Justifying Procrastination 101...

I'm not gunna say my dressmaking mojo went and moved to Adelaide to study fashion design and construction at Marleston TAFE without me, because that would be premature, given that I only worked on sewing my mockup for about a half hour. I got the skirt part done which looks quite nice even in the nasty old satin I'm using for a test, but I wasn't feeling motivated to do ruffling and curves and slinky, un-ironed, difficult fabric, and then came bad news on the hot pink fabric front.

Casey says I can't use it. The top she's wearing is hot pink. And since it's a whole top and perfect the way it is, it's apparently up to me to change fabrics, because that's easier.

But it's sooo puuurty... Shiny and smooth and crinkly and sparkly all at the same time...

Actually, the whole thing is making me feel a bit weird. I haven't properly made clothes since January, and I definitely feel like dressmaking was something that Sara-who-had-a-boyfriend did, whereas single-girl-Sara is a quilter. It's all a bit ridiculous really, but looking at dresses on eBay took me back to a time when I was being someone who wasn't quite me, to please someone else, and I think that the clothes (yes, a lot of which were bought on eBay) were a pretty big part of it. Dressing to impress a boyfriend is different to dressing to feel comfortable and good about myself, and even though dressing up for a night out to hook a boyfriend is different to both of them, it definatelly feels closer to the former than the latter. 

But once I get over the feeling that this is taking me back 11 months, I'm sure progress will be made.

Dressmaking season...

For the next few days this will stop being a quilting blog and be a clothes sewing blog. At least, until I get frustrated and go back to what I'm good at.*

The work christmas show is in 11 days. Twelve if you include the day of, and the fact that I'm normally finishing outfits an hour or less before wearing. Starting 12 days out is massive for me. Starting 2 days out is massive for me.

Here's the thing though: this year, for the first time in 4 years, I am going solo.

And I am out to wow.

Not that there's anyone at woolies I wanna date, but you never know. One of my teenyboppers on checkout may have a hot brother who will see me in one of her photos on facebook. And we normally share with some other companies, so why not feel optimistic?

While I was at Spotlight Sunday afternoon I bought 4 metres of hot pink satin backed shantung. $2 per metre and then 40% off with the voucher. It was all they had, otherwise I would have got 20. And tonight I've been cruising eBay looking for something to copy.

I very rarely use patterns. Through not fault of my own I'm very bony and knobbly. I weigh sub 45kg and have a curved spine which means that one hip juts out while the other isn't really there at all. And I refuse to pay $20 for a pattern which I will have to alter like buggery to make it fit nicely when I could buy a whole dress for $6 at the salvos. Fortunately,** I'm good at making up the pattern as I go along.

This would be super easy. 

Something along the lines of: Long strip. Trapezoid, runched at top and bottom. Small rectangle. Many layered big rectangles, runched at top. But I might need to break out the overlocker for all that runching. I'll be going longer too, in order to hide the nasty case of knobblykneeitis I have.


I also found this, which I really liked the shoulder and boobie cut of, though not in the tacky pleather it's in. eBay just looks for "dress" in the title and I haven't worked out a decent html command for but don't show me the tacky, slutty, you know it's not worth 50 cents, chinese tat. Still, that's why I look at clothes on eBay instead of buying them, and I think I could quite nicely copy this for the top and pair it with a straight cut, slinky, to the floor ballgown type bottom half.

And my pink fabrics drapes wonderfully, so it would look a million billion times better. And even though my spine is curved, in the left part of the picture, she's standing more wonkily than I do. Now that I look at it, top picture girl is doing it too. My default posture is a model pose...


Standing crookedly must be so in right now.

*I'm good at clothes too. But I can now damn-near-literally quilt in my sleep, whereas it's been about 8 months since I did clothes, and, like a pin in vintage fabrics, I've gotten rusty.
**and I was gunna move to Adelaide and do a course to become even more awesome at it, back before the rust set in, but if I had I would never have started quilting.

Sunday. Market day.

I do not need another tablet.

I do not need another tablet.

I do not need another tablet.

I do not need another tablet.

I do not need another tablet.

I need to keep telling myself this. Over and over again. I need it tattooed in reverse on my forehead so I see it in the mirror, and written on my hands. I need to rearrange the keys on my keyboard so they spell this out. I need it scrolling along the taskbar.

