Sunday, May 26, 2013

stuff we've been up to

Busy, busy. Getting the hang of running a shop. Usual family wrangling. Still holding down a part time office job. Husband bouncing from one time-consuming work project to the next. Something might have to give soon but we're all holding up for now!
It's important to me to keep adding to this space as a personal archive of our family's day-to-day and my sewing, and to keep in touch with lovely bloggy friends :) I do so love reading the same kinds of things on the blogs of others so it's up to me to contribute too! And so, on with a bunch of photos - 'random' as Jasper is so fond of calling everything.













That Charlie - not only does he cut his own fingernails, he can now make my lemon poppyseed cake recipe better than I can, and put together Ikea furniture all by himself. Practically a fully-formed human being! 
What else do we have up there... Clem has some new lights on his bedhead thanks to the theatre show Andy has just finished working on. 
Clem built his first real improvised Lego thing, which I was excited about because none of my kids have ever been huge Lego fans, which I admit I find a little disappointing. 
I made a small whole cloth quilt/throw from some gorgeous Nani Iro double gauze, pure wool batting, linen/cotton on the back and perle cotton hand quilting, as a sample for the shop. The cat, and Clem, really rather wanted it to stay at home.
The dress above was made as a sort of shop sample, and also to wear to the opening of Andy's show. I was really pleased with it. My first fully lined dress! Pattern from Ottobre 5/2012, and if you look carefully at the muslin version you can see how I made sure I avoided awkward placement of the dots on the 'proper' fabric (Anna Maria Horner Field Study velveteen). Texta drawn on 'danger spots' while wearing muslin! The only fitting adjustment I made to the pattern was to make the back darts a little deeper and longer. Oh and I omitted the back zip since the muslin went on and off just fine while all sewn up. Win! 
No photo of me wearing the dress... but this post may never happen if I wait for that. Maybe later. I wore it with a skinny black belt on which I attached an old sparkly buckle of my Granny's. Very swish.

Alright, nuff for now. (Crap, with this sort of photos and shorthand commentary seems like I should take up Instagram instead doesn't it! Fortunately I do not possess the technology. I really don't need another internet time vortex in my life. Do you Instagram? Do you like it?)

- Jane x








8 comments:

  1. You and the kids have been busy! Great dress, I love how the neckline stands up a little on the model. We love lemon poppyseed cake around here too - we do lemon poppyseed biscuits as well, yum. I think owning a fabric shop would be every sewing addict's dream - lucky you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I left you a lengthy comment that disappeared, darn Internet! I love these random posts! Pretty please share that cake recipe, it's making me drool!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lovely post. Love the dress. I Instagram. I started to follow my brother's road trip through the States, but continued on a very small scale and do enjoy it. I like looking back over the record of photos. I'm a private user and only have friends or my blog readers who I recognise and who request to follow. Like the blog I try to make sure I'm doing it for myself, not to please others or get caught up it in too much. I find it a good way to stop and appreciate the small things along the way of life. For your shop it may be a really good way of getting out there. Cx

    ReplyDelete
  4. I always love your 'life' posts, Jane :-)
    Love the dress - I do hope we get to see it modelled
    No Instagram here - already enough to lose hours on - please keep up your blog!

    ReplyDelete
  5. The dress looks great. I'm sure you looked amazing in it. The cake looks amazing, too. I can't wait until my kids are old enough to cook, and, more importantly, to clean up afterwards :)

    I don't use Instagram or Twitter or Facebook, etc, etc, because I am on Pinterest and Blogger and I find I spend enough of my time on these two things alone. To use you're words - I really don't need another internet time vortex in my life.

    I hope running a shop is everything you hoped it would be.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Glad you managed to avoid the danger spots. Now you see, that's why you're a good dressmaker and I'm not because I wouldn't have thought about it until I finished the dress, tried it on and looked in the mirror.
    I don't use Instagram, though I do love Twitter. Although I love the photos in blogs, it's the words that give it soul.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh I love that dress style. Would love to see it on you.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I hope all is going well with the shop. Love the dress and remembering to avoid dodgy dot positioning - bonus! I'd have totally forgotten. Improv lego is a wonderful thing, my Charlie is crazy over it and goes a little overboard - he built a huge lego robot last week with a little lego men inside it's head who were apparently 'operating it' (it was a baddie robot) as it destroyed the lego town he'd also created - I wasn't sure if I should be pleased or a little bit worried, ha ha. Beth/thelinencat xx

    ReplyDelete

Hey, I would really love to know what you think. Go on!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...