Sunday 30 May 2010

Living in chaos

Here are a few pictures of my kitchen.....it definately isn't a kitchen at the moment.....


The old ceiling had to come down, the steel girder is where the outside wall used to be.


I have lightened these pictures so much that Sky's grey muzzle is showing.....she doesn't like change or being disturbed. She hasn't slept properly during the day since the disruption started and she doesn't like strangers in the house.

View from my new kitchen windows.....my beautiful Acer has had a battering.


There is nothing much left of my small garden, this is supposed to be my patio....it is just a dumping ground at them moment. My old ceiling is in the plastic bags.


Beautiful new windows....if only the inside looked as good.

We now have 3 times as many windows in the kitchen but we still have lost a lot of light, it is darker than I thought it would be....I still love it though.

I have made more mistakes on this shirt than anything else I have ever made, in fact it has nearly gone in the bin a couple of times. The last huge mistake was while overlocking the hem I slashed into the body of the shirt with the knife on the machine (I have done this before on a grey skirt I was making, you think I would learn from my mistakes....no!) I was absolutely gutted because this fabric wasn't cheap, I had to put it down and walk away until I composed myself and thought about what I was going to do. I couldn't cut it down to where the cut was because it would be too short.....first of all I invisibly mended it with silk thread then I cut off 1/4" at a time all the way around the hem twice, the mistake was then turned under into the hem, I am hand stitching it because I need to be in full control, one more mistake and it will be ruined. There is too much going on in my mind and I am not concentrating on what I am doing.

Saturday 22 May 2010

Too much mess

I haven't blogged for a few days now but to say we have major disruption in our house is an understatement.
The builders have been in , on and off, for three weeks now and they are nearing the end of the extension to our kitchen, the windows and door are due next week. We have ordered all of the kitchen units, fridge freezer, range and dishwasher, we need the plasterer to plaster the new walls and skim all of the old walls, the list goes on.
I am still sewing, even if it is just a little, and am progressing with my silk shirt, I have just put the sleeves in that leaves the side seams, cuffs, buttons and buttonholes.
Yesterday I bought some more RTW tops for the summer, I just wasted my time because none of them fit, I get spoilt sewing my own stuff because I always find fault with RTW, now I have to take them all back.....tut
I will try to get photos of my shirt.......when I've got time.
On a different note, I got 2nd with my lovely little girl Piper in an open dog competition a couple of weeks ago.....I was absolutely delighted. (Open competitions are for older more experienced dogs and are difficult to win or even get placed.)

Friday 7 May 2010

Silk shirt

I have started another shirt the same as the white one and the flowered one .....my thoughts were, we have the builders in and I still wanted to sew so I thought I would do a TNT project so there is no stress just straight forward sewing.......huh!!!!!!!??????......that's what I thought.


This was not the time to use my favourite silk which cost me over £50. It is a pain in the a.....to work with, in fact at one stage I was just going to fold it up and put it away in my box and leave it there.


This is the villain in question.

This pattern has a yoke and the front shoulder seam has to have a stay to stop it from stretching.I tried organza

this was just to stiff and made the seam wavy. Then I tried batiste



this also made the seam wavy and was just to heavy for the delicate silk. I then used self fabric, cutting it on the straight grain so it wouldn't stretch.....still not suitable.....at this point I just wanted to fold it up and put it away.


This morning I decided I wouldn't put any stay in at all, everything is too heavy, so I decided to put a couple of rows of stay stitching in the seam before I sew it

this is a little better but as I have pulled this seam out about 3 times it has eventually stretched it but I am going to persevere with it and see if I can salvage it. The trouble is the V neck on the shirt and the back neck also has to have a stay and I will just have to put staystitching there as well. I wonder how this will turn out, will I have a beautiful silk shirt at the end of it or will it go back into my box and never see the light of day.





Saturday 1 May 2010

Stash

This is my collection of fabrics or stash as everyone calls it......this is a blanket box that I have had for about 40 years, it was covered with quilted vinyl and had yellow flowers all over it so I recovered it and I keep my precious fabrics inside, it keeps them dust and grime free. This is all the stash I have, there maybe 20 or so different fabrics, I won't buy anymore until there is room inside for more...... as you can see it is full to the brim with fabrics that I love. The flowered fabric on top is what is left over from my latest project.



I am still not quite sure about the design on this shirt but the fabric is really lovely to wear.
This fits a lot better than the white shirt since I altered the neckline.
I like it open like this, I think the white camisole underneath breaks up the flowered pattern.
I think I will get some wear out of this in the summer, I didn't think I would wear it at all but it is growing on me just like the flowers lol lol. As you can see I have no furniture or carpets in my dining room, we have builders in at the moment we are having our kitchen extended.

My desk is cleared for my next project......same pattern but green silk, this is lovely fabric.