Blogtoberfest

I have to admit defeat. There is too much going on for me this October to post often enough for Blogtoberfest. One of the more exciting goings on is that I am moving house! It's been a very spur of the moment decision so I have a lot to organise. It also means that I probably won't be able to access the interwebs from home for a while, so if you don't hear from me, you know why! x

My new skirt

The warm weather on the weekend made me feel like making a light and comfy skirt for summer. My top comes down over the white bit, so it looks better on.

This is my first sewing with fabric that I have printed myself – ok so it’s not all fabric I printed but about half of it is. I think that drawstring bags, although simple are really useful. Since I normally walk to work, I have one that I keep under my desk with work shoes in it, then swap them over my stinky sneakers. I like to think that the drawstring helps to keep the smell contained! I also use them for travelling, and if I were more organized I’d keep hosiery in one and wouldn't have a hole somewhere in each pair. So I decided to make some more. I like it when things are simple and useful. What do you think of them?






See, pretties on the back too!

Bowerbird Bazaar

Bowerbird Bazaar is on this weekend in Adelaide, tucked away in Queens Theatre. It was definitely work taking a look around – Cherry & Tracey went too and Linda has a stall there. I bought this little brooch from her. I think I might need to get more – it would make a great gift for family overseas as it is so light.

Cushion covers

I made these cushion covers - I’d been collecting red & white fabric for ages, but I think I like the yellow one better!


I had to work up courage to cut into the ‘french’ fabric – I’ve had it for months and not been able to bring myself to cut into it until now.



Now I just need cushion inserts and they'll be ready to go.

More New Stash

On Tuesday I mentioned that I got some fabric - a quilter I work with had been doing some spring cleaning gave me some of her fabric stash that she had decided to get rid of. The same day I got mail with a fabric sample pack I bought from kristen doran - my first online fabric purchase. How exciting!

These are the bags of material:



Some of what was inside...




I did think maybe it was christmas..



And this is the monster-cat being perfectly happy in what looks like a very uncomfortable position.




She might not look like it, but she really is a monster!

Other than sorting through those bags of fabric and playing with the monster, I've also been sewing some little things, some using my own printed fabric. I can't wait to hear what you think of them once I have pics.

Red

I've started sewing some of the fabric shown in the last post.





More about this project later!

Shopping…

Just showing off a couple of extra things I picked up while at Spotlight to get more, ahem, plain material for printing on:





How cute are the apples and the letters?

Today I received loads of great fabric! It’s been an amazing fabric-getting day. I don’t have time to take pictures of it right now, but I’ll show you some of the highlights soon.

Birdies

I have finally organized myself to screen print at home! It’s so exciting!

My first home-made screen prints are of my bird design which you have seen evolve over the last few weeks. I have been doodling these little birdies all over the place so it’s great to see them printed as I had envisioned.

Although I have got my screen, my squeegee, my hinged board to hold the screen still and fabric to print on there was still, I am afraid, a fair amount of swearing involved. While most of my printing went really well I didn’t have enough table space set up to easily rest the fabric with wet ink on. This resulted in most of my beautiful prints (which I had felt quite proud of) folding over on themselves and smudging. Oh well, a lesson learnt. I have a plan in my head for next time which will involved trestles, an old door and a card table – and very little space in the room around them.

I couldn’t help myself, I had to post a load of pictures. Check out the t-shirt I printed, its an old one in case I ruined it, but I think it turned out alright!

Riso Print

I got a Riso screen made at an art shop and have just tried it out:






I decided to stop because there really isn’t much point in trying to print onto fabric that needs an iron (I just couldn’t wait to try it out), but I’m pretty happy with the results. Especially since the squeegee I used came from the tiling section of the hardware store.

I’m a bit worried about my camera, or rather one of my lenses. The beautiful 50mm 1.4 that I am borrowing wouldn’t connect properly to my camera when I went to take these pictures this morning. It came up with “fEE”. I guess there’s a problem with one of the little metal connector thingies but I don’t know how to fix it.

I signed up to Blogtoberfest yesterday, but haven’t made a very good start with it. I thought I’d get around to posting later in the day, but instead I went to see a movie and went straight to bed when I got home. Oh well, I’ll have to pretend October started today!

Girl's skirt

Last night I made this little skirt (using the tutorial at oliver + s) for my boyfriend's niece. I have left the elastic threading hole open so that I can adjust it to fit her as I don't have her measurements. I hope she likes it! I'd recommend having a look at the pattern/tutorial as it is so quick and easy - you could make several of these in an evening. If only making clothes for myself were as fast!

Do you like my manequin? I rescued it from the bin when I worked in a clothing store! It's been a prop for many artsy photos but this is the first time I've actually put clothing on it.