...that's the sound that I make every time I see ANOTHER thing I just wantwantwant. Yeesh.
The idea of accruing desired purchases to the end of the month and *then* deciding what I'm going to get really does have some merit.
So, the latest thing I'm dying to spend my money on continue to use my credit card on is:
It's happening!!! :D
Slowly but surely the bag is coming together. It's literally taken me weeks - as a pattern tester I should have had it done within three weeks, and I'm now officially over time. Guess I owe the lovely Chris for her pattern. Well it's a win win situation because it's certainly worth paying for, despite it being ever so slightly beyond my current skills.
Also... birdy cuddles. Not so bad with David away after all, finally they're paying me a bit of attention! :"D
Buy Nothing New Month, day 15: asifIhadtimetospendmoneytodayanyways (success!)
I'm doing some pattern testing for the lovely Chris W at the moment. She clearly states that this pattern is "advanced".
I'm pretty gutsy when it comes to trying new stuff (as long as it doesn't involve a high risk of breaking bones). I'll eat just about anything, I'll attempt just about anything, I'll try to make just about anything with or without a pattern.
This bag, however, has me very. very. very frustrated. Mostly it's about the small details. Firstly, it's small pieces (this measures about 6cm at the base and just over 3cm at the top, so this macro pic is quite a bit larger than life).
You can see that I'm struggling to get around the corners, and to stitch evenly. I have a fair suspicion about what I'm doing wrong: I'm probably going too fast despite the fact that my machine is set as slow as it will go and I'm handwheeling a lot of this. I also suspect that I should be using a different foot, and that I might be stitching too close to the metal ring at the top of the tab (which you can't actually see in the photo).
I unpicked it and did it again, and unpicked it again and did it again and did it another time just for good measure. At this point I decided to take a break. If I hadn't promised Chris I'd do this, I probably would have abandoned the project in disgust at my own inability to get it right.
The plan is that I'm going to unpick it one more time today and give it one final shot. Yeah, with the rivets in it. *sigh*. This could all end in tears, but hey. It's a rainy day in Canberra and I have both Baileys and sweet tawny port at the ready. If it all goes to shit, I'm making bat nappies instead. LOL.
My other frustration is the rivets. The picture above is what they look like once I've put them in, following the instructions to the letter (this was the second attempt, as I was certain I'd done something wrong the first time). You can see the rivets are quite dented, not smooth and round at all. I've put the instructions below just in case someone who sees this has some hint or guidance to add. I got this little pink pack of rivets from the local sewing store. I'm really not impressed.
Below are the smaller sized rivets I got from a supplier in China. As you can see, the set comes with a set of special installing tools. I would have loved to use these but they're actually too small for the bag, hence buying the shop ones.
I love tools and special gadgets. I have a few different grommet and rivet tools now, and am slowly building my collection of goodies. I'm not sure why - it's not like I'm going into the bag making business. But I guess the thing is this: I spent hours, and I mean literally HOURS cutting those pieces for that handbag. I've already spent hours sewing them together and anticipate quite a few more hours this weekend continuing to do the same. So I think that it's worth giving it one more shot when I'm not all frustrated and riled up, and see how it goes. I have spent a couple of hours just on this bit alone, but it's a very visible feature on the bag, and I ambitiously (and perhaps foolishly) chose bright contrasting thread. I never was one to do things as a practice run. Life doesn't generally give you practice runs: jump in the deep end! ;)
Anyways, that's the plan.
I doubt I'll even set foot outside my lovely little home today, so I'm going to assume that Buy Nothing Day 6 is also gonna be a success. Woohoo! This is VERY good for my credit card. I'm also wondering if renewing my old WoW subscription counts... I'm going to say no. But I'm also going to wait until tonight to do it. If I roll a panda now, there'll be no handbags *or* bat nappies today. ;)
Buy Nothing New Day 6: Success!
So. You know you've become obsessed with sewing when you go to a hens night and you don't take photos of all the silly cock paraphernalia. You don't take photos of your girly friends in their cutest outfits. You don't take photos of the bride to be bouncing about looking excited and adorable (oh hai Michelle!)
