Sewing with my Sisters and other holiday happenings

Hello,

We have had a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

On Christmas Eve I attended the little church down the road, and it was so nice I went twice! The first service was for the kids so I took my daughter along. The funniest moment was when the pastor said "Now we'll sing hymn number 4" and halfway through the first verse of "O come all ye faithful" we realised that not everyone had the same hymn sheet, so some of us were singing a different song! 
The kids really enjoyed icing bikkies and applying lollies for decoration. We sang "Silent Night" in the dark with candles and when the song was over we blew the candles out and sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus. As a finale, we sang a carol made up the week before, with wonderfully familiar imagery in the lyrics relating to the Burra valley. I will post a link to it oneday....

The second service at 9.30pm was more sophisticated, but still just as enjoyable, and this time my parents came along for the ride.

For those who don't know, a pavlova is an Aussie dessert, it's a meringue (or in this case two) topped with cream and fresh fruit - always passionfruit on the top.

Christmas Day was made stress free by dint of having it at Mum and Dad's instead of at my place. The in-laws came, so there were ten of us grown ups and one child, and we had a lovely lunch including nut loaf and my pavlova. At my sister in law's request we played a jovial game of Christmas charades, and cooperated in a photo hunt. I did not have to do any washing up - A Christmas miracle!?

My gift from Mum - big chunky "family heirloom" pinking shears (shown with my normal scissors  for scale) they were soon to get a work out.

A couple of days after Christmas my sister in law came around to do some sewing. She had bought some beautiful screen printed linen from a shop called cloth.com, and her objective was to create some cushions for her couch. I was up for the challenge and together we completed all sorts of complex mathematical equations trying to get four cushions out of eight fat quarters. This should have been easy, but the FQ's varied in size so we had to do some piecing to get them to fit the cushion inserts. Lucy was very brave and overlocked all the seams without sewing over her fingers, and she invented great names for the various fabrics so we could tell them apart - pooh sticks, french fries, waterhole and puddles. I wonder if you can tell which is which?
I didn't do too bad a job getting the zippers in, and she was very happy with the completed cushions. It was so much fun to have someone to sew with.

On New Years Eve we had a complete blackout, in fact 1200 homes in our area were without power. At the time of the blackout I was sewing on a button, I was glad I did not need the sewing machine any more that day and since it was early evening we had time to organise the candles.
It was lovely eating toasted sandwiches by candlelight and going to bed in the dark. When we looked out the windows at the valley surrounding our house not a single light could be seen. So peaceful.



Yesterday my husband went back to work and so the Pickle and I hit the shops - op shops that is, and we also visited Spotlight to pick up some patterns. I bought a pattern to make the Pickle a dress, but we could not find suitable fabric. For some reason she insists the fabric needs to be the same as the eyelet cotton used for the dress in the pattern envelope. We found the right fabric, but it was a colour she described as "puke", so the search continues.

Picture from http://sewing.patternreview.com/

Today was another lovely day - my sister Mary came for a visit. She had ordered a 1952 dress pattern from an Etsy shop on the proviso that I sewed it for her. Simplicity 3875 is a pretty simple sunfrock with wide straps, bust darts and a crazy scalloped edging. 

photo from http://www.etsy.com/shop/SewNSoVintage

Originally she wanted the one with the giant pockets, (view 2)  but my ric-rac supply was sadly depleted so we opted instead for view 1, with scallops cut from an old white sheet. That turned out to be a reckless plan!






We started by tracing off the bodice, so that we could make adjustments to the fit if need be. Mary figured the pattern would be too small. We made a mock up using an old sheet, and surprise, surprise, it fit perfectly, without any alterations!

The next step was to cut out the dress. She'd chosen navy poplin with tiny white dots. It was a great choice, but it would have looked even better with red ric-rac or piping. 







Here it is in the process of being cut out. The seller who Mary purchased it from included a lovely handwritten note and a few vintage buttons with the pattern, how sweet!
If you are reading this, Brin from http://www.etsy.com/shop/KooterandFlos, thanks ever so much! Go check her shop out, she still has lovely patterns and other vintage ephemera, great for vintage lovers and sewists.

When the bodice was tried on we had another problem to solve - it was rather tight. Mary could have worn it with a corset, or perhaps without any breathing - but neither of these is a good option for swing dancing. I figure what had happened was the old sheet we used for the toile had a bit more give in it than the real fabric.

We unpicked the side seams and resewed with a very scant seam allowance, and when I sewed in the zipper I had to make it one of those trendy "exposed" zips rather than the demure, concealed 50s version. We both agreed it did look tacky, and certainly wouldn't wash in 1952 but it was a good solution to the problem and one that noone would notice because they would be too busy looking at the scallops.

