Sewing Dare: Complete

You may remember that waaaaaaay back in February I signed up for a #sewingdare. The dare I received was:

"Make something to wear under a dress"

Of course, I have since made (and blogged) something to wear under a dress; my crinoline. However as I'd already decided to make the crinoline prior to being issued the dare (and at that point had a date/time scheduled to make it), I declared that the crinoline wouldn't count.

I am pleased to now announce that I have completed my sewing dare by sewing some undies! I have infact sewn two pairs of undies, that can be worn under all sorts of things, including a dress. (Actually I completed them a while ago, I just suck at promptly posting about things at the moment).

The first pair that I made was a fairly boring pair of black undies, using some left over jersey I'd used to make a t-shirt. To make the pattern I cut up an old pair of RTW undies that should long earlier have been thrown in the bin to trace around and get a basic pattern.

I then cut out my fabric, adding lingerie elastic to the top of the undies (above), and stretch lace around the leg holes (below), both stitched on with a zig-zag stitch.

Now, there was a GINORMOUS flaw in my plan, and I am telling you this because I want you to learn from my mistake; I didn't take into account that the undies I traced had 4-way stretch, and the fabric I used only had 2-way stretch. I'm sure you can see where this is going... the undies fit perfectly horizontally, but vertically they were, ummm, a bit lacking! So, I went back to my pattern pieces and added some length to the centre front and centre back (from memory it was about 1" to the front and 2.5" to the back).

Then I whipped up a second pair, and this time they were great! Hurrah!!! Pair of undies number 1 = complete!

Now, onto the second pair... for a while now I've wanted to try making some woven undies. I mean, how awesome would it be to have undies made from the fabric left-over from making pretty dresses! (I'm not joking!)

However, I'd never even worn woven undies to know if they'd be comfortable or not, so when I was in a bind and needed to buy some over Christmas I got the above pictured woven ones. It turned out that they're actually quite comfortable, so I proceeded with having a go at making some.

First I had to make a pattern. Now I didn't want to cut up this pair as I enjoy wearing them, so I used a cork board to stretch them out to trace out the pattern (shown mid-process above). I then added a little extra height in the centre back so as to more comfortably cover my derrière, and cut a pair out of some left over fabric from my Portrait Dress.

I did similar finishes to the bought pair, using various notions I've gathered or had in my stash. Top at the front has some lace trim stitched to it, through which I weaved some elastic:

The top of the back has lingerie elastic stitched to it with a zig-zag:

And the leg holes were finished with a narrow zig-zag over the edge of the fabric (this needs more work) and some elastic stitched about 1cm in from the edge of the fabric (again with a narrow zig-zag).

Overall I'm very happy with the outcome, and hope to make a stack more (including some Liberty ones to match a very special dress).

A Replacement Wallet

You may or may not remember that I made a wallet for myself a bit over a year ago. Unfortunately really quite quickly after finishing that wallet it started to look a little sad:

 

The iron on vinyl that I had applied to the outer fabric started tearing, where the press-stud was applied started to stretch out and overall the wallet became floppy and sad looking.

 

So, while I was in the UK last July I picked up some gorgeous Oil Cloth from the shop at Cowslip Workshops.... and it had been sitting in my stash until fairly recently.

  

I liked the overall design of the wallet, so made another one using the same tutorial as last time. As with the one I made for my gran I added some extra layers of interfacing (I interfaced both the biggest pieces, and the pieces on the back of each pocket, and the flap for the snap with quite a stiff interfacing).

I decided to use two fabrics on the inside of the wallet, adding a pop of pink in the back and a pink zip.

Again I used my top-stitching foot for much of the top-stitching; I really do love that foot, it makes it so easy to get nice even top-stitching.

 

It all went together smoothly, being the third of these that I've made.

 

The only difficulties that I had were with the last bit of topstitching around the whole thing, where I had a few tangling issues and had to pull the stitching out and start again. But going slow I got there in the end.

 

I've already transferred my cards and money into it, hooray for a new wallet!!

AQC 2013

     

I took Friday the 19th of April off work (which feels forever ago now), so that I could take my Gran to the Australasian Quilt Convention (AQC). I've been to AQC a few time before (find all posts here), and have also been to a few of the other shows that come to Melbourne, and I'm of the opinion that if you go to just one of these quilt shows in a year it should definitely be AQC, it has the largest selection of both quilts and stalls.

     

After arriving nice and early, we picked up our borrowed wheelchair from the Melbourne Museum and headed into the show. I have to say, the wheelchair was amazing! If I (accidentally) bumped into people with the wheelchair they apologised to me! And when we approached a stall or quilt people moved out of the way for us, it was great!

    

Our first stop once inside was at the scissorman stall, as I had told some friends I'd pick them up some cutting mats. Then, as it was still fairly quiet we took the opportunity to take a look around the stalls first to see if anything for sale caught our eye.

     

Then we were onto the 'meat' of the day; looking at the amazing and inspiring quilts (pictures throughout this post). As usual there were some absolutely stunning quilts at the show, showing incredible skill by the creators.

       

Although I don't know if it's just me, but it felt like there were a lot less traditional (as opposed to art) quilts this year in comparison to previous years. As amazing as the art quilts can be, I also like to get inspiration for quilts that I might one day want to make, which at this point isn't art quilts.

       

I didn't buy too much on the day other than the cutting mats, a quilt/embroidery pattern and some lovely trim:

However, I did come home with something incredibly special*...

My and my gran decided to sign up for one of the workshops at the show, entirely as an excuse to try out the super expensive Sashiko sewing machine.

So, a few hours later we left each with one of these delightful* wallhangings. The Sashiko machine was interesting; it only has a bobbin thread and hooks up the thread so that the front really does look like a hand stitch (there really is nothing between the stitches on the right side). However, the back is less visually appealing. It looks a lot like a normal sewing matchine stitch, but with dodgy tension.

I don't know how much use the machine would be (given how expensive it is), considering as how ugly the back is. It would look good on wall hangings, but for quilts for using it's not all that useful.

*insert sarcasm font here. The wall-hanging is SO not my style, but it was still fun to try out the machines.