The Royal Day of Grr and Yay!

Instead of watching the Royal Wedding yesterday I decided to venture out to Ikea for some fab new bits and bobs to furnish my new sewing space.  This did not go entirely to plan...

As Ikea is about an hour away I decided to give the car a little TLC before I started the journey.  So off to Asda to full her up with petrol, then a wash and some air and water.  All sounds rather normal really doesn't it, apart from the bonnet not closing the first time round I thought it was all rather normal.  So there I am pelting it down the motorway when I realise that the bonnet still isn't shut properly... Grrr! So I sighed and pulled off at the services to check it out.  There I am at the services slamming the bonnet and it still wouldn't shut! What the hell! So I pulled out my phone and google'd the nearest Kwik Fit (gotta love technology) and off I went, slightly worried about the bonnet flinging up and causing havoc.  I get to Kwik Fit and the blokey couldn't shut it properly either (insert massive sigh of relief that it wasn't just me being a Spazz).  After a bit of tinkering and still not being able to do it we worked out that the (insert major sarcasm) rather lovely person who cracked my bumper

which I only noticed a month ago did alot more damage than just cracking the bumper...

don't know if you can see but there is a bar inside the grill that is very bent :(  This then must have done something to the catch.  So I drove round to a body care place the Kwik Fit blokey's pointed me to and expected a massive dent to the bank balance to sort it and no Ikea trip :(  But the bloke was lovely and all it took was a clever screwdriver thingy and a bit of jiggerypokery and it was fixed, for free too!  Thank you Mr Body Care Man!!!!! (Yay!)
Off to Ikea!!!  Stuffs were purchased and happyness prevailed (Yay!), until I got back to the car! Dagnabit I should have remembered that the back seats don't go down... Grrr! How was my big table top going to fit in now?  I ended up fitting it in but I had to pull my seat forward a smidge and drive a little cramped up.  No pain no gain eh?

But anyway, my new sewing space is all set up Yay!  All tidy and lovely and snazzy!

I wonder how long it will stay tidy for?

Another Yay! I've ordered my fabric for the meeting and decided what to make, no changing my mind now!

Decisions Decisions

So there is a fantastic meet up going on in a few weeks and I need to make a dress/outfit for said meeting in a red/white/blue colour theme, but I just can't pick fabric or pattern for it.  I've maybe narrowed it down to a few choices but I'm still none the wiser as to what I'm actually going to do.  I have some fabric samples and just when I think I've made my decision it all goes and changes, AGAIN! grrr...  These are the fabric samples I have (the blue is far too thin and shiny to be used as a main part of an outfit)

And as for the pattern, well the question is "to stash or not to stash"  the stash pattern I have in mind is New Look 6699 in view E+K+M, with the floral material for the midriff and a different blue for the rest (I had a different idea for this one while I was writing this but changed my mind yet again!)

Or I could go with a retro theme of B4790, with the red material and blue details

Does anybody want to make the decision for me??

On the plus side though I managed to get a pic of me in the TV Character challenge top, still looking good after a day of wear at work too.

Tv Character Challenge

So last weeks Sew Weekly Challenge was all about inspiration from the television.  Awesome, and oddly enough the other half and I have been watching all of the series of How I Met Your Mother recently and in one of the episodes he said "I like that top you should make it" and I said "Me too, I think I will".

Well I think that was a few months ago...  I brought the material for it and it just sat in the pile waiting, and waiting.  So this week I finally got around to making it, Yay!!!  First thing first I needed a pattern for it, so I searched my stash of patterns and this one fit the bill in view D (and 80p from the market, win!)

I've already made one in a different material so the pattern had already been traced, double win!  All that I needed to do was to figure out the lace part.  Well I think I ignored most of the instructions and made it all up as I went along, so I'm pretty impressed with how it turned out.

Sorry no me, stupid phone camera!

I did finish it a little later than I wanted to, life got in the way!, but it was finished yesterday and as it was a bank holiday I'm still classing it as the weekend.

Now this weeks challenge is about making a dress to match a pretty hat, and this is where I fall a little short.  I don't really do hats so I'm finding it a little tricky to be inspired this week.  So in the spirit of spring I've decided to do a spring tidy up and finally move my sewing space from here

Mega tiny space and messy (I'd just finished above top). To the newly (nearly) empty spare bedroom

I can't wait to see how it looks after I've been to the wonderful land of Ikea on Friday!

