From The Saturday Bulletin.

Meantime – I have flu. Swine flu? Who knows.  The doctor said to keep doing what I’m doing (lots of fluids, bed rest, paracetamol, aspirin) and come back immediately if it gets worse.

Poor Mr Beloved is on his first day of the wretched virus now.  Nothing to do but ride it out…

And we’re so faithful with getting our flu vacs super early – not fair when a whole new virus jumps out at ya, is it?!

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See, I’m a hopeless pattern-aholic. Seriously. Sometimes I buy patterns just to read the instructions! So obviously I don’t remember all of them. But more importantly – I’m not good at estimating the amount of fabric to buy for a particular design. I know there are common rules to use – twice your length plus this or that – but that often results in having to be rather creative in getting an outfit out of the amount of material available.

So – I either scan (for out of print patterns) or pop over to the pattern company’s website and catch an image of the pattern. Then I stick it in my Magic Pattern Book, and write the amounts of fabric I’ need for my size, and usually any other notions I’ll need. My book is an A5 “visual diary”, available at any office store or newsagents – just blank pages work better for me.

click to see bigger!

Once I’ve actually made a pattern the idea is to write notes and add swatches of fabric. I don’t always remember to do that! But I did on the left hand side of the page you can see above.

Sue’s version of the book is better organised than mine- she cleverly found a notebook with coloured sections, and has divided heres into the same sort of pattern categories that the Big 4 companies use in their catalogs – tops, skirts, wardrobes, etc.

Meantime, I’ve still lost that koala pattern – methinks there is now a HUUUUUGE Frustration Field in place…

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We started at East Coast Fabrics at Lawnton. A few of us HAD to buy this fabric:

It’s cotton, a good weight for a coat or a skirt, and was only $5.95 a metre!! (That’s my Magic Pattern Book on it for scale – the book is A5, which is 5.8 X 8.3 inches. More on the Magic Pattern Book soon.) I’m thinking it will become either this coat
(#106 from Burda WOF 4/09 – because I have been in LOVE with this pattern wince I first saw it; and even more so when I saw Anne’s gorgeous floral version!

The other possible pattern is this “Hortensia” coat from Ottobre Spring/Summer 09.

We then managed to get lost (It was the Magic Talking Lady’s fault! She kept blanking out her little screen map and tsking at us: “RE-Calc-u-lating!”) and find our way again to Indooroopilly shops, where we had lunch, and a shop at Sckaff’s Fabrics. I was VERY GOOD and though tempted (mostly by their hats!) I didn’t buy anything there – this time!

We were reluctant to say goodbye to the PRDU girls, but were late getting on the road already. Still, we figured a quick stop at Gardam’s (just around the corner from the Indooroopilly shops, after all!) was in order. Sue managed to find exactly what she’d been looking for; and I grabbed this 95% poly/ 5% wool tweedy/herringbone fabric to make a skirt.

The trip home was looooooooong! It took us ages to get anywhere – major roadworks combined with the first night of the school holidays left us with plenty of time to put on a CD of ’80s favourites and bop along… two forty-somethings singing “my job is very boring I’m an OFFICE CLERK!” with great gusto, and “air drumming” along with Adam Ant… it passed the time, anyway!

We’d already booked for a girl’s night out with friends from the gym, but I was soooo tired I left early. I did manage to get a leeeetle bit squiffy and attempt to teach my favourite drunk tongue-twisters to a couple of the girls!

Bed day today. If it’s not drizzly tomorrow I hope to get my new fabric washed and the patterns traced – because I neeeeeed a floral coat, don’t you think?!

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So there he is, in all his rhinosity! Little Caitlin, who has just had her first birthday, is the Aussie baby of South African parents, and she apparently thinks that his best feature is his handle – otherwise known as a horn!

And his Grandma – who is about to leave for Namibia to lead a safari tour – was UTTERLY thrilled that not only is he a white rhino, but his mouth is in the right place (not all cartoon-y anthropomorphic) and he has authentically short sighted little eyes.

I’m hoping Mum will send photos of the delighted recipient soon!

I HAD intended to make this pattern yesterday or today, from the same very talented designer. Sue and I met Pauline at the Brisbane Stitches and Craft fair, and I think she was worried that I wouldn’t give her sample Rhino back – he was so soft and cuddly!

But I’ve LOST the @&#$(*@& pattern somewhere in my sewing room….

You can also see one of the mouse wrist rest here – I nicked the photo from over on Sue’s blog.

The other one was for our friend V who is recovering from some particularly nasty wrist surgery. (and check out Sue’s gorgeous shirt!)

I’ve been using fairly inexpensive polar fleece (from Lincr*p, if you’re an Aussie – it was about $6 a metre, I think) and I’m surprised how wonderfully these toys (and wrist rests!) turn out.

