breaking my UFO rule......(sigh)

Last week I studiously applied myself to finishing the black wool jacket.  Seriously, I did.  I forced myself to work on it an hour each night until it was all sewn together, including a rather funky paisley print lining:

but before I sewed on the ruffled peplum which would have been the final step, I tried on the jacket after sewing in the sleeves to insert the shoulder pads.  And the fit was appalling! My fault of course for not making a muslin, but I've sewed several Burda jackets before and have found that a size 36 is a good fit, plus I did flat pattern measurements which seemed ok.  But once it was sewn I could see that back was too broad, the shoulder seam too wide and generally just a little too big overall.  All fixable of course, but it would require unstitching quite a few seams but unpicking black thread on black fabric with the added fussiness of block fused whisperweft interfacing is a task that I was just not up to at the moment.

So sadly I have broken my self imposed no new UFO rule which I have adhered to for the last 2 years.  But KayY's comment that sometimes the right garments are just started at the wrong time resonated with me, so I'm considering this one a 'seasonal' UFO and will put it at the top of my to do list next winter.

To even things out I pulled out a summer dress from the UFO box while I was putting this one away, and have already started working on pulling it apart to re-sew and finish it.  So all is well with my little universe.

And Vicki you are so right that the jacket was holding up the sewing queue.  The relief of putting this jacket aside is obvious - I spent a few quiet hours on Saturday afternoon tracing out 4 Burda patterns to go with these spring fabrics I pulled from the stash recently that will become my next four projects (from l-r dress, dress, wide leg pants, dress):

So expect to see some colour (and finished projects) around these parts soon!

Procrastination city - resident: me

I am so annoyed at myself right now for my self imposed rule of creating no new UFOs.  Sure it's meant that I've finished every project I've started for the last two years, thus not wasting fabric or effort but right now it's killing me! I've started making this cute jacket from Burda 9/2010 #126 :

from a piece of black wool melton that I happened to have in the stash.  I actually started it over a month ago and haven't sewn a stitch yet.  It's progress was interrupted by making Anna's dress for my grandfather's funeral and my sequinned jacket for the party (both necessities), but really I've dragged my feet on all the steps so far: steaming the wool and pretreating the interfacing, cutting out the pieces, block fusing all the pieces and marking the darts - which is where I'm up to now.

This would have been a lovely jacket worn over all those colourful summer style dresses I made during winter and that is the real problem.  It's spring around here now, and we are having glorious sunny days, so my brain is telling me I don't need a cozy jacket made from wool melton no matter how cute!  So every time I go into my sewing room instead of sewing I've been going through my stash picking out lovely cottons and linens for summer sewing, flicking through my patterns and - the ultimate sign of procrastination - cleaning up the sewing room!

But I will finish it because I shan't let myself break my no new UFO rule now.  I'm hoping that by posting this I will shame myself into finishing it quick sticks so I can report back next week with a photo of a sweaty me out in the sunshine wearing it! This post is a virtual kick in the pants, hope it works....

Thanks for all your lovely comments on the sequinned jacket, it is a surprisingly great addition to my wardrobe.  And I've even found the perfect thing to wear with it over summer:

These sparkly Seed shorts in an oh so flattering boxer short style, available for the bargain basement price of $249.95.

Oh that's right, I have lost my willpower not my mind! But jokes aside, if you look closely you can see these are constructed with a silk underlayer, and the sequinned layer is a separate outer layer which is a good way of dealing with the scratchiness of sequined fabric.  Ah there are lessons to be learnt everywhere we look.

Mysummertouch - I too thought that to sew sequinned fabric you needed to cut the sequins off from the seam allowance, but I tried just sewing over this fabric as normal on a scrap bit and it worked just fine.  I did break one needle when I went too fast, but by going a bit slower it sewed together like normal fabric and the seams pressed flat.  I think it's because this fabric is actually tiny little metal rings, instead of small metal discs like traditional sequins, so the needle was able to sew in between and in the middle of the rings.   I'm glad it worked out like that, because cutting out the sequins from the seam allowances sounds pretty tedious, and I probably would have procrastinated on this one too!

Samina - I am not really a fan of sequinned garments either, and in fact when I was in the fabric store I was actually looking for a nice embroidered silk or some other textured colourful fabric when this caught my eye.  Again I think it's because it's not the traditional large, reflective sequins in gaudy silver or gold ( or red shudder) but is a little more subtle.... I hope.

Vicki - how could I have forgotten Sofie's formal dress? It is the perfect balance of fabrics and colours.  I wish I had worn something with that level of style to my formal instead of the black sheath dress I wore (thinking I was uber cool).

