Some Sewing Evidence

Well, it seems as though a lunch with gorgeous sewing friends is just the thing to bring back the UFO mojo. On Thursday of this week, I met up with some sewing friends from the Pattern Review website, Sue from quiltsewsewsue, Steph from 3 Hours Past the Edge of the World and a new friend, Emma. We had a lovely time checking out The Fabric Store and chatting over a glass of wine and lunch.

Sewing, for me, had been placed on hold for a little while as I recovered from the best birthday present in the world - a set of Expedit shelves and my husband's time, muscles and (best of all) patience. He not only bought the exact shelves I wanted, he assembled them and helped me rearrange the furniture in my sewing room. I must admit, I think I may have pushed every button he owns when, midway through the move, he realised I hadn't really thought through my plan, nor had I measured anything to see if it would fit! LOL. He should know me by now! Not to worry, it all fit and I've moved most of my stuff back in.

What I've realised now is that I have NO need to buy new fabric OR patterns, AND that I have a huge number of half-finished projects. Yesterday I headed into the sewing room, determined that I would finish at least one UFO. My DD is growing like a weed, so her pyjamas went to the top of the list.

I've been sewing this McCall's 5744 pattern for her for a couple of years now. She really loves it.

The first version I sewed for her, I used a woven fabric as recommended by the pattern. Now we use a knit.

This latest version was designed to use up some scraps. The print is a really crappy cotton interlock from Spotlight. It is one of the most 'off grain' fabrics I've seen in a long time, but DD loved the print. For pyjamas, I'm prepared to sacrifice quality in favour of cuteness. The aqua is a medium weight cotton knit (kind of feels like a rugby knit, but softer). I'm fairly certain that I bought this back in the day when East Coast Fabrics still had their shop at Capalaba - so it's OLD. The pink I got from the new East Coast Fabrics at Springwood. I've still got some of the pink cotton interlock left, but everything else has left the building! Yay! The three fabrics are all different weights so shouldn't really be used together in a garment - and if this wasn't a shameless stash busting effort, I wouldn't have. But DD likes them, so I'm happy with that.

I also made these huge on purpose. DD likes her PJs super loose AND she is growing like a weed - so I'm hoping that I'll at least get the whole season out of them.

This shot is for you, Sue. DD thought it would be the best way to show off the (unpressed :-P ) lettuce hems on the sleeves and pants. I quite impressed myself with my willingness to change overlocking threads multiple times during the construction of these.

And the mojo hasn't disappeared yet. I backed this effort up today with a new Hot Patterns top for me which has been cut out for weeks. I'll blog that when I've managed to take some photos.