Bet you didn’t know I used to be a full on cloth doll maker, didja? Ahhh, the dim distant past… my total time from tracing the pattern to tying the bow on the mouse was about 40 minutes. The Rhino was about 90.

There are a few tricks to keep in mind – make sure you shorten your stitch length; trace a stitching line template onto freezer paper and then iron the freezer paper to your fabric (using very low temp for polar fleece) and stitching around that – this avoids having to mark the fabric directly, so there’s no risk of the pattern tracing showing through on a light colour;

(someone gave me a 150 yard roll years ago – I’m only just coming to the end of it!)
and I find the best tool for turning through teeny pointed parts (like the mouse fingers) is a tube about the same diameter as a drinking straw (sturdier plastic if you can get it) and the blunt end of a bamboo skewer assisted by a lockable hemostat (available from medical supply stores quite cheaply.)

Ok – off to find that PATTERN!

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BFF and I went to a sewing class.  With a very brilliant teacher.  Felicity knows SO much about industry techniques for production sewing, and sewing couture… my mind was in OVERDRIVE! (Fortunately I can read my own scribbled notes, since as we know, my memory is rather dodgy…)

Two important mantras I MUST repeat, especially when sewing samples:

1. IT’S ONLY FABRIC and
2. IT’S SEWING, not MICROSURGERY.

My perfectionist tendencies need to be on a tight leash in class time.  In fact, next time I don’t think I should take my seam ripper with me at all.  Hmmm. Does it really matter if somethings out by a milimetre or two on a sample? GET OVER IT!

I really loved the structure of the day – we got to ask questions, veer off into things that weren’t necessarily in the plan, and learned even more on those side excursions.  I’m feeling much more confident and enthusiastic about tackling shirts again.  Yippee!!

And it was funny to see someone else press – I am have been waaaaaaay too timid about really leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaning on the iron.  No more – when Felicity says PRESS, she ain’t kidding!

I even liked sewing on Baby Pfaff.  She’s not at smooth as The Goddess Pfaffalina, and sounds a bit clunkier at first – but she does everything I ask of her with no complaining.

And spending time with BFF is sooooo good for one’s mental health. Should be more of it.

I resisted buying any fabric (good girl, woof!) but did succumb at long lsat to the luxury of my very own Point Presser /Tailor Clapper. Ahhhh!  If you’re not a dressmaking enthusiast, you’ll probably be wondering why on earth I’m so excited about this gadget.

If you DO sew, and you don’t have one of these – GET ONE.  It will improve your sewing immensely.

After all  that and a lovely (unexpected!)catch-up with friend C at lunch, and wind-down with Sue over tea and chat, I had the best email EVER arrive in my inbox.  A friend I hadn’t been in touch with for ages – (isn’t it awful that the only time we are in touch with important people in our lives is when there’s a funeral?  That needs fixing) – wrote in reply to a recent snail mail sympathy card I’d sent.

All the store bought cards were a) expensive b) TACKY or c) both.  So I made a card using tools from the art cupboards (Fiskars embosser, if you must know – hey, I never claimed to be a purist!) and wrote about my favourite memories of the person. Turns out this was the right thing to do – far far better than any pre-printed guff from an anonymous card company.  It was so wonderful to know that what I’d written meant something more.

NOTE TO SELF: Make more time to do this stuff!!

And now, the cuppa tea cake is nearly ready; I have a brand new roll of pattern paper, and a sleeve to alter.

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Ok, you’ve rubbed it in – I’m stuck in Canberra with craft shops closing left right and centre. So where is the craft show debrief??? you’ve been back for at least 2 nights? why are you making us wait? where are the great photos of the clever peeps that I’m sure you took, the detail of the fab quilts, who did you hob nob with, how did the clothes shopping (not buying) efforts go? spill the beans Ms Caity.

WELL, since you asked, Miss Nic! I do apologise for the delay in reporting in – I totally wore myself out! (And then the new neighbours moved in with a Very Barky Dog who didn’t shut up all night – for the last two nights in a row. Grrr!)

So here is the somewhat delayed (and I hope not too disappointing) review:

MEH.

There were hardly any stalls – I mean, you know how normally craft fairs are so packed with women-with-backpacks (Guilty! this year:-))and strollers and strolling middle aged women with their Mums… well, you could have swung a cat-printed scarf through the aisles with ease.  Apparently a lot of the stallholders pulled out in the last couple of weeks leading up to the show. (You have to wonder how much of that is due to the heavy promotion being done by the rival mob – who have a show in just a month’s time.)

The hall decorations were cool – although if you saw any of the fab bloggers writing about the Melbourne version of the show, you’ve seen this already.  I did get the chance to see the awesome Selvedge dress (and chair!) however:

That's a LOT of selvedges!

