There was an overwhelming number of stores to choose from, and in the end I only shopped at 3 stores, plus the fantastic 5 storey Tomato store. I was there on a Saturday morning and the ground floor where the beautiful Japanese linens, cute cottons and infamous 100 yen shelves was so packed with people that I couldn't get near the fabrics at all. But I purchased quite a few knit fabrics on the second floor, plus a few pieces and some cool zips from two other stores as well:

Fabric shopping in Kyoto and shibori dyeing

The hotel we stayed in Kyoto happened to be directly across the street from the main Nomura Tailor store, so I had to walk past this shop multiple times over 5 days and restrain myself! This is a three storey shop crammed with the most beautiful fabrics and notions, but I managed to restrict myself to only four pieces of Japanese linen, cotton and seersucker because at this point I was still committed to just buying a few pieces in each city. I am now sorry I didn't buy more!

Also in Kyoto I visited the tiny, hidden away courtyard shop of the Misuyabari needle shop, which I found really easily thanks to the numerous other bloggers who have visited there and posted very helpful directions (such as this and this). They had ultra cute decorative pins all handmade, and a huge range of needles too, but since I'm rather practical I bought a mini sewing box which contained a tiny pincushion, some thread, small snips and some needles in a timber box:

We also visited the Kyoto Shibori Museum, thanks to the recommendation of a friend from my ASG group. We were able to learn all about the art of shibori, which is a very labour intensive method of wrapping minute portions of silk with threads to do a very elegant form of tie dye. We did a class where we folded some pure white silk concertina style, clamped with blocks and then dyed multiple times in different coloured dyes. This is how my scarf turned out:

Fabric shopping in Hiroshima

I hadn't planned on doing any fabric shopping in Hiroshima because we were only there for a few days, but we arrived on a rainy afternoon and ended up doing a bit of window shopping in their department stores marvelling at the crazy and cute stuff for sale. I accidentally stumbled on the craft area of the Sogo Department store, which up on the 9th level had quite a large range of fabrics, both by the metre and pre cut lengths, as well as patterns, notions and other crafty items.

I only bought one piece of fabric and a pattern from here, because I was still restraining myself at this point:

Fabric shopping in Osaka

In Osaka I made a bee-line for the Nano Iro store, which again I found quite easily thanks to those helpful bloggers who post very detailed directions (such as this post). The showroom was quite sparse, with not a huge range of fabrics available for purchase but they were all very beautiful.  The lovely sales assistants were quite interested and amused as to why I had travelled so far just to come to their shop! I bought one piece of fabric and a beautiful watercolour calendar which I then had to carry in my hands through 4 more cities because it didn't fit in my suitcase!

Overall I can highly recommend Japan as a travel destination. There's just so much for everyone - technology freaks, architecture buffs, foodies, culture vultures, shopaholics - you name it you can do it in Japan!

Luckily our return home has coincided with the arrival of hot weather here in Sydney, so I am very keen to start sewing at least a few of these fabrics (some of those knits will have to wait until next winter).

The return of my fabric stash

I've finally brought the last bags of my fabric stash out of storage and back into my sewing room where they belong. I have to share a photo of the shelves while the piles of fabric are still looking so neat and tidy:

Despite culling a lot of fabric from my stash last year I still have quite a bit. Ok, I freely admit it - I have a huge amount of fabric!

I got so much inspiration from folding each piece of fabric, my mind is so full of projects that if only I had the time to sew everything I want to I'd have the wardrobe of my dreams.

My next step is to cover up these shelves with curtain fabric to keep the sun and dust off the fabrics because my sewing room is quite bright with long windows on three sides. As much as I love looking at these shelves every time I come into my sewing room, the thought of my fabrics fading is the stuff of nightmares.

Funnily enough, going through my old posts I've just discovered that on this day 5 years ago I also posted a picture of my stash - must be something about having a long weekend in January! Unfortunately the neatness of that stash degenerated into a terrible mess (see this post) which took me months to sort out but happily I'm back to square one in terms of an orderly stash.

And now to get on with the actual sewing - I took the kids camping this weekend just gone and then to a bbq at a friends house today so no actual sewing has been done, but you can't get more Australian on Australia Day than camping and a bbq right?!

The Fabric Stash, refined

Thanks everyone for the great tips on pants fitting - it's all very useful which I will have to try out. I shouldn't be surprised that my pants had such huge fitting issues since I've never really put any effort into sorting them out and I don't have a particularly easy body shape to fit. I have watched others blogged their slow and steady progress towards pants fitting nirvana, now I guess I need to find the energy to do the same.

Not this week though, I've come down with the 'flu and have taken up a position on the lounge under a fluffy blanket drinking lemon and ginger tea. But last weekend before getting sick I started dismantling my sewing room so we can move the kids playroom into it and then the playroom will revert back to being a bedroom when we sell the house.

