Blue Satchel - with bikes!

Every now and then you get a vision of something you'd love to make that exceeds your current sewing skills. This struck me in the form of a bright blue satchel with bike fabric as the lining. I could see it clear as day in my head but it freaked the hell out of me just thinking about how to make it a reality.

Instagram tells me that I cut out the fabric pieces for this bag 11 weeks ago before putting it under my sewing table and getting on with easier things. But it sat there in the back of my mind being all awesome and unattainable. The bag that I wanted to take to work, to outings, interstate and tote around all my stuff in it was still just an idea in my head when I wanted it to be a physical thing out here in the real world.

As it happens I found myself in the midst of fit dramas with my 60s dress I'm attempting to sew and suddenly this bag looked like a walk in the park in comparison. So I dove in.

Now let me say from the outset that this is possibly some of the worst sewing I've ever done in my life. True story. But I was chasing a dream and that meant more to me than neat and tidy stitching. This bag would be made.

It's Simplicity 4535 View D which I bought for a dollar and I believe is now out of print (probably for very good reason). And here is where the rookie errors begin. I wanted to sew it in vinyl, which I've never worked with before. I wanted to sew it without making a muslin first (it's a bag right? it doesn't need to fit.) I also wanted to sew it on a regular, humble home sewing machine. Can you see what a wonderful mix of mistakes I'm brewing up here?

So it starts off with this hideous part where you're meant to sew up the front pockets and somehow wrangle them flat so that you can sew them straight onto the front piece. Topstitching fail.

And it only gets worse along the way until suddenly I'm wondering whether I'm competing for The-Wackiest-Topstitching-That-Ever-There-Was competition. And boy was I WINNING at that competition. There should be an award for this shit.

In the midst of this madness it dawned on me that the proportions of this bag were rather more epic than I had anticipated and it was time to start scaling back. I lopped 5 centimetres of the top of the bag and 4 centimetres on the fabric that wraps around the bottom and sides. It was slightly easier on the eye. Slightly.

In the end I found myself with a rather cool looking bag with giant proportions. I mean I could deliver the whole city's mail in this thing.

My machine was quite a trooper all the way through. It sewed 10 layers of vinyl at one point and only whirred and roared at me a handful of times but it drew the line at this strap. The needle broke and my machine just looked a little sad and defeated so I stopped sewing.

I'm not sure where to go from this point because it's too thick to hand sew and I can't bear to ask my machine to tackle it again. I know some bags have some kind of snaps or press studs or whatever you call them that keep straps together so I may have to investigate those (if you don't have any better ideas for me??).

This may sit in my sewing room for a while again until I can figure out how to attach the strap and finally give it a test drive. But I made it!

Faux Leather Accent Top

I foresee a lot of warm tops in my future and I wanted to kick it off with this ponte top with faux leather accents and patch pocket.

I found this top online and pretty much copied it straight.

I used my trusty Lydia Pattern which I've made here,  here and here just to name 3 out of the 10 versions I've made so far.

This time I used a ponte knit which I stitched up on my new Aldi overlocker. Which, by the way, I am finding to be ridiculously awesome. If you don't yet own an overlocker, you should. The end.

The faux leather accents were pretty easy to draft up although I wish I had have sewn this patch pocket just a little closer into the centre front. Next time gadget.

Unfortunately my regular sewing machine wasn't talking to me at the time so I did some epic hand stitching to get these patches on. I also handstitched the neckline because I just didn't want any more arguments from my machine. It had attitude.

And there you have it another wardrobe staple for the impending doom winter in the mountains.

The Midi Skirt that almost was

A couple of weekends ago I attempted to make myself a Midi Skirt to see me through Autumn. I'd had this mystery fabric in my stash for about a year and I wasn't sure what to make out of it. It was originally going to be a summer dress but I kinda didn't sew much this summer so I thought a longer skirt might suit seeing as the fabric is quite light.

I used a pattern I found in an op shop that I got for 25c. Hooray! It's the one on the left below.

It didn't come with instructions but it was such a simple shape that I could guess my way through it - and I don't always follow instructions anyway.

In fact I sewed most of it in one afternoon until tragedy struck...

The fabric had just disintegrated in a whole section of the back piece! I still don't know if it was the iron being on too hot or just unstable/cheap/old fabric. Of course, being stubborn, I soldiered on and ironed on some interfacing on the back of it but to no avail. It was over and my whole afternoon of hard work was wasted.

In a way I'm a bit glad because part of me thinks the skirt looks a little Amish on me. The rest of me is letting go of a failed sewing project and hoping the next one works out.

Bummer.

My fabric has a new home - a peek in my sewing room!

Last weekend I painted this tallboy so I could put it into my sewing room to hold all my fabric and patterns. We had teal paint leftover from painting the Dining Room and I love all the colourful tallboys and dressers I keep seeing on Pinterest.

While it took me most of my sunday to sand this down and paint the inside and outside with 2 coats plus an extra coat on the top surface it was well worth the effort!

Here it is in place in my sewing room holding my machines. It doesn't have handles yet because I've never loved the handles that came with it and I can't bring myself to put them back on. I'm going to get little round wooden handles from Bunnings and maybe paint them black? Or maybe just keep them teal? What do you think?

So while we're in my sewing room want to look around?

I've moved my table over into the corner so I get the morning and afternoon light through either sets of windows.

And I have all my notions and books stored against the other wall lookin all neat and tidy.

And here's a pretty average photograph of one of my next projects. I've enrolled in a short course on upholstery so I'll be taking this chair apart and redoing it in some fabric that goes with my sewing room.

Stay tuned!