Anyway fingers crossed I report back in with a finished jacket.......

Sparkly sparkly - Burda #101 7/2011

Thank you all for your diplomatic comments to my last post, magoo you are so right that everyone has left very polite comments! And snarktastical what a good idea to cut the top off to level it and then flip it over - the reason I didn't cut the top off was because I didn't want the crumbs in the icing sugar, but now it just seems so obvious.....

In the end it didn't matter, because the cake tasted fantastic (how could it not with that much icing on it!) and my husband was very surprised and happy because it's the first time someone has made him a themed birthday cake! I cannot believe that he escaped childhood without a train birthday cake or some other creation from the Australian Womens Weekly birthday cookbook (the most famous book for cakes in Australia).  Actually I find it a little sad, as I have lots of memories of my birthday cakes from when I was little, but perhaps the Chinese don't go over the top the way that some of us do!

We had a small party for about 50 people at a local restaurant for him and his best friend who was also 40 a few days earlier, so of course I needed something new to wear.  I decided to make this sequin jacket from Burda 7/2011, model no 101.

It's a number of firsts for me.  Firstly, not only did I make something from the Burda magazine within the same month I received it, I actually made this about 2 days after it landed in my mail box.  Now if only I could do that each month I could fully justify the purchase.

This is also the first time I've sewed with sequined fabric too. I was a little wary of it because the fabric was $50/m, but it turns out that it was no harder to cut or sew than a thick denim - I just went slowly and carefully and there were no problems.  I chose this bronze coloured teeny tiny little sequins, which even though it's on a stretch mesh background it's quite heavy fabric:

I made a minor change to the pattern cutting the back piece on the fold instead of having a centre back seam. I couldn't work out why there was a centre back seam at all because the pattern doesn't provide for any shaping along that seam, so I figured it was best to have as few seams as possible since I wouldn't just be able to overlock the edges as usual.  I would have liked to have also eliminated the shoulder to cuff seam by cutting it out as one piece (therefore only having the side seam and underarm in one long seam), but my fabric wasn't quite big enough to do that.  But surprisingly the sequin fabric pressed quite well so the seam sits flatly.

Here's my version:

It is quite shapeless, but it draped nicely almost like an itchy heavy cardigan because of the weight of the fabric. I left this unlined as per the pattern, but I might go back and line it because the fabric is a little scratchy against bare skin, and I found that without a solid foundation like interfacing or lining the neckline stretched out a little and the jacket kept sliding off my shoulders due to the weight of the fabric.  Although a closure at the front might help keep it on too.  We'll see, I'm usually quite bad at going back to fix something once it's made and worn, and who knows when I'll be wearing a sparkly jacket again!

On the inside I bound the seams with sheer grey organza strips which on the one hand turned out well because they are almost transparent, but on the other hand the organza is fraying a bit because I was too lazy to double fold the strips so that the raw edges were on the inside.  Live and learn.  I wasn't sure if this fabric would fray, but I was worried that the sequins might start falling off near the cut edge and plus they were a little sharp in places so it was good to enclose them.

For the neck facing I used strips of the selvage, and for the front facing I just cut the pattern pieces out with the front edge lined up against the selvage so I could just fold it under twice and hand stitch it down.  This worked out well, because if the jacket flipped out a little the facing wasn't too noticeable because it was the same colour as the inside of the jacket anyway.

So for such a simple shapeless little jacket I actually rather like this.  It's totally unlike anything else I own, and is by the far the sparkliest thing in my wardrobe but it's good to break out of your usual style sometimes and try something new I think (especially if your look is rather classic and somewhat sedate like mine).  Plus I can see me wearing this with dark denim jeans and heels for a more casual look, so it may be versatile than I would expect from a sequined jacket.

why I'll stick to sewing......

so it turns out I'm not the all round crafty superstar I like to think I am!

Ever seen on random food blogs or other amusing sites really really bad birthday cakes that are labelled epic cake failure?  No? Google it, trust me you'll get a chuckle or two. Well I hereby submit my own entry in the cake failure stakes:

For my husband's 40th birthday on Wednesday I decided to make him a golf themed birthday cake since he's a golf fanatic and clearly I have a little too much time on my hands.  Sadly it didn't turn out like the picture I had in my mind, probably because I started with this lumpy lopsided base cake:

I should have just bought a slab cake instead of baking one! Never mind, I slathered it up with buckets of butter icing in a nicely off putting shade of green, with a circle of water based icing for the 'putting green'.  Stick on a flag made from a toothpick, a breath mint for a golf ball and some spearmint leaves for shrubbery and you've got yourself one hot creative mess!