How clever (and dedicated!) is Jodie of RicRac blog? AWESOME!
I’ve put that pic in at a large size so you can see what I mean (in the dark background) about just how empty the place was.

Also, some things that got fairly big billing on the show’s website were quite – how do I say this – UNDERWHELMING.  “The Teacosy Revolution” had FIVE teacosies.  I had hoped to see a LOT more than that! (Never mind, her blog about them is lovely!)  There were some bead stalls, some of the usual quilt stores, but nothing that really had me falling over with WOW, y’know?

NOW that’s the whinging over – let me tell you about the GOOD BITS!!

And oh, they were VERY good.

First – the company was grand – thanks, BFF!! We met the fantabulous (and so busy!) Nikkishell of BurdaStyle.com, Wardrobe Refashion, and one of the founders of Mixtape magazine.  (Can I be Nikkishell when I grow up?!And Oh my GOSH now she’s gonna be a Melbourne’s Tessuti Fabrics!!  AWESOME!!)  BurdaStyle.com had a fashion parade – which was GREAT (even with those poor teeny weeny malnourished models – seriously, I just wanted to take them aside and say “Have a crumpet and a cuppa before you CUT yourself on your own bones, dearie!).  Seeing clothes In Real Life is so much better than peering at a pattern on a screen…

"Judy" skirt - pattern from BurdaStyle.com

Paola wrap dress pattern from BurdaStyle.com

These were two of the patterns paraded – seriously gorgeous and made me determined to get sewing on some soon!

Another fashion parade featured garments from Wardrobe ReFashion – I was pleased to see the mob of shcool kids watching the show tooks HEAPS of pics of those!

We also met Justine (The other force behind Mixtape zine – it’s very cool, now I can see why people were excited every time the new issue comes out!) in blog alley – a row of indie/bloggers with their products which along with the fashion shows wsas really the highlight of the event for me.

We hadn’t seen  peppermint magazine before either – not that I’ve had a chance to read it yet!

I couldn’t resist a couple of patterns from the very clever Pauline of Funky Friends Factory – seriously, how cute is Kiki the Koala? These patterns were all designed to be baby safe, are made of snuggly polar fleece, and I had a great deal of trouble giving back the rhino toy, he was so cuddly…

Sue got some GREAT organic cotton jersey hand printed fabric from Thea and Sami, which I’m sure she’ll show you when it’s made up!

I was worried given the sparse offerings that my two absolute MUST STOP retailers wouldn’t be there – but they came through for me, Yay!!  I always need more scissors  – this time I needed to replace my thread snips, so we had to stop at  Scissorman.  I bought some lovely curved blade snips and a little brush-tipped bottle of oil – gotta have the right tools for the job!(Onya, Trevor!)

And my other MUST visit is of course Stephanie at Can Do Books and Perpetual Patterns.  I knew I wanted at least one pattern – and I got the Liberty Shirt from The Sewing Workshop.  I already have fabric in my stash – I just  need to trace the pattern out and get going…

Then into town across the bridge (slap upside the head to IDIOT Caity – MORE THAN ONE PAIR OF SHOES next time, OKAY?!) and over to Borders bookshop.  Another delightful Canberra pal (I miss you guys!) organised a book voucher for me at Borders, knowing that this was the one day I had access to a big bookshop.  It took me aaaaaaaaaages but I finally decided on two FABULOUS books:

and one just for fun – the EXTREMELY silly “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”

Braaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiinsssss

Then Sue and I window shopped for while before going out for dinner – we had the NICEST meal at San Marco’s, overlooking the river. Then eventually to bed.. and more shopping (mostly of the window type!) on Saturday before heading home.  We did stop in at Gardam’s  (fabric heaven!)new location but no fabrics really grabbed us – then to Sckaffs fabrics at Indoorapilly, plus a good look round a lot of other shops there.

And by about 3 pm we were totally shopped out – and I came home and went  to bed for a coupla days!

There is more (and I’m sure I’ve missed out stuff I wanted to show you) but I am too tired…. ttyl!

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Simplicity 4505 is long out of print, which is a shame, since it’s a useful pattern, with a jacket, dress, skirt, and pants all in the one envelope.  No linings though, and  I couldn’t be bothered THINKING about linings, so the dress is unlined.

(photo will go here when the camera is found!)

I perhaps should have made a full pattern and tried to match the pattern in the fabric a little (naaah, this ain’t couture!) and I think if I bother to do this one again, a slightly heavier fabric would be better than the 100% cotton I used in this version.

I cut out a 22… but cheated on the seams at the waist and managed to squeeeeeeeeeze enough out to fit in my waist (groan mutter curse curse) It’s okay… not as good a fit as I’d perhaps like, but hey, it’s fabric that was $5 per metre from Spodshite, it’ll do.

In other news….