Anyways, the market. It was stinking hot. Well, low 30s. I wasn't too bad except for me feet - I had sneakers on because apparently I have bunions, which is why I can't wear sandals, but Helen was really feeling the heat, and the car was like an oven when we put stuff in there at the end of the day.

The 8am wakeup was nasty for me, since I'd been up till about 4 getting the monsters finished, but that's just as well, since they were the biggest sellers. A couple of the other ladies who had toys said they were underpriced at $8 each, but they were made to be cheap things that people would buy, so I guess they achieved their purpose. I only brought 3 home with me, Alex, (dark green/blue dots, one eye) who I decided I was in love with and needed to keep, Weirdo (the really tall blue one) and Devon (the yellow one) 

About half of the tissue pouches sold as did a few of the random laptop sleeves I made about a year ago, but only one quilt to my Aunt Liz - The Retro Bright (#20) Still, that put total sales at about $190, and I had told myself that if I made $200 I'd buy myself a tablet.

That's cutting it pretty fine, and I knew that when we packed up for the day, so I demanded that Helen come with me to Spotlight (because she had another one of the $40 off vouchers, and she gets the addiction) and I figured if I spent some of it straight away it would be harder to convince myself that it was okay to buy yet another not entirely necessary computer. Helen went home after picking a couple of things and I put them through with mine after I'd picked it all - some more of the drill I used for my handbag (because I am in love) some more of the off white homespun (because it was cheap) and a lot of hot pink satin backed crepe, because at some point in the near future I need to make myself an outfit for the work Christmas show.

I'm gunna have a couple of days off from sewing though. Well, definitely tonight anyway.

Actually, I'm gunna go to bed early...

Like, right now.

Not looking forward to the morning part...

Some monsters (and part of a cat)

Big day tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Crabs

I made her a long time ago and even though she was only meant to be a practice one, I never got around to making another. I probably should, since the only hard bit was the eyes on stalks, and her claws were a lot easier to set than some of the monster arms and legs I've been doing.

As for the colour, I'm not making this up, but a few days ago my dad caught an albino crayfish.

The one on the bottom is a normal one. They haven't been cooked or frozen or anything like that, it was just how they came out of the pot.

So it would seem that shellfish come in all sorts of colours.

It's still Friday somewhere...

It's been two weeks so I think it's about time I introduced you all. Everyone, this is Taylor.

Now I will be honest - I don't love love her, not yet. Not like I loved my last car, but then, I had been working on that love for 5 years.

She is a 2007 Suzuki Swift (hence the name) and apparently EZ S spec, though since Top Gear magazine wasn't publishing in Australia back then, I can't compare her specs with the ones on paper. The current S has side curtain airbags, which she doesn't, but they might have been added in the last 3 years.

We are getting along well, except for my complete inability to unconsciously operate the windscreen wipers, unless I'm under stress and trying to indicate. Her aircond is really good, important for this time of year, and she has a gorgeously tiny turning circle. She's also excellent at pulling away from the lights if I'm in the middle lane and someone is trying to unjustifiably overtake me on the turning lane. This is my biggest pet peeve when driving, and I think people who do it should be taken out the back and shot. Or at least, humiliated by a girl in a car with a 1.5L engine.

I plan on spending at least the next 5 years of my life with her, if not more, so it's just as well that I like her.

Progress Report - Monsters.

It's a bit later than usual so tonight wont be a long post - I've cut and faced 7 monsters, two of which have been finished but for the hand sewing. Honeycat however takes offense at my being up so late, and refuses to let me sew, alternately sitting around the machine, standing on my fabric, clawing at my fabric and clawing at me. So it's bedtime. 

If I finish what I've started I'll have 5 flatbears, 8 monsters and a crab, which is some little things.

I'd rather people buy the quilts though. I've run out of room to put them all.

After an extended bout of tech support for Mum, I got stuck into the Pretty Awesome quilt. I got it quilted, trimmed bound and into the washing machine before work. But since it was only just, I didn't have time to go to Spotlight and get vliesofix for monster eyes. And unfortunately, we don't stock it at woolies, so I've wasted tonight on eBay trying to tell myself I don't need (another) tablet computer. 

A 7" Android one with 2gig of storage and an 800mhz processor is not enough of an upgrade from the palm pilot (which needs a new battery cover) to justify spending $200 on, and a 10" Windows one is not enough of a size improvement on my already touch-screen laptop to justify spending $500 on. If there was a best of both worlds - a 7" Windows OS with a 100gig harddrive and 1.6gig processor, I'd absolutely get one. But there's not, so I'll just buy the palm pilot a new battery, since the uprated ones don't fit under the standard cover, and come with a bigger cover I can use instead.