Some of you may remember when I posted a picture of my fabric stash - some people IRL still mention it to me so I know it was memorable! This is how it looked a few months back before I started the Great Fabric Stash Refinement (aka a massive cull):

On Sunday I took this photo:

Look Jane - there's that red and white cotton sateen from Spotlight from the New Look 6968 pattern cover peeking out!

Astonishing, right? I managed to further cull fabrics by holding each piece trying to visualise it made up into something and being honest with myself as to whether I would ever wear something made from it. And the answer to a lot of the prints and colours in my stash was a surprising no, and so a third big bag which has some really nice, quality fabrics will also go out to the Fabric Cave shortly:

So what has happened to the rest? You didn't think I had gotten rid of all that fabric did you? The answer is that 24 jumbo size vacuum space saver bags later, my stash is now packed and ready to go into storage before our upcoming house sale:

Even when I've vacuumed all the air out and shrunk those bags down as much as possible, it's still an impressive pile (which of course fell over a few seconds before I took this photo):

To be totally honest though, this isn't my full stash in those space saver bags. There is still a big bag of fabric scraps to deal with, two boxes of UFOs/refashions, lengths of curtain lining and these rolls of fabric too:

Those fabrics still left on the shelving I've kept out with the intentions of sewing them in the next 6 months or so. No particular projects in mind, just a general desire to use the fabric - sort of sewing with half a plan I guess! I can still access the fabrics in storage but it will take some pre-planning since my parents live over an hour away. And yes, I'm aware that the small amount of fabric I've kept out is actually larger than some people's entire stashes!

But overall my stash is now greatly reduced and I'm actually feeling good about that. I've never really felt any guilt about my fabric stash, mainly because I had the space to store it, I had the money to purchase it, and I do use stash fabrics frequently. Plus I really liked being able to find an appropriate fabric in my stash no matter the project, and I cannot recall the last time I had to purchase fabric particularly for a project for myself. But I must admit that while I was packing this all up I was feeling slightly overwhelmed and a little bit disgusted at my greedy hoard of fabrics! And questioning whether we really should sell our house and move.....

Anyway I've shared this with you all as a public service - for those of you with a small but growing stash you can take comfort that you're not as bad as me yet! And for those of you with a sizeable stash too, well at least you know you're not alone. 

Cull and purge

Wow, has it really been 2 weeks since I've posted some ramblings on here? I wish I had a good reason, such as having a vacation to some exotic locale, but unfortunately its just been a case of real life busyness.

Anna had a school athletics carnival last week that I had to sew a plain green tshirt for her to wear because it turns out to be impossible to find one to buy when I needed one.  Luckily kids clothes don't take too long to make! I volunteered to help coordinate on the day and I was in charge of the sack races - I tell you after a day of herding small children into sacks larger than they are for many races I was as exhausted as if I was doing the jumping around! But it was a hot sunny winter's day and loads of fun.

Anna's school also had a school fete as their major fundraising activity which I also volunteered to help. I didn't actually make anything this year because so far I've kept my sewing talents a secret for fear of being inundated with requests, but I was still pretty busy on the day.

We've also been painting and wallpapering our house to hopefully sell in a few months time, which has also required massive amounts of purging and decluttering. Practically every week I've taken several bags worth of stuff to the op shop and yet there is still more! Living here for 11 years has given us plenty of time to accumulate way too much stuff.

I've also been trying to clean up my sewing room because it's a bit out of control at the moment and also because I'll be packing up my sewing room before we sell so I need to refine the stash further. Even though I took a big bag to the Fabric Cave in March and I've now managed to cull another huge bag of fabrics to donate there is hardly a noticeable dent in my stash at all! But just for the record, here is the bag of fabric that is going out:

Now to actually sew something from my stash instead of just giving it away!

When not sewing....buy more fabric!

I have hardly sewn a stitch in the last two weeks, which is highly unusual for me. Sadly my father in law is critically ill and my husband has been interstate visiting him, so it's just been me and the kids. Let me tell you it's exhausting looking after kids by yourself - single parents you definitely have my respect. And since my sewing room is above our garage which is separate to our house I can't go in there when the kids are finally in bed asleep. But I haven't been completely slack - I have cut out and pinned four projects and have unpicked several previous makes for a reworking (ie fixing up previous shockers!) so hopefully I can start being more productive soon.

But like any frustrated sewist who isn't sewing I've instead been buying more fabrics and adding to my already extremely long to do list. In order to shame myself in to using them soon and not just adding them to the stash I thought I'd confess here on my blog.

First up I bought several pieces from fabric.com because I discovered the postage cost for four pieces wasn't much more than it was for one (around $25). I haven't purchased from them before so fingers crossed the quality is decent and it doesn't take too long to deliver.