I am a stickler for accuracy though, did you notice the smoothed out icing for the fairway surrounded by the rough? That's so my totally out of scale little golfer figurine had somewhere logical to sit of course!

Well I'm clearly not above laughing at myself, so feel free to share some of your epic cake failures please to make me feel better!

And I so apologise to people who have left me questions in the comments from a few posts ago and I have not answered yet! Sorry, here I go:

Carol asked whether I could sit in the grey plaid Burda skirt with the godet I posted here.  I found sitting in it ok, although the godet got quite wrinkled after a day of sitting and the skirt did have a tendency to slide up a little so it felt like the waistband was right under my bra! But that could just be me not being used to wearing higher waisted clothes.

prttypnk asked on the same post why I thought dresses are more fun to do.  I think I like sewing dresses more than anything else because I like wearing them more than anything else - they usually look great, are so simple to wear and I don't have to think about mixing and matching clothes. 

Bodie asked on the same post what tracing paper I use for tracing Burda patterns.  I bought some architectural drafting paper from Eckersleys art supplies (which just happen to be down the street from Tessuti's in the city), but it turns out that probably wasn't the best place to purchase it.  If you read the comments to this post you'll get some far better ideas of where to source a good supply - my readers know everything!

Gail - I can't wait to see what you've made with your purchases from Bewitched Fabrics. I did see the sale signs in the shop window when I went past on the bus to work last week, but I assumed wrongly that they only sold bridal type fabrics.  I will definitely have to check it out now!

getting back into the swing of things

Thank you all for the condolences and empathy regarding the situation with my uncle, I cannot believe how common it is for petty family squabbles at times like these. 

With all that has been going on I lost my sewing mojo for a little while there, and before I knew it almost a week had passed and I hadn't even stepped foot into my sewing room.  Plus we've been having confusing weather lately - some really warm days followed up by some cool days, so I've been at a loss of what to sew next.

But with a little one that is growing so fast, there is always something to sew.  The extra long pants I made for her at the beginning of the year are already becoming a bit Steve Urkel in length! Remember Steve Urkel when he looked like this?:

Source: http://coopbra.glogster.com/steve-urkel-house-party/

Well he's now all grown up and looks like this:

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaleel_White

I'm starting to feel very old now that kids from tv shows that I watched when I was kid are all adults now - even Winnie from the Wonder Years and Punky Brewster have kids of their own!

Anyway, getting back on topic, I made these cargo pants from the Spring 1/2011 Ottobre magazine:

I made these from a very bright piece of purple gabardine that had been sitting in my stash for a while that I couldn't quite picture using for anything else, but it turns out it's a perfect colour for a little girl.
 

Ordinarily I find sewing little people clothes quite easy and straightforward because there's not really the complex fitting issues and they aren't usually fiddly because kids don't particularly like fiddly clothes.  Well not these cargo pants, between the endless amount of topstitching, the front pockets, the leg pockets, the rear pockets, the ties on the leg pockets, the zipper and flyshield it all took ages.  But they look cute, I got some lovely comments on them from several people and she who now decides her own outfits was excited and agreed to wear them straight away, so they are a winner!

And they proved perfect for a day of bouncing on a jumping castle at a local school fete on the weekend:

And to keep the enthusiasm going I've already started my next project - a mesh sequined jacket to wear to a birthday party for my husband we're having this Saturday night at a local restaurant.  Lucky me I have tomorrow off work but Anna is off to school (happy happy days) so I can finish off the jacket, get a haircut, and bake a birthday cake - he turns 40 tomorrow so I should make something special and big enough to hold 40 candles!

the sad occasion dress

At the risk of turning this blog into a soap opera, we've had another week of dramas around my house.  Last Wednesday my grandfather passed away, which given he was 93 was not unexpected but still rather surprising since the last time I saw him a few weeks ago he actually looked healthier than he had in a while.  But it is also a relief that he has finally let go - 93 is a long life and he had been rather sad, anxious and in despair at his failing body.

But that is not the soap opera part.  My rather obnoxious uncle had organised the funeral in the hours between my grandfather's passing and him informing the rest of the family of my grandfather's death.  So not only did my uncle exclude the rest of us in organising the details, he organised it for 5 days after my grandfather's death despite knowing full well that my parents (my grandfathers only other son) are in the desert of Western Australia somewhere on a holiday.  For those of you not familiar with Australia, Western Australia is far far away from Sydney.  He would not change the day either even though we could not reach my parents.  Luckily two days before the funeral my parents finally came into a small town, got some mobile reception and finally heard the news.  Several flights later on very expensive air tickets they managed to get back just in the nick of time much to the feigned relief of my uncle.