I got to gym last night for cardio + Pilates, then again this morning for BodyStep.  Managed to do more of the class actually using the step today.  Yay me, huh?!  Tomorrow: cardio + Oxigeno (love those functional movement and stretching classes!).  That’s provided the neighbours let me sleep…

You see, we live in a worker’s cottage.  And very close next door is what started out as an identical worker’s cottage.   So the floor plans are exactly the same in both wee houses.  Which means that THEIR loungeroom? Is about 5 feet from our bedroom.  (Don’t even get me started on uncorrected property boundaries, grrr!)

Not soooo bad when all they’re doing is watching (violent, noisy) movies late into the night. Up until about, say , midnight, I don’t care, I’m usually awake anyway.  But combine the loud action flick with even louder sex?  That becomes less tolerable.

The straw that broke this poor old camel’s back, though, was that that decided to DO IT with the lounge (sofa) jammed up against the outside wall of their house.  5 feet from our bedroom and RESONANT.  And they’re young, so they go at it like rabbits.  HYPERACTIVE RABBITS.

"Wait wait! I think I've got a hare in my throat!"

Bang a bang a banga banga bangabangabangabanga ooooooooohhhhhh bangabangabanga banga YES!  OH YES! bangabangabanga….

This went on until 4 am.

When I overslept the alarm this morning and had to rush to get to the gym, I mentioned that the neighbour’s shagging had kept me awake.  Various suggestions on how to deal with the problem were made:

• Ask loudly “Is that IT?”
• Join in the over-the-top moaning
• Play baaaaaaaaaad 1970s European (*wink wink*) film soundtracks: Chicka booowwwww!

All good – but not as funny as the song that appeared as track 5 or so in the BodyStep Workout: Yep, Acka Dacka’s “YOU SHOOK ME ALL NIGHT LONG”

sing along, everyone!

I was laughing so hard I was nearly crying, and still trying to do the step class!

Ahhh, ya gotta laugh, eh?!

Anyone got any further suggestions?  Would a note saying “HI! We’re your neighbours! Would you mind moving the couch out from the wall when you have noisy fun?” be too much, do you think?

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Usually I’d go on and on about the way the super-amplified bass and drums drive right up the creek and into our house; then I’d have a rant about the way that the entire Queens Park is shut off from the people it’s meant to be there for (pardon grammar) and finish with the fact that the organisers of the event don’t give a shit about noise complaints and in fact won’t even supply the correct number for the regional council to register a proper complaint.

But I’m really tired, have spent a lot of the weekend sleeping (to get away from the noise, and because I’m just feeling like a wrung out dishcloth these days) so we’ll just leave it at that, yeah?

I’m popping into Lincraft tomorrow (not sure how they got dispensation to be open when just about every other shop will be closed – I don’t understand Toowoomba’s trading attitude at all) to pick up two Simplicity patterns for just $7.50 each, plus one Vogue pattern for only $12.  Yay!

Simplicity 4014

Then I really have to sew my little heart out this week. I have to have a decent black dress for Friday (a funeral to go to) and my previous funeral outfits are now way too big.

(I’m just working out what to do with the seam finishes on this unlined dress and jacket -  I can do Hong Kong bindings (like Sue just did) on the straight seams, not quite sure how I’ll finish the princess seams.. maybe just hand overcast? Hmmm…. suggestions welcome!)

Oh yeah – I have to buy black shoes, too – I don’t know about you, but I cannot wear red shoes to a funeral.  Nuh uh.

AND – I fell off the food plan in a bigggg way over the last week or so.  And I didn’t even eat any Easter eggs!  Never mind, I’ll climb back on… unfortunately my plans for attending BodyStep this arvo were hijacked by my overwhelming need for sleep.  THe gym re-opens Tuesday, so I’ll be back into it then…

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TWIRL!!

So here it is: The McFractured Tartan skirt.  As you might be able to see, I went a teeny bit berserk on the piecing… there was no plan, just lots of hacking fabric apart and then sewing it up again.  I *could* have just used the fabric as it was off the bolt, but – naaaah!  I have more of the same fabric on layby, and the plan is to make a little jacket that is *perfectly* matched across the plaid.  Just to show I can, you know!

Fabric was a bargain buy from Gardams.  It’s a wool/ poly/viscose blend, and creases just seem to drop out of it.  It also goes through the washing machine very well!  I used a couple of metres of inch wide black grosgrain ribbon for the waist ties.  Top is a $7 special from Rockmans; shoes are my favourite I Love Billys that you have seen me wearing almost every photo.

Pattern is the wrap skirt included in this book:

which of course I have mentioned previously.  I did alter the pattern for length.  And for width *sigh* since I am CONSIDERABLY larger than the pattern given, LOL! Still got a long way to go on this weight loss/getting fit thing…

… as the dog and I are both showing our rounded tummies in this pic!

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