Kittens
Poor kittens came down with an infection last week, they were very poorly with a high temperature, feeling sorry for themselves and going off their food.
Logan and Rogue went down with it first, with Missy following them the next day.
Simon rushed Logan and Rogue to the Vets last thursday, were they were given a shot of antibiotic and a liquid patch, the Laura (the Vet) then sent us home saying to keep and eye on them and if they didn’t feel better to bring them back the following day.
Needless to say they weren’t feeling better and Logans Temperature had risen, so back they went to the Vets, who decided to keep them in 😦 . Missy decided that she didn’t like being at home just with Uncle Fluffy and proceeded to come down with it as well. Another visit to the Vets, Simon’s third in two days to drop Missy off. Lauren (The other Vet) decided not to do a blood test on Missy as they had already done the other two and the results had come back negative.
The Phone call from Laura Saturday was promising, Logans Temperature had started coming down and Rogue was eating and yelling. We went to visit the kittens Saturday Afternoon, they looked happy to see us, Missy was still poorly but she was a day behind the other two. Because it was very hot outside and they still had a temperature Laura decided to keep them in another night.
Fast forward to Sunday morning, Simon had a phone call from Laura saying please pick your babies up as they are very loud.
We don’t know what was wrong with our kittens, Laura thinks it was an infection, they fought it off by themselves and probably if it hadn’t been so hot outside they would have been alright at home, but although they could deal with one or the other, having a temperature and a heatwave was not a good combination.
They are back to normal now and getting under everyones feet but it was very worrying.
Logan having a little lean
Rogue
Missy, they are starting to get quite big now.
having a little cuddle
Craftsy
I’ve just discovered Craftsy, yes I hear you say you’re a bit late to the party, may be I am, I’ve done CBTs( computer based training) for work and although James was very amusing, the person who did XP workstation had very grating voice and I wanted to kill myself. (probably a slight exageration)
But Craftsy, maybe that won’t be too bad, so far I’ve signed up for five classes, I’ve watched one of them while my shoulder was too bad to do anything, it is pattern making basics the bodice sloper making course, it looks quite straight forward, obviously I haven’t tried anything yet but I now have the ruler and the paper, I keep forgetting to buy the sticky dots though 😦 I’m hoping mine comes out better than some of the photos.
I also have the sassy librarian blouse, the knit lab, the couture dress and the flirty day dress. I will confess I bought four of them half price, and I have targeted the ones that I think will help me with my dress making skills, apart from the knit lab which is going to help me with my knitting skills, all I have to do now is tidy up my craft room and make time to sit down and follow them.
I have my flirty day dress pattern but I feel that I might get more out of it once I have completed the bodice sloper course, I have just read on a blog that the flirty day dress is a B cup pattern so I assume that I will have to make some alterations there.
Bound Button holes: friend or foe?
Bound Button Holes: Friend or Foe ?
I have rather a Love hate relationship with Bound Button Holes, I love the look of them but I hate the execution of them.
Lets face it they are pretty, but does the amount of aggravation and extra time spent on them really justify putting them in over normal button holes, in the main they are going to be hidden by the button anyway.
I can understand putting them in when you are going to have to spend hours putting other types of button hole by hand but in the age of the machine button hole which takes seconds, meh.
I’m going to use a particular dress as an example, it has been sitting on my Dress Making Dummy for about two months (bad me) the skirt is together and the top is together the only thing standing between me and New Dress Heaven is bound button holes (that and the fact I’ve lost the two small facings for the skirt piece). On the dress top I have carefully stitched on both pieces of right hand facing the squares of fabric to create my button hole I’ve even cut the slot to push the pieces through to the back, but have I hand stitched them in place have I heck as like.
Saturday evening Simon was Gigging in Colchester, I thought lets sort these button holes out sitting in front of the TV watching Haven. It took me four hours to create five button holes, I did try and cut a couple of corners and do the first one in one go instead of making the ‘lips’ on the front first and then slip stitching the back facing piece to it. That didn’t go down too well so I abandoned this and did the last four properly. But Four Hours and I still have another three to do which are on the skirt piece, may be another two hours button hole work. Seven hours to make nine button holes when I could have them all done in less than twenty minutes.
I’m sure there are the purists out there who would say ‘hell yes, you must put in those Bound Button Holes and while you are about it make your other button holes by hand as well, that is why they give us the instructions for how to do it.’
At the end of the day a button hole is just something to stuff a button through to stop your clothes falling off.
The other thing you could say is that the more you do the quicker you become and next time it won’t take seven hours to create nine button holes. But do the button holes on this dress
look fours hours worth better than the button holes on this dress?
