When two hobbies collide...

OK - I first saw the reference to hobbies colliding on Cidell's blog and it must have stuck in my head.

My two hobbies have now done that as I have successfully sewn a skort to wear to gym. In fact two!

It is Jalie 2796.

The first one I made in a fabric from Gorgeous Fabrics. It is the Swiss 4-way stretch and it is perfect for this skort. I made a brown one and wore it to the gym to trial it. The fabric is beefy enough, but so soft and stretchy and even though it is not a wicking fabric, the sweating/perspiring/glow was not a real issue. Perhaps as it is on the bottom half and not over a large area. I will have to buy more of this delicious fabric! I would love to make some yoga pants form it too.

Anyway I did not get a photo of my first effort, but was so excited I made a second one which is photographed for your viewing pleasure??


This time I used the brown 4-way Swiss stretch on the side panels and waistband and a lovely thick cotton/lycra blend for the skirt front & back and shorts underneath.

Piccie of the side panel to show the detail - it has pockets, which is a nice touch...


And a sneaky peek at the compression shorts underneath. I did,the same as a lot of pattern reviewers mentioned and shortened the leg by about 4 cm (1 1/4") as I felt they were longer than was necessary and this length is now very similar to a RTW skort I have.


So comfy to wear to the gym! I have tried it in BodyStep and BodyAttack and it suits these kinds of classes very well.

Love it!

Finished objects

I had a surprisingly good finishing/sewing week-end. First up I attended a day at Lake Perseverance to go to our local quilt club's retreat. I only went for a day and loved catching up with old friends. I took some crochet as it was so portable and suitable for chatting while working on my scarf. And with this extra time on it, I managed to get it finished this week-end. It is the bobble scarf made from wool purchased from the Spinners & Weavers group - home spun & dyed!

As well as finishing the scarf, I managed to finish a top made from Kwik-sew 3740. I have made a couple of these before. Now I have made my first sleeveless version.

Much adversity was hit making this top. First up the pattern pieces for the sleeveless top were missing (from my downloaded pattern) and I had lost the second page of instructions. Then on top of that I found a large gash in one of the collar pieces... What tha???... So I made the best of it and cut the collar smaller and made up the rest of the top construction. It worked out well enough, my DH commented on what a nice top this was... :)




The fabric is on of the mesh-type ones purchased the previous Tuesday from Kerryn's Fabric World. Had a great shopping day at the Coast with a couple of sewing budds and got this fabric then.

I had more success than this, which I will share with you next post...

Burda 7580 Nahhh...

I had such high hopes for this pattern. It looked so simple to make (and it was) and cute and trendy - nahhh... not on me anyway!

I purchased the most beautiful soft rayon jersey from Gorgeous Fabrics. The fabric is rreversible to make the look similar to the photo on the pattern cover. However, I am not sure if it is the fabric but it is very soft and perhaps too soft for this ensemble. The colour is also not really working for me.

Here is the dress on it's own. The only alteration I made to the pattern was to take the side seams in a bit.


And now with the jacket...



Any ideas anyone???

Do I need to change the jacket somehow?

Can I style it to brighten it up a bit more?

Or should it just be relegated to the back of the wardrobe, not to be seen for a long time?

McCalls 6069 - colourful dress success

I love McCalls 6069 as do a lot of others. I used a fabric I wasn't sure would work on me and (to me) it really works in this pattern.
I have been a little busy lately as evidenced by my lack of blogging, but I finally have managed photos of this dress as modelled by me. However I have decided not to review it on PatternReview.com as I am still too time poor to want to think about it, so I will try and remember any details here about the pattern.

I used a pucci-print jersey fabric and made no alterations to the pattern. The only difficulty I had was in sewing the back strap on. I didn't get the instructions fully, so ended up unpicking it a couple of times and even when I finally sewed it, I twisted the strap! I have not tried to fix it as it is so difficult to unpick this fabric and I am hoping I can live with the twist. Now my tip if you are sewing this pattern and don't understand this bit of the instruction is to follow them blindly but baste until you see how it works. After you have it sorted, then machine-sew.

I do highly recommend this pattern and would love to make another in a plain colour. I have a holiday cruise booked for next year and think this dress will be perfect for that.

Anyway onto the pictures. I will point out, I added a belt as I think it looked better, but the belt I am wearing is a little big on me now so it doesn't give me as much waist definition as I would like (note to self - buy a new belt). The next note to self - spray tan - my Toowoomba tan is glaringly white!!

Burda dress/cardi photos up next...