Where has the week gone?

I'm worried where all my time has gone this week, I had been meaning to make lots and lots of things but now its Saturday and I've only just managed to cut out my fabric for this week's Sew Weekly challenge!

I had meant to do lots of work on Thursday but an impromptu night out/beer garden visit put a stop to that, yesterday was cutting day and today I'm off to a Jazz and Blues festival, but that's not until 11 so a quick hour on the sewing machine to see how much I can manage to do. I need buttons for my top so I may have to try and squeeze a visit to town in this time too... I'm never going to finish!

Ohh and here's a peek at some bag's I've made :)

Sew Weekly Kidding Around Challenge

Last weeks Sew Weekly challenge was all about inspiration from a childhood outfit.  I have been trying to do some stashbusting this week and instantly thought back to a red spotty dress I had when I was a kid

 

And this fabric from my stash 

So inspiration and fabric chosen, next what to make...  After splashing out on some patterns I picked a shirt pattern as the fabric would just not have worked as a dress.  So off I set and after one night of cutting, and a night and part Saturday of sewing my shirt was complete!  Although it didn't go without problems, I nearly ran around in a blind panic because I thought the sewing machine was broken, Arggh!! Turns out shouting at it, flicking some buttons and turning it off and on again was all it needed, at least I'll know for next time!

It did actually start off with a full black yoke but I decided against that idea after sewing the shoulders together, thank god it wasn't after or I would have screamed at the amount of unpicking there would have been to do.

I really like how its turned out, even if it does remind me of a Ten Pin Bowling Shirt... 

One of the lovely sew weekly ladies spotted some subliminal inspiration in it too, she thought the black detail on the front was inspired by the collar.  Amazing!

Quilt Show

Today I had the pleasure of going to my very first quilt show and some of the things that are there are purely AMAZING! The amount of time and effort some people put into it is unbelievable.  Didn't manage to snap any pics of the sheer gorgeousness of some of the quilts since the crazy "Quilt Angels" (Women with white gloves who are allowed to touch the quilts) were scaring me but I did find some tasty fabrics to use in my bags. nom nom nom!

 

 There was also something there that was very confusing!  How can something win not one but two prizes for embroidery when the piece that was being displayed didn't have a scrap of embroidery on it?!? 

Obligatory 1st Post

Howdy!

Welcome to my blog, I've set this up to document/show triumphs/moan about my sewing life. (Occasionally there maybe other non-sewing related things depending on how excited I get).

I suppose I should introduce myself really hadn't I?
I'm Kirsty, avid sewer of all things fabricy (not a word I know).  I began sewing around 3 years ago when I was going to a LARP event with my better half.  For those who don't know what the heck LARP is I give you a brief explanation: You dress up as something and run around a field drinking and hitting things with pretend weapons (ok not an exact explanation but that is what I do there) Anyway I spent forever searching the internet for something to wear, but everything was so damned expensive.  So after a while I though why don't I make something, so I did

I was so impressed with myself that I carried on making things whenever the dressing up occasion called for it.  It's so much cheaper and a lot more satisfying than just buying something. Unfortunately I don't have any great pictures of the things on but here are some costume bits I've made

So there I was happily sewing bits and bobs for costumes until I was searching for something to wear to the works Christmas party. Trawling around the shops thinking if only that was in a different colour and Oooh I like the fabric shame about the style. Then it hit me, why don't I make my own dress.

Sorry no picture of me in it again...

Since then I've slowly been getting the bug for sewing more and more, and now I just keep trying to think of things to make and reading other peoples blogs for inspiration.  I've ventured into more clothes and also bags and somewhere along the reading of blogs I stumbled upon The Sew Weekly, what a treat and just what I was looking for, weekly challenges to make something along a theme and a fantastic sewing community.  So I joined up and I'm now on my 3rd week and really enjoying it as it helps the bug, and they say it takes 3 weeks for something to become a habit so I hope it does :)  The other good thing is the lovely ladies there are meeting up in London on my Birthday! WOO!!!