I don’t think so.
Dress Making
My Shoulder still isn’t quite up to long hours of dress making but I do hope to have a couple of skirts for you to look at soon.
Butterick 6622
Slim skirt needs only one yard 54″ fabric-sews in a Jiffy. Skirt has single back seam, deep inverted pleat, back slide fastener closing. Make the skirt with soft unpressed pleats(A), or darts (B) under lining the waistband.
I’ve made version (B) in this one
Butterick 7915
Slim Skirt in three versions. Views (A) & (C) can be made from 1 yard of 54″ fabric. (A) Mock wrap-around version buttons at side back. (B) Double-buttoned, floating panel is back. (C) Back slit.
Version (A) for this one
Back to Blogging
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.
new camera
I have bought a new camera its an Olympus PL-5 it is a four thirds mirrorless compact system camera. it came with two lenses 14-42mm and 40 -150 mm
The pictures are good, the menu system not so much.
The video is nice and sharp and the sound clear, if i can work out how to put the video on the blog will.
The set up is as it came out of the box the colours are slightly off but not too bad
we won’t look at the weeds in this photo.
this is to show how sharp the photo is, it was taken at about 6 fit with the 40 -150 lens
here are some pictures taken in doors
Over all I think it is a nice camera not too heavy and small enough to put in my handbag, I will admit I prefer the zoom lens I have on my canon 450 but it is just too big, and does get in the way. I’ll try and do some comparison shots once my new sd card arrives, at the moment i’m using the one out of the canon, but I have a new wi-fi enabled card ordered, so I should be able check that out as well.
vogue 8782
this is a vogue dress, I made it in a size smaller than usual, partly because the pattern I bought was a size smaller, but mostly because I have been finding that a lot of these dresses have been large around the bust area and it is easy enough to add two inches at the waist rather than do a small bust adjustment.
the sizing has come out quite well, apart from being a bit tight around the front of the arms, on the bright side it might just make me stand up straight and stop slouching.
as you can see it has a pleat at the back and three at the front.
as you can see in the top photo it has some fancy detail instead of the normal darts, you stitch in the diamond shape first the fold it over to create the cut out.
Holiday
Hi, sorry I haven’t been around for this week, I have been in the New Forrest, no internet access 😦
it has been very relaxing, we drove up there Monday Morning, a little cabin the in the woods, we weren’t able to stay in the cabin we booked they had a land slip, but the one they offered us was really great.
we had a walk round Salisbury Tuesday, and a trip to Fabricland, I came away with  a couple of lengths of skirt fabric and two lots of cotton for blouses
Wednesday was a quick trip to Southampton and a walk around the forest.
Thursday was a trip to Marwell Zoo.
more adventures in printing
You may or may not have seen the post about changing the size of a pattern using a printer/scanner, I have taken it one step further recreating missing pattern pieces.
Last year I bought two blouse patterns both Butterick and similar i hadn’t looked at them until yesterday when I discovered that one of the patterns only had the front and back included, no facing and no collar to be fair to the seller, they were cheap and it might have said the the whole pattern wasn’t there)
back to the post, I thought to myself well I can create the facing quite easily but the three collar pieces might cause me some problems, I might be able to use the bits from the other pattern but they aren’t quite the same shape and it could cause me problems in the long run.
I worked out the ratio between the pieces that I had and the diagram on the ‘how to put it together sheet’ then scanned the sheet at 1433% size
Using the preview button I scanned each piece seperately, then printed and cut them out, they aren’t perfect but the one piece I could check with any certainty (front facing) was pretty darned close.
now I have put the top together I am very pleased, it was too long, the bust darts were in the wrong place and it was far too bid across the chest. these problem have all been solved by taking an inch out of the length and moving the side bust dart up by the same amount.
close up of the collar
I like the pattern and i think it will look good with trousers and skirts. the only thing i’m not sure about is that because the shoulder seams are cut in so much you can see my bra straps.
Butterick 6214
this is the second time i have written this post the first time i posted it, i received txt congratulating me on my post then it disappeared into the posting black hole.
I was a bit concerned about the scalloped neckline as the pattern was a size too large, although i knew i could slash the pattern the scallops would be a challenge.
I decided to use my printer scanner, i worked out the ratio i needed to reduce it by, and hey presto.
the only change i made between this top and the one the actual dress is that i lengthened it by 1/2 inch.
this dress looks beautiful but it is an impractical dress to wear as you will see in the last photo
here are some detail shots
and here is the shot you’ve been waiting for
Musings of a Craft Enthusiast 