But that is not the end of the soap opera part.  The exact same thing happened when my grandmother died about 4 years ago.  Yes, the exact same situation.  My parents were on another holiday this time in the Cape York bush (again far far away from Sydney) when my grandmother passed, and my uncle once again organised the funeral a few days after her death without consulting anyone else.  And again my parents had to rush home to make it in time for the funeral.

The annoying thing is that my uncle was not even that close with my grandparents, and yet he felt he had the right to try to exclude my parents from being able to farewell them. My grandparents were actually living with my parents before they went on their Cape York holiday, and my grandparents had gone into respite care for two months only while my parents were on holiday and afterwards my grandfather continued living with my parents until recently when he was moved into a nursing home.

But this is a sewing blog, and despite a glimpse into other people's family politics being fascinating in much the same way as driving past a car accident, let's have a look at the cute dress I made for Anna to wear to the funeral.  I ummed and ahhed about whether to take her, but I did in the end because the service was held an hour and half away from her childcare and I didn't want to be in a rush to get home to get her in case things went too long.  She behaved herself well though, sitting quietly through the service and then being cute and bringing some much needed distraction and levity during the wake.

Since all of her clothes are brightly coloured in typical toddler fashion I thought about making her an old fashioned style black dress with a white lace collar but was worried that would look too Wednesday Addams! So I made view 1 (the black dress) from this vintage Style 2168 pattern, which is from 1979:

from this fabric which is actually a maxi skirt my mother made and wore in the 70s.  It's a lovely brushed cotton with a pretty floral and graphic print and suits the dress perfectly:

The fit is spot on too, which surprised me since I've found that commercial sewing patterns, especially the vintage ones seem to run large but this one was perfect.  It has an ultra cute peter pan collar, bell sleeves which are cinched in at the wrist with elastic and puffy shoulders. 

Paired with some purple stockings (my choice) and a leopard print jacket (her choice) it was the perfect choice for a sad day.

And now I hope to get back to some regularly scheduled posting. Life without dramas is always best don't you think?

Burda1/2011, skirt 113 done

Sorry for the recent blog silence, we had to take an unexpected trip interstate to visit my husband's parents as my father in law has sadly been diagnosed with esophageal cancer.  Even though it's a quite small growth because it was discovered early, esophageal cancer is an aggressive cancer and he's been told that he has about three years even with radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

And on top of the trip I've had my own very minor but annoying ailments to contend with: tonsillitis again, a severe migraine and now a stuffy head cold.  Bring on spring I say! So I'm sure you can all understand why I've had nothing to report around here, not that I expect you all to be waiting on tenterhooks for wise words - I know I'm not that interesting.

But I did manage to finish sewing the hem on my recent project: Burda 1/2011, skirt 113:

I even made mine from some glenplaid wool just like the magazine photo, which of course led to frustrations in pattern matching.  Here's my finished product:

I think it looks ok, although I think the waistband yoke is either too wide or I should have made it a bit smaller so it sits higher on my waistline because it looks a little off to me.  And looking at these photos it seems the hem may not be straight either because it looks to be sitting higher at the back than the front, although that could be my dodgy posture though.

The pattern was super easy and would have been quick to sew if I didn't make it from a plaid fabric.  The skirt is excessively long though - there are two versions in the magazine, a long (calf length) and a shorter one (knee length), but I found that I had to lop almost 15cm off the length to get it sit anywhere near my knee.  Which of course meant I had to take out the godet and resew it in higher up the back centre seam.  I also put in a centre back zip instead of a side zip just because I find side zips tend to ripple over my lumpy hips and thighs so I like to avoid that!

Pattern matching on the side was a success:

and successful on the front too, but I should have lined up the apex of the yoke with a stripe instead of having it off centre - I should have paid more attention when cutting out the front skirt on the fold.

Pattern matching on the back was a mixed result - vertically pretty good but horizontally it is way off.  But as many of you have pointed out before no one should be staring at my butt enough to notice that anyway!

I'm pleased to have finished this project, but it certainly doesn't hold the same excitement for me as a newly finished dress I have to say.  Next up I'm working on some pants for Anna since she just won't stop growing taller, and I'm pretreating some wool fabric for a jacket for myself which is the least exciting part of a project but must be done to save tears later right?