Hi

Today is the anniversary of my first post, which makes my Blog one year old today, to be honest I thought I would lose interest somewhere about June last year. I’m still here, I might not have blogged as much as I meant to but I have definitely blogged more than I thought I would.

To celebrate I’ve revamped the front page with a new header and colour scheme, in the next year I hope to get more to grips with the photo side of things, get more sewing actually finished and more regular posting….

I have a Pocket Dragon for all occasions 🙂

Thanks for reading

The main things that I want to get to grips with this year is the two Dressmaking/cutting systems I acquired last year Lutterloh and Haslam.

I believe that if I can understand Haslam I will be in a position to create my own designs or at least understand how to alter patterns to fit better.

Lutterloh fascinates me, the patterns are easy to create it is just the putting them together I have problems with…the other thing that fascinates me about the 1940s patterns are the teeny tiny arms and necks these women apparently had.

Teeny tiny arms and neck isn’t an issue with the Haslam drafting System as it uses a lot more measurements than Lutterloh, though with Lutterloh only using two (bust and hip) it would be hard pressed to use less. Two of the extra measurements used by Haslam are the neck and elbow circumferences which will overcome the problem of my 2015 not teeny tiny arms and neck. 🙂

this post was written last month and for some reason was never published, which is why the post seems slightly out of order…..

I’m getting geared up for winter, I feel that skirts and blouses will be easier to layer than mainly cotton dresses. with this in mind I have brought some more skirt patterns and a blouse pattern.

I love etsy.com it makes buying patterns so much easier and mainly the postage costs aren’t too bad.

I’m not sure about the patch pockets on view 3 but I do like the pocket flaps on view 2.

I thought the waist detail was something different.

I do love me some pintucks….

more pockets.

The kittens are getting quite big now

all three of them about 4 weeks ago.

Fluffy playing with Missy, Fluffy is definitely getting accustomed to the kittens he has stopped running away from them and is now spending more time with us.

Rogue and Missy having a little cuddle.

Logan looking a bit miffed.

I have cut out this blouse version B, I’m even going to go with the long sleeves, I figure if I don’t like them I can cut them down to short sleeves.

In this fabric

I have read the instructions several times, and am still not entirely sure what I’m supposed to do with the pleats but after pinning the pleats in place and checking the drawing on the front I think I have it.

I’m not sure about this shirt, I if you look closely at this picture you can see next to each pleat you can see the stitching.

I have a problem with this fabric a) it is practically see through b) it has what I can only describe as a ladder right up the middle of it.

I’m going to have to finish it just to see how the sleeves look but I don’t think that I’ll ever wear it outside.

Have you ever looked at a room and thought ‘I must tidy this up’ but then not know where to start? that is my craft room, I can’t find anything in it and it has too much STUFF in it, it doesn’t matter how I rearrange it there is still too much STUFF in it.

I want to make another blouse

I bought some very pretty cotton pique from ebay

but do you think that I can find my pattern, nope, all the other patterns are accounted for in the box where they should be but not the one that I want, I’m sure that my subconscious does it deliberately, I bet it knows where my pattern is and it’s laughing at me, while it’s whispering ‘you need more shirts make one of these (even though I know you don’t know where the pattern is)’, I have been through the box twice I have had everything out of it and it isn’t there. the other think that I can’t find is the copy I made of the Gabriola skirt pattern, I have the actual skirt pattern just not the copy, but I resent having to make another copy of it when I’ve already done that.

I hate that I can’t find anything and I hate that it depresses me and stops me from doing the things I want to do. I also know that it is my own fault and I should a) stop buying things b) use what I already have and c)get rid of the stuff that I’m never going to use.

all I can say is thank god for eBooks, it doesn’t matter how many I buy they don’t take up any more room.

If you have got this far, thanks for staying with my ramble and hopefully sewing will be resuming soon

The Saturday morning in question was two weeks ago, but like everything else I’ve been having trouble settling to anything.

I spent the morning in Leigh on Sea with my Mum, there won’t be pictures of her, she doesn’t like them.

I got up really early (well for me anyway) and went to the Butchers in Hamlet court road, Simon and I do this practically every Saturday, but normally a lot later 🙂

Simon had had an operation on his wrist, I was expecting him to sleep most of the day, so I thought I’ll go to the Bakers and the Butchers to save him going out later.

So off to Leigh at about 10.00, we were lucky and managed to get in the carpark in North Road. and then made our way round a lot of charity shops and boutiques. in the first Charity shop I found a dress it is a beautiful dress Per Una, the Marks and Spencers Brand.

The next shop was a Sue Ryder shop in which I found two 1970s Maudella patterns for £1 each, there were more but these were the ones in my size

and

Mum got a set of coasters that were identical to a set she already had at home, except the ones she had at home had seen better days, a lot better days.

they were having a Barbeque/fate at the library, so we stopped to have lunch (a burger) and a cup cake

the back of the library.

this is the best of four selfies, note to self practise more selfies.

There should be more photos but I still haven’t got into the habit of taking photos wherever I go.

it’s been a bit of time since my last post, I’ve had to hold off from typing, as I needed surgery on my shoulder, just a routine OP, but it meant that typing was awkward, when you are used to using two hands you get a little bit lost with one.

I’m going to cover two things here, we have new kittens, Simon is besotted with them and the camera mentioned in my previous post I sent back.

First thing the Kittens, they are beautiful, two girls and one boy, Fluffy, our remaining cat is still not sure about them, but did only get territorial with them when they tried to steal his roast chicken bits, 🙂

they are quite a bit bigger now, and ready to go to the vets for their second lot of jabs and micro chipping

Logan

Missy

I’m assuming I haven’t uploaded newer pictures of Rogue yet but don’t worry i’m sure there will be lots of them

Second thing the Olympus Camera, although as you could see by the previous post the photos taken outdoors were brilliant, they were clear and vibrant, very impressive for the size of camera. Indoors was a different story, the shutter speed was slow and the kittens blurry. I know that probably if I had spent more time with it and played with the settings I could have got round these issues, but the one issue that wouldn’t go away was I didn’t like the sound it made when it took the photo.

So I have exchanged it for a Panasonic Lumix GM1 it is very small, very light and takes very nice pictures.