well, I completely missed the party…

Tags

apartment, disaster, pyjama party, pyjamas, sewing, travel

… when Karen announced her pyjama party I signed up straight away…

… I made some fabulous flannel pjs in the winter that I loved and decided, even though I was super busy all of June,  I could easily pull together a summer pair and join the party…

… wrong!

… June passed by in a whirlwind of madness, dealing with the paperwork and signing for the new apartment, getting the keys (because it was sold in an auction this happened in 2 weeks instead of the usual 3-4 months!), away for a week teaching yoga, then back to arranging experts to come and give me quotes to redo all the electrics, replace the windows and the water heater in the new place, I also managed to land a big consultancy contract for over the summer, and get a full time job starting in October…

… my sewing machine was put away…

… Thursday night before the Sunday party I got my machine out, got out a pyjama pattern I found in my collection, from the notes on the envelope it must have belonged to my grandmother originally! I looked in my cupboard and realised I didn’t have any suitable fabric, I made a t-shirt instead. Friday morning I went out, to a lovely craft shop, and treated myself to a length of beautiful Japanese cotton, thinking I could whip up the pyjamas before I headed off for the weekend early evening…

… wrong…

… home early Sunday evening, I decide I could still make the party – just, then I realised I need to wash the fabric, so I quickly hand washed it… and went to bed. Monday morning I think maybe I can slip in late, without anyone noticing… I iron the fabric, lay it down, get outthe pattern piece and realise the beautiful fabric is only 1.10m, not 1.45m wide… I don’t have enough!

… I look at pattern books, trying to decide what I can make instead, realise I am not in the right frame of mind to embark on more ambitious projects, I fold up the fabric, I will come back to it later…

… the pyjama bug has bitten me, out running errands mid-week I decide to go to another fabric shop and pick up a length of cotton, they have nothing I like! I venture into another craft shop, treat myself to another extravagant metre of fabric – this time it is wide enough!

… home, fabric is washed, dried, ironed, cut out, but as I am cutting I realise in natural light the fabric is not dark orange, it is red and I HATE red, completely irrational, but I really hate red! I stop, wonder what to do, and then decide I am not starting over… I finish cutting, and sew the pyjamas up in an hour!

… too late for the party, not my favourite color, but they will be worn!

something fishy…

Tags

fish, japanese pattern, jersey, sewing, t-shirt

… the fish broke the proverbial ice…

… at the stoffen spektakel fabric market last month, I was walking round in a daze, overwhelmed by all the choices, undecided what to buy, despite my clear list of projects, unwilling to commit to anything until I had seen everything in the huge warehouse…

… then I spotted fish, and I stopped in my tracks. 1.5m of fishy jersey were purchased, they didn’t fit anything on my project list, but I knew straight away I would make a t-shirt with it…

… May was the month of challenges, the t-shirt wasn’t one of them, and I was still wearing my down jacket for a lot of the month, a t-shirt was the last thing on my mind…

… a couple of weeks ago the sun came out, I wore my turquoise “Japanese” t-shirt for the first time. One evening I thought about whipping up a pair of pyjamas to participate in Karen’s pyjama party, but realised I didn’t have a metre of suitable fabric to make them*, so I needed to go shopping first…

… so I took out my fishy jersey, used the same Japanese pattern as the turquoise t-shirt as a guide. I didn’t add the collar, opting rather for a regular round neck… 4 seams and 4 hems and I have something fishy to wear if the sun comes back!

*no unfortunately I don’t have a stash of fabric, I have a box with a few projects I haven’t gotten round to making yet, I usually buy fabric for a specific project, or number of projects!

regaining momentum…

Tags

apartment, sewing, travel, zippered pouch

… May was definitely a sewing month…

…although I failed admirably at making any semblance of a record, photographic or other, I think I achieved and probably even exceeded my Me-Made goal of 3 items per week.

… I made 2 items for the Burda sew-along, and a few other projects I had been stewing in the back of my mind for a while, but nothing since my wax-backed t-shirt…

… I certainly remember that I wore my turquoise Burda top to a rather momentous occasion on the 31st… an auction in which I bought an apartment! That came around rather unexpectedly, and was quite a blur. My present landlord has been telling me he wanted to sell the place I am living in for over a year, and when I finally told him I was interested, he procrastinated and never came up with a asking price. When I pushed him, he back tracked and told me he had finally decided he didn’t want to sell… I had a half hearted look at announcements on the Monday, knowing I would never find anything that I would like as much as this, saw one place that felt like it might have potential, I visited it on Tuesday, fell in love and the auction was on Friday. It is a 1930s art nouveau building and the apartment was occupied by the same lady since the 1960s, so it is going to need some renovation. I dare say my creative energies in the coming months may well shift from the sewing machine to power tools!

… apartment bought and I was straight off to Serbia for a week – teaching yoga at the relatively new Bikram studio there, and discovering a new city. Belgrade is a lovely place, at the confluence of 2 big rivers, water plays an important part of life which is especially nice when the sun is shining. I spent a lot of the time I wasn’t teaching walking, cycling, eating, drinking and reading by the water and enjoying the warmth of the sun.

… and last night I suddenly remembered I had promised a friend I was seeing today that I would make a zippered pouch for her sister… so out came the machine, some waxed cotton, some left over polka dot fabric, a couple of zips and an hour or so later I had a pouch…