I have been searching in all the fabric stores here in Sydney for a dark denim chambray to make a shirt, but have only been able to find really light blues. So I purchased this Robert Kaufman dark indigo chambray:
 

 

image via Pinterest

image via Pinterest

After seeing so many great pieces during Jungle January I decided to buy my first ever piece of animal print fabric, this leopard print cotton that I intend to make a pencil skirt:



image via Pinterest

I also bought some navy blue and white jumbo polka dot cotton fabric (well I hope it's more navy blue than the colour of the photo below) also to make a pencil skirt:



image via Pinterest

The final piece is this mint green and white mini polka dot cotton possibly to make something for the kids but more than likely a shirt for myself!



Image via Sportscraft

Then of course there's been a little bit of real life shopping. I broke my cardinal rule of never buying anything from Spotlight full price because I saw some gorgeous tan and black chevron stripe cotton Japanese duck fabric that only had a little bit left on the bolt. I didn't want to risk it selling out so I bought it then and there - and of course less than a week later they had a 30% off sale! It wasn't too expensive though, and I do love the fabric so no harm done I guess. I've already cut this out so hopefully I'll have something awesome made soon from it:

And the final act of fabric gluttony occurred a few weeks at a pre sewing bloggers lunch meet up at the Remnant Warehouse. I swear I wasn't going to buy anything (unless I found the mythical dark chambray) but after I spotted some bizarre but cute ponte knit with puffy giant polka dots and some dark charcoal 100% wool suiting both for only $9.95/m I decided to pick up a few metres of each.

I was going to end by saying I think that's enough fabric purchasing for now (ha! as if), but I've just received an email from one of the ASG ladies revealing that the Fabric Cave is having a sale on the 4th - 11th April. Their prices are insanely good value to begin with, so I cannot imagine the bargains that will be had at one of their sales. And since I dropped off a huge bag there recently I'm sure I can rehome some other pieces instead!

And a big hello to Gabrielle from Up Sew Late - we met up today in the city to take some photos of her lovely new silk top and had a great chat/rant about sewing, blogging and children who are too unfocused to learn how to sew from their mums. I love meeting up with bloggers and fellow sewists in real life, I feel like we're all part of a secret society!

A serious case of the blahs: Vogue 7937 skirt in blah brown.....

I've sat down to write a blog post this week several times but I am feeling rather unexcited about my latest completed garment so it's been hard to actually write anything! So I'm hoping that by putting it here on my blog I can get some 'closure' (to use a silly cliché) and move onto a more exciting phase in my sewing.

Two weeks ago, when I was in the middle of sewing that annoying-but-turned-out-good cream linen jacket I had my sewing day at my local ASG for which I needed a simple project that I actually wanted to sew. So I decided to make a pencil skirt out of some stretch cotton I had in my stash in brown to go with the cream jacket, using Vogue 7937 mainly because I've sewn it several times before and I knew it fitted (most recently this blue floral version which turned out great) but also because it has six narrow pieces that I could squeeze out of the fabric which was left over from another project.

The reason I chose to use the brown cotton is because it matched some brown and cream stripe grosgrain ribbon that I was going to sew on the cream jacket as trim. I ended up leaving the jacket plain but made a ribbon belt instead from the grosgrain ribbon, and here is the finished outfit:

 

There's not much to be said about the skirt - it has three panels across the front and back, with two walking vents at the back. The overall outfit looks ok in these photos, but nothing great (probably better if I stood up straight and took a photo at the beginning of the day rather than the end!). The fabric is a bit stiffer and heavier than the fabric I used for previous versions, so the fit isn't as slim or close fitting but mainly it's the colour. I've seen Sharon of Petite and Sewing sew and wear many clothes in brown (because she religiously sticks to her colours) and always looks wonderful but I find it very difficult to pair clothes with it or get excited about it unfortunately.

Anyway, more fabric out of the stash and into the wardrobe which is always a good thing. And speaking of the stash, I finally committed to purging the fabrics that I didn't like so much that have been sitting in a big pile on the floor in the corner of my sewing room for months now. I kept alternating between wanting to declutter the stash on one hand and on the other hand keeping every bit of fabric I have 'just in case', but in the end I kept some basic cotton pieces for future muslins and got rid of those pieces that were lovely and other people may like but I know I would never sew. I took this big and extremely heavy bag full of fabric to donate to the Fabric Cave at Meadowbank this morning and what's more I didn't go in the shop and bring home anymore fabric either!

That big bag is only the first part of the purge of my stash - it was too heavy to add anymore to it and I think I have at least one more bag of that size to go as well! Mind you there is hardly a noticeable dent in the stash and I'm still only half way through folding and measuring the stash.....

Last weekend I had a fantastic lunch with other lovely sewing bloggers, chatting about all things sewing and doing only the smallest bit of fabric shopping - I limited myself to two pieces only! I must be changing my hoarder ways, although I'm not deliberately on a fabric diet I do have a long line of projects I want to make completely from stash items, so now I look at new purchases as being more obstacles in the way of those projects which helps me buy more prudently.

 

So I hope to be back next post with a more enthusiastic write up of a finished garment - since I'm not sewing out of necessity sewing should be fun and enjoyable so I need to get over myself and back into the groove.