What you photograph instead is the heaps cool belt-purse one of the other guests has on. With a couple of close ups for detail. And you think... "ooh! I could totally make one of those...!"
Buy nothing new, day 5: Success!
Yep!
I went to a sewing workshop on the weekend, and in the spirit of not buying anything new, I went into the stash to get fabric out rather than buying more. We have a couple of cute cushions at home made of dinosaur fabric books, and I bought this panel with the intention to make another, but the idea of making it into an adorable tote bag was way too irresistable. :)
I love it! I cut the pieces so that I had a deinonychus on the front flap, a trex on the strap at the front, and a cute titanosaur called George under the flap (who is, apparently, going to play tennis with his friend Cooper today). Hehe!
This was one of the zippers I learned how to construct at the Nicole Mallalieu workshop at Addicted to Fabric on Saturday. There are cooool tricks and secrets in there! :D
The workshops also gave me the opportunity to use my sweet new labels for the first time. I designed the Mouse and Raven logo some months ago, and had them printed by http://www.etsy.com/shop/TagsandLabels?ref=seller_info :)
So, day 3 of Buy Nothing New: Success! Had a good day at work, knocked over some persistent old paperwork (now that feels great) and an evening of pizza, sewing and footrubs. Yum.
These are a few shots of the finished product. The Canberra Tweed facebook page has heaps more photos of all the lovely people there - go over and have a look!
Once I had the basic form done and the decorative buckle on the back, I glued it on top, trimmed to about 1cm, and poked the edges down in between the foam and the hard helmet form with pointy nosed pliers. Not the tidiest job, but it worked. I trimmed the side panels into ear flap shapes, got some woollen wadding and sewed it into the flap shapes, just with running stitch. In hindsight I really wish I'd done this before I'd glued it on, as it would have taken 1/4 of the time if I'd done it by machine and not hand *sigh*
You can see I cut slits at the top of the wadding so I could choose to tuck the bike helmet buckles into the ear flaps for when I wasn't actually riding.
Finally, I made another little buckle and tongue set with leftover leather, and sewed roughly to the ends of the ear flaps. Below are detailed photos of the buckles.
Finally, I threw the goggles (thanks ebay) on the top and I was ready to roll!
Easier than it looks, and made for a very fun outfit. ;)
Here's how I made my fabbo leather-covered bicycle-aviator's helmet which I wore to the local Tweed Ride today.
First, I got a nice sharp pair of scissors and an old leather jacket. The leather was quite thin and supple, almost stretchy, and my sewing machine had no trouble with it.
First I cut a strip as wide as I could while keeping it flattish across the top of the helmet, from the front of the helmet right over to the back. I kept it a good 5cm longer at front and back to allow me flexibility and some breathing space when adding the side panels.
Note that this is not a plain rectangle, but tapers thinner at both front and back. I pretty much cut it where it sat flat.
The next bits involved a bit of guesswork. First I guessed at a triangle-type shape, with a slight curve to one side, and cut two mirrored pieces. This is the bit to right of the photo below, just near the handle of the scissors. I attached each triangle piece with a seam running along the middle panel, so at that point there was a long panel with two triangles attached on either side. Then I draped it over the helmet and laid a piece of leather over the top, and traced an approximation of the side panel pieces, and extended the shape down to a long ear flap piece. At this point I left the ear flaps large and mostly unformed so I could adjust them later. I attached these two side panels to the existing pieces, so only 2 more pieces left to add.
I made a bit of a guess at the final two pieces, which were little triangles almost the same as the front. I made the point of the seams where three pieces met (at 4 spots on the top of the helmet) to co-incide with the 4 points on the helmet which were most prominent, or where the curve changed the most.
Before I glued the basic form to the helmet, I made a couple of long thin rectangles of leather and made a loop and buckle which I attached to the back of the helmet. This was mostly for design and aesthetic purposes - on a real aviator helmet it would adjