Burda 12 -2008 -123

Thank you to all of you who voted (for me, in particular) in the ugly fabric contest, the winners have been announced, of which I was not one. It reminds me of that joke about the Jewish guy who gets a hole-in-one on the Sabbath, God's revenge being he can't boast to his mates about it. Similar awkward conversations were thus averted with my mother in law, "hey, you know that fabric you gave me, well I won, ...oh um, nothing, I mean I feel wonderful in this BEAUTIFUL skirt I made with it."

Congratulations to Johanna of the last stitch who was placed for her raincoat. Personally I have new respect for anyone who does anything with raincoat fabric and for that alone she is tops in my books.

Actually it never occured to me I might be a competitive person but those competitions are a great way to channel the sewing energy and provide some focus. So I'm all up for the little black dress and the lined jacket ones later in the year.

Yes, I am definitely feeling the sewing love at the moment but my productivity has received a big kick in the pants by a little boy who has decided that 4:30 am is THE time to get up and play for the day, and that an afternoon's sleep of an hour is all that is required. Harruph!

The less time I have, the more I want to do. I want to do a lot at present, but I've put another winter coat on the back burner because sewing a coat half an hour at a time is too painful to even contemplate.

When I worked in education with school holidays I'd loaf about at home sewing for a week at a time. Then because we had flexi hours at work I reduced to a 4 day week and had 3 day sewing weekends.

Aaaaaaahhhhh those were the days my friends. Finished the jacket yesterday. Verrrry pleased with it. Perfect stay at home Auckland mum wear. Warm enough to take the chill, casual enough to look in keeping with the playground, fun enough to keep a smile on my very tired face.

Bagged the lining, came out well, call me old fashioned, but I actually prefer hand sewing my hems.



I am now set to work (half a painful hour at a time) on my retro pattern. I bought some cheap 'n' nasty fabric to muslin it - I don't usually bother but I have never graded a pattern down before so I'm allowing for plenty of room for error. The good news was that it wasn't that hard to do, the bad news is because I didn't have to change that much (it's a size 20 1/2).

Three cheers for modern vanity sizing, personally can't get enough of it.