Back to the quilt... and I think this one I'm gunna iron. I don't usually, being a big fan of the crinkly, but the batiks don't look as nice as most quilt fabrics do - they look more like scrunched up paper. The only other quilt I've ironed after washing is the all pink batik one, so I think it will probably be a trend.

 

I bound it in the blue version of the same batik, which is similar enough that you don't really notice it, but different enough that it doesn't just blend at the edge. I also managed to do it as a wide binding even though the actual cut wasn't wide enough - the good thing about the batiks is they hold their crease so well you can fold it unevenly and it will still work, whereas when I've tried it with regular fabrics they shift as you try and sew them because they don't have the stability of both the inside and the outside having been sewn down.

I went with a solid for the back not only because it was half the price, but because again, I didn't want one of the two fabrics drifting off into the rest. Also note the fact that my piecing is aligned to the front and it's quilting lines - it was the only way it would fit but it was a bit of a bitch to do. I'll take some more photos once I've ironed it, but the quilting lines up pretty damn well to the front and the back. On a couple of the across ones it is only a few milimetres or so on the right side of the seam, but still, I'm feeling proud. There's a reason I usually piece my backings at 45degree angles, and this is it.

This is apparently my 200th post... Happy Bicentenary...

Today was something of a mixed bag. I got the pink quilt top finished pretty early on and tried to get into some monster toys, but my fabrics just weren't working for me. The white felt I got for eyes, which was the expensive wool/viscose stuff might I add, fluffed up and piled horribly before I'd even finished the first one. And the genuinely vintage velour I've been using frays something horrible, and then all the little bits of fluff fly off and magically end up at the back of your throat, so I've been sounding like the cat trying to get up a furball. I'll go back to using iron on mending patches tomorrow even though that means no more of the puuurty velour, but maybe that's not a bad thing.

After admitting defeat I had some icecream (der) and pieced a back for the pink quilt, basted it and I've done about half the quilting. So there's achievement there, but still not so much in the little things. Which I know I should be doing... But the universe keeps saying no.

Tomorrow before work I want to finish quilting this one and maybe bind it too, or at least do the front since it's not gunna be one of my wide, easy bindings, and maybe if possible get a back pieced for the Awesome quilt top - it's okay, I bought real quilting fabric so no more poplin wars.

I'll have another go at some more monsters after work, and more importantly once I have more supplies.

I just felt like it, okay?

Fortunately, I got to an episode last night that didn't need to be followed immediately by the next one, and I've decided to stop there until after the weekend. I could probably stop forever, since things seem to be going well and you could imagine that they all live happily ever after from this point, but the fact that there is more will nag at me, so I'll pick it up next week. In the meantime, channel 10 is starting season two of White Collar this week, and even though we don't actually have functioning TV in our house at the moment, it seems as good an excuse as any to re-watch it. Again. But because I've already watched it twice, I wont be getting so caught up in it, and I'll be able to sew at the same time.

Which is good, cause my to do list remains quite undone. I got Casey's bag finished, at which point she decided she did actually quite like it. No photo sorry because she's taken it and disappeared somewhere. Then, using the little scrap of fabric that was left I decided to make a matching little purse which worked okay (she liked it) but not great (I wont be blogging a photo or selling them at that quality) So I had another go, and actually that one was worse, so I gave up and went to work.

When I got home, I should have made a backing for the Awesome Quilt Top of Awesomeness, or had a look through the vintage fabrics under my bed to see if any of them would be good for making toy monsters, or made some headbands. Instead I decided that what I actually wanted to do was the pink version of Awesome.

Obviously it's still quite a ways short of a quilt top, but there's 36 blocks there. That's enough to make a 150cm square quilt, and I hadn't planned on going that big. I was going to do it 5 by 5, or about 125cm, but if I do it 5 by 6, it will be the same size as most of my bigger ones, and I'll have 6 blocks already pieced to go on the back. I'm not sure whether or not to push through on this one for the market or not - I don't know what other fabric I want to bind it or back it with - but I know that the reason I'm putting off doing the black version is that the poplin was so nasty to sew. It looks so very gorgeous, but I can't bring myself to work on it.

Hopefully tomorrow brings with it the desire to get some toys made.