Those scallops! Oh my! It was my first try at sewing something so preposterous. Once I had constructed the scallops for the bodice I made an executive decision not to sew the other couple of metres of scallops to go on the skirt. Bodice scallops were quite enough.
They were really fiddly and nerve wracking to cut out, sew, clip and turn. But Mary was very impressed with how they turned out.
  
When she tried the dress on with the new "barely there" seam allowance we both agreed it looked fabulous. In the end I did not like the poplin all that much, it was a bit too stiff, but it should soften up once the sizing wears off. She tried it on for the photos and look, she already has matching navy sandals! Sadly she had not done her hair yet today so was reluctant to appear head-to-toe in the pics. Hopefully can get some more styled photos at a later date. 

Mum has been elected to hem it for us, since she is good at that sort of thing. But it was almost all finished in just one day, with a break for tacos for lunch. Mary even made some bloomers from a Colette pattern as well!

I will most likely make her another dress with this pattern, perhaps in a pretty floral, and I do hope that she'll come round again to do the overlocking, ironing, glass of water fetching and to keep me company in the sewing room.



While Mary was here, I got a parcel in the mail, with no return address. Hmm. Mary opened it for me and the only thing it contained was a toy rat. No note. Hmm. I was wracking my brains (which believe me were already quite well wracked after all those scallops).
I had to think about that rat for about an hour until it dawned on me - my friend Cindy must have sent it to me, since I had commented on a facebook photo of a rat in the lost property at work! Funny girl!


                              ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂

In shop news: here's that dress I was making on New Year's Eve when the power went out. I am making a line of these "shabby chic" little numbers in sizes 3 - 14, really in a shameless attempt to use up my vintage sheet and doily stash so that I can have an excuse to go buy some more! You can find my first one in my shop here 

Thanks for reading!

Garden ramblings

Hello everybody. There is not much going on this week, unless you count the crazy goings on of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat". My daughter the Pickle is performing in the junior choir. They are the little cuties who gather around Joseph and sing "a-a-ahhh!" ever so sweetly.

It makes me so proud to see her performing. One hundred children from our school are in the cast, as well as one of our amazing teachers playing the part of Pharoah.

I thought I would share some photos of some lovely local gardens that I have admired over recent years. I am sorry if I can't quite remember their names...I should write these things down. Anyway, in my garden it is time to plant the bulbs and sweetpeas for spring, but I haven't done that yet. It is time to "lift the skirts" of the silver birches along the drive, by pruning their lower branches. But I haven't done that yet either. There are two liquidamber trees about a foot tall standing at my front door, waiting to be planted and turning a lovely shade of red. My handbag is still full of chestnuts, and there are gazillions of acorns rattling around in the car. Maybe one day I will catch up with all these gardening jobs, not to mention the weeds that seem to like the rain so much. In the mean time, please enjoy some photos of other peoples' gardens.

This is a garden in Burra. A lovely combination of natives and exotic trees. I don't like that variegated thing at the front though.

This is the same garden, look at those lovely views. 

Cheesy grin

Here's my husband admiring the view.

Here is another garden, this time near Yass, with lovely views.

A gate at the same property

This reminds me of Narnia!

They had a nice sunny courtyard for growing roses and clematis

Here is their sweeping drive.

A house near Yass. I love these golden elms, and I plan to plant one soon. 

 We found a nice comfy swing seat

We admired the view of the Yass River at the bottom of the garden

This happened to the Pickle after a while

This garden had too many roses - literally thousands of them. They were a bit boring after a while

Here's another garden in Burra, this time a bed of Waratah

This house near Yass had a little cottage garden section

A horseshoe pear. Last week hubby me the sculptor while he was waiting for me to explore the opshops of Bombala. 

Roses and fences are the perfect combination

We liked the look of this swimming pool. One day in the future we would like a pool out the front of our house, but I prefer the more natural, curvy shaped pools. 

This garden at Burra has a drive lined with chinese elms: Ulnus chimensis. We have these planted along the front of our property.

In shop news, I have reached 300 likes on my facebook page. www.facebook.com/bananaorangeapple1. Head on over and like me too if you haven't yet. There is a special deal going on there to celebrate 300 likers!

I received a request to make a rainbow dress in size 4, and of course I was delighted to get to work. I had to hunt through several thrift stores for bright coloured linens and make a trip out to Spotlight at Queanbeyan. The poor cutting lady had to cut 20cm each of 19 different fabrics!

The bottom purple row stretched for 5.5 metres (that's 18 feet) before I gathered it up, sewed it into a circle and attached it to the skirt. If you'd like to make your own, check out the pattern at the indietutes blog. If you want me to make you one, send me a message and we'll do a deal!

The rainbow dress laid out

Here it is with its tamer, pastel sister.