Blue Herringbone Scarf

Hey look I knitted another scarf! And guess what it's Herringbone too! To be quite honest with you I learnt the knit stitch, the purl stitch and did a test swatch to learn to knit. Then I barrelled on learning the herringbone stitch straight away and made my first Herringbone Scarf. I followed that by making this scarf so consequently I'm not sure that I could actually remember anything but the Herringbone stitch.

This is me all rugged up in my backyard. And yes I know it's only really autumn but I've already pulled out this coat and worn the scarf a couple of times. Not sure what happens when winter actually arrives!

The scarf knitted up much faster this time because I used size 10 needles and a thicker yarn. I'm much more in love with this sized stitch than the previous scarf. I still love it but this scarf is more me.

Super long scarf with my Polka Dot Blouse

Here you can see why it takes me so long to knit these things because I make them super long. Taller than me in fact. But I love being able to wrap them around my neck and still have it hanging all the way down to my waist so I'm really toasty.

In other news I've finally cleaned up my sewing room so I'm all excited to sew again. Stay tuned for something actually sewn by me.

My new blog: Where Dreamers Dwell

We've recently just set up a blog to document our process of doing up our little 1940s house. So if you're into Home DIY come check it out!

Blog: wheredreamersdwell.blogspot.com.au
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DreamersDwell
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Where-Dreamers-Dwell/115204348670691
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/dreamersdwell/


Things may get a little quiet around here since I'll be spending a lot of time and energy fixing up the house but there is always time for sewing. Always.

Herringbone Scarf

Once upon a time I had a dream to learn to knit. My mum sat down with me and taught me to cast on and do knit stitch and purl stitch and suddenly the world opened up. You mean once you know how to do one stitch you can just do it over and over and over and over in the shape of a rectangle and out pops a scarf?? Fabulous.

Not being content with starting out slow and steady and all that stuff I found myself wandering around the internet in the hopes that I could teach myself to knit the herringbone stitch. After watching a couple of youtube clips I got all confident and started my very first scarf this way.

The only downfall to this newfound hobby is that this photo above constitutes hours and hours and hours and hours of my life. In fact it took so long I got cranky, hid my knitting and forgot about it until I was packing up to move.

The silver lining in this story is that I now commute an hour each way to work on the train so I now have a dedicated hobby/"me" time. So I packed up my knitting and restarted it on the train. Which is a great idea until someone sits next to me, at which point I become all elbows and flailing needles and promptly have to stop.

So after a couple of weeks knitting this up on the train I'm finally finished and I couldn't be prouder of my new scarf. We actually had a cold snap the couple of days after I finished it so I got to wear it straight away. Cute.

In fact I was so excited about the result I may have started a new one!

Cold weather come at me!

The skirt with leaves on it

I loved my Simplicity 2451 pattern so much I decided to make another one. I got this fabric at a market or op shop for $2 and it sat on my shelf for ages. Possibly because I made a promise to myself to steer clear of prints? So last year.

In all seriousness though I love this print and it's a great skirt to wear with solid coloured tops - which I have a lot of. I won't be swinging back to sewing with prints for a while but this fabric had decided it was time to become something. And so I listened.

It was really easy to sew up especially since it's my third time making it (shhh). It has french seams throughout except for the waistband because it hurt my brain to think about french seaming a curve across 3 panels and then sew through that enclosed seam when dealing with the zipper. So the waistband has pinked seams.

It's a little bit crinkly. Possibly because it's just so damn wearable and I didn't want to stop wearing it long enough to take photos of it. So there you have it - a new skirt with leaves on it just in time for autumn (totally planned that).

I think this kind of project reminds me why I sew in the first place. To create basic clothes that fit me well, go with everything in my wardrobe, are extremely wearable, and say something about me as a person. I call this project a win.

Embroidered Tote Bag

My first sewing project when we moved was this embroidered tote. I now commute to work so I have a spare hour each morning and afternoon to and from work on the train. I decided to put that time to good use by trying my hand at some embroidery on this fabric. I figured if I was any good at it I could later sew it up into a tote bag and it worked out!

The inspiration comes from the pin below. I tried to trace it back but got caught in a loop on tumblr so I can't credit them properly.

Source: leilamontero.com.ar via Scared on Pinterest

I started by drawing my picture straight onto the fabric with a lead pencil. I embroidered the clumps of hair first before filling it all in separately with the strands.

And it turned out like this.

A tour of our abode

Hello friends! I was without the internet for nearly 4 months and going quietly insane but we finally got hooked up a couple of days ago. In fact I walked in the front door after work on Wednesday and Fiance handed me my laptop preloaded to Pinterest. He's a keeper.

As promised I'm putting up a bunch of pics of our humble little abode. Some are from the days after moving in, others are taken on the day of our engagement party but you'll get the picture. So above is the outside and the front lounge room complete with open fire place.

This is the dining and kitchen (a little blurry sorry!) complete with chalkboard wall!

Now for the most important room of the house - the sewing room! Complete with a gorgeous view of our bush backyard!

This is the backyard. The previous owners left that swing seat which I love so I'm sure you'll see a post on here where I make a nice cushion for it.

Here's the yard from halfway down and then right down the back. It backs onto a reserve so all you see is bush which is so nice. Ocassionally I sit out on that bench just to hear the bellbirds, kookaburras and the occasional owl.

And finally this is how we dressed up our yard for our engagement party. You may be able to make out the massive amounts of fairy lights strung through the trees as well as all 130 tea light candles that lit up the pathways as it got dark.

We're in the process of setting up a Home DIY Blog to follow our adventures of doing this place up so if you're interested in that kind of thing stay tuned!

And thanks for visiting my house!