It Is Possible I have an Addiction

Today to celebrate the multicultural nature of my great country on it's special day (Australia Day) I made my way to Cabramatta for some Yum Cha and some fabric shopping... of cause.

I hear on various Facebook parenting groups that you only ever regret the children you didn't have.  Well I guess that's how I feel about fabric.  I will only ever regret the fabric I didn't buy.  Having my husband there does help to restrain my tendency to plan 50 outfits in each store and then stock myself ready to make them so instead I came out about $30 poorer than I entered but 10m richer in fabric.

This on top of the Alexander Henry fabric I purchased on Ebay last week means I should be very busily trying to burn through some stash.  So for the record I accept that I have an addiction, but that being said there are far worse ones out there right.

So new to the stash are the following:

So this one is the Alexander Henry that i bought on Ebay, and it is probably my favourite of the new stuff.  I have maybe a meter to a meter and half but its a tall bolt so i don't know if its a skirt of shift dress.  The colours have come out pretty good on this photo its black creamy white and soft brown tones.

 I have two meters of this its a cotton with a slight soft stretch to it.  You can't see here but there is a weave pattern int it.  I got it because my husband is adamant that I have to make more plain skirts so that I have something to wear with my patterned tops.  So this was the choice.  Its not quite as mushroom as the picture an more a very soft brown.

This is poplin, the green is showing more lime than it should be its more acid.  Infact it is the same colour exactly as the green from the hulk outfit in my avengers post.  And the other is black, plain run of the black.  The green will be a dress that I will explain in a later post and the black will be a skirt and maybe a petticoat/petticoat dress (which I should do a post about shortly).  And also cause well when do you ever have enough plain black cotton.

And finally my true addiction three more pattern rayons for skirts. I am very very much addicted to this fabric.  It is light and airy, it is easy to sew, it falls beautifully and is only $4/m.  There was about 10 other patterns I wanted so to only have these three I think shows some awesome restraint.

I still have 3 other skirts to finish plus this three so I better get to the sewing side of things now.

I will update soon on a couple of the projects I am hoping to complete soon including an awesome cape trial and several other skirts.... But first things first.

Skirts Loaded to 50%

Well I haven't been as studious as I could have been but the skirt project is now sitting at 50% done - as illustrated by the photo below.

As you can tell in the end I didn't cut and sew all in one big process line and instead heeded the word of my husband who told me to make one first to be sure the size is correct.  You won't hear this very often but he was right.  The skirt on the right (white) is about 8cm to small.  An anomaly I can not fathom given that I am using the exact same tracings as I used for another skirt that fits perfectly.

In any case due to my generally lazy nature I didn't resize the pattern (I had already gone through that to get the original 28 inch waist to a more reasonable size to fit me and I didn't want to do that all over) instead I did the only sensible thing.... I took half a cm off the seams on the second one... with 8 seams and 2 pattern pieces per seam that netted me the 8cm I required to get the thing to fit somewhere not under my bust.

On that note whist I did the only SENSIBLE thing, there was a point in the trying on phase that another solution came to mind.  That being to add suspenders and pretend it was always supposed to sit that high, alas it was not meant to be.  The fact it is too small is not to much of an issue given that at the moment I am on a diet and trying really hard to lose weight.... about 30kg would be nice but I'll take whatever I can get for now.  If I can lose about 10-15 I should be able to fit into all my old dresses which will be most exciting.

The second skirt (orange) fits fine, so I will be continuing with the sewing them with 1cm seam allowance and not resizing.  I have cut out the strawberry one which shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to complete and then I have two more to go.  I can't get them done quickly enough to be honest there is a massive heat wave in Sydney.

And now for a moment of parental pride, I am adding a picture of my sewing buddy who dutifully kept me company for the frustrations of these skirts.  My Baby Odin the best dog in the whole world.... anyone else have a sewing buddy to vent at when unpicking is called on?