More From Make It In May

It's full speed ahead on the Make It In May Skirt Sew-Along... lots of finishers before we reach the end of the month, and a great range of totally different skirts today!

Skirt 1

This is Kwik Sew 3914 by Coco from Coco's Loft.  Such a lovely flowy style, and I must admit that I love that one of the pattern adjustments she made was to add pockets in the side seam (Oh how I love pockets).

Skirt 2

Cherrie from Willy Wagtail has made one of her wonderful tablecloth skirts. Every time I spot a circular tablecloth now, it makes me think about Cherrie's skirts.

Skirt 3

Rachel from Four Wise Monkeys sewed this Collette Ginger Skirt while on a weekend away at Sewjourn (totally jealous).  I'm really loving the high waist and that cute front seam.

Skirt 4

Michelle from Buttontree Lane has made a freestyle no pattern skirt using this gorgeous ponti knit from Spotty (I totally want to try this out at home). Swooning over the rose print here...

Skirt 5

Lara from Thornberry has made a denim version of Nikki's You Sew Girl A-Line skirt with gorgeous yellow topstitching, and groovy pockets from a vintage pattern.


Skirt 6

Sarah from If I Only Had Chocolate has also made Nikki's You Sew Girl A-Line skirt.

I can't seem to work out how to retrieve a photo from her slideshow to show you!



Thankyou so much for joining in the fun ladies!

Please follow the links and check out all the details on each post.

These sew-alongs are fantastic for gaining really useful sewing tips and tricks. Seeing how people can make simple modifications for a better fit for their particular body shape, or how adding a little embellishment like coloured top stitching can such a difference, is a real eye-opener and can make you much more brave when it comes to the challenge of sewing your own clothes.

The Lisette Sew Along - Thornberry

I was very excited when Lara joined the Lisette Sew Along...

Lara is an amazing dressmaker and I really enjoy her reading her dressmaking blog posts. I often add patterns to my 'want to make' wish list after seeing them on her blog.

In her blog post, she describes the way in which she incorporated the border print into the front of her dress, and a quick and easy tip for the binding.

Thankyou Lara!

Sew-Along Sign Up
Link to Pattern
Sew-Along Flickr Group
Sew Lisette Flickr Group

PS - if you've blogged your dress and I haven't yet added it to the sidebar, please let me know!

Go Granny Jacket

Photo Credit

The most seriously exciting thing about designing a fabric, is seeing the way in which a talented creative person can take that fabric and transform it into something truly amazing.

Photo Credit

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would see something quite as cool as Lara's Go Granny Jacket

 Photo Credit

Thanks for letting me share your gorgeous photos Lara!

Check out all the Go Granny creations in the Flickr Group.

My Creative Space

I've finished off a couple of little projects this week, and the next things in my creative space are just in the planning stages.

First on the list is a custom camera bag for Michelle from Leni and Rose.

Michelle has sent through some lovely fabric, and detailed instructions of what she requires for her camera. So today, I get to play around and draw sketches and work out how to construct it.

While at Sewjourn on the weekend, Liesl was testing Nikki's brand new Beret Pattern. I absolutely adore beret's and after trying it on I was hooked..... so now I have grand plans to whip up my very own too.
There are beret's popping up everywhere it seems!

Don't forget to visit the hostess with the mostest to play along too!

Another market wrap

Well it was another lovely day at the Made'n'Thornbury market yesterday. I only managed to take a couple of happy snaps before my camera started beeping to let me know that my battery was flat...drats!

Looking at the photo, I can now see that I had far too much stock on my table - a good lesson for the next one.

It's always great to meet up with the rest of the stallholders for a chat, and we also had lots of other lovely visitors come to say hello too.

We missed Cathie.... we were dreaming of her red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting all afternoon.

I've spent all day today sitting on the couch eating (tim tams, vegemite toast, and cupcakes) and drinking cups of tea, and generally just veging out which has been wonderful.

Hmmm I think I have just enough time for one more tim tam without spoiling my dinner!

A cold day in Melbourne Town

My stall

The market didn't go as well as I'd hoped yesterday. We set up out the front of the church, just in time for a passing rain shower, and then the winds started gusting and blowing everything away.

We moved around to the side of the church, which was a little less windy..... but freezing cold.

Polly Pratt

Luckily, all of the lovely stallholders like to have a good chat, so we all managed to keep each other amused amongst the shivering.

Pepperberry and Co

We had lots of lovely locals come to visit - Nikki, Lara (happy birthday for yesterday), Liz, Jasperboy Jen... I hope I haven't missed anyone.

Finki

Mishmash Mosaics

Mr Flickettysplits hand delivered my custom ordered draught snake to the church market, while Mrs Flickettysplits was busy at the town hall market.

Melbourne Epicure

I came with some lovely goodies (as per usual), which I'll show later in the week. I also came home with cupcakes and gingerbread men (already eaten) from Melbourne Epicure... and a lovely Olive Loaf which will be demolished today.

Now it's time to unpack the car and clean the house...fun - NOT!

To market, to market, to buy a.....

Wowee, my first ever craft market was sooooo much fun!

It was much better than I could have ever expected. The weather was beautiful, the location was fantastic, the stallholders were happy and friendly, there was a steady stream of customers all day long, and the five hours were over in a flash.

The kids craft table and the face painting was a huge hit with the little ones.

It was just like a huge crafty blogmeet - it was lovely to see Cindy, Bec, Liesl, Bev, Nikki, Leah, Ann-Marie, Liz, and Lara. I hope I didn't miss anyone (I have a terrible memory these days)!
We ate lovely cupcakes and drank coffee and chatted about crafty things all day long....

I made some lovely purchases and swaps with Buttons by Lou Lou, Finki and Troischats. I haven't taken any photos yet, but I'll post them later in the week.

An extra special thanks goes to Sel, Cathy and Ms L for helping me out with the packing, unpacking, and set up etc, and to Rach for helping me unload everything today..... and to everyone who came along to visit or bought a little crafty something from me!

I'm definitely going to book in for the next one.

My First Skirt

I had the entire day to myself ,with no plans at all on Sunday, so I decided to finally make a start on my handmade christmas list.

I've never tried to make a skirt before, but I've been admiring all of the lovely twirly skirts that I've seen on other blogs, so I decided to try one out for a friends daughter. I started out following Lara's tutorial, but I made quite a few mistakes (I'm terrrible at following instructions), so there was lots of unpicking involved!

I used the gorgeous apple fabric that Amy sent me, and teamed it with some of my favourite spots and stripes (and bias tape at the bottom of course). I just have to add the elastic to the waistband and then it's ready to go.

One handmade present down....... about ten more to go!

Sunday Stash

Whoops! I only realised after checking out all the other Sunday Stashers, that I'd joined up and completely forgotten about it!

Anyhow.... this is where my vintage fabric / sheeting obsession began. It was a completely perfect unopened set of vintage dri-glo sheets that I'm guessing were from the 1960's. I found them on Ebay probably about 4 years ago. I kept them still sealed in the packet for about another year before I worked up the courage to open the packet and chop them up.... and I've never looked back.

Thanks for hosting Tamara!

Lighting up my night

Lastnight was another fun night at Brown Owls....and my last one for the year.... Boo Hoo!

We made these sweet tea light candle holders....

We very nearly had an entire table full of bloggers.... Liesl, Cindy, Lara, Steph, Hollie, Myself, and Kerry (who will remain blogless)! It was lovely to finally meet Liesl in person.

Gemma drew my name out of the magic prize barrel and I won one of Kirsty's fabulous swizzle stick rings....

....and this is Kerry modelling her fabulouso chain stitch embroidery!

Looking forward to next year.

Mushies

I had a lovely stitchy night at Brown Owls lastnight and I actually managed to finish the project...yippee! We made these sweet little mushroom pincushions.


Kirsty did a fab job with her supersensational 'mushie how to slide presentation'.
Steph saved my CurlyPops owl from the last session that I missed and now I also have a sweet little Lara owl.

There were lots of delicious things to eat - chocolate cake made by Kirsty, apple cake made by Stephs mum, and cupcakes made by Cindy (which was lucky for me because I only had vegemite toast for tea before I left).


....and of course there were lots of lovely girls to stitch and chat with. I finally got to meet Hollie (luckily I was wearing my gorgeous Hokey Owl brooch) and had a walk down memory lane with Kerry from Quamby.......

Check out the forest of mushrooms here.... a collaboration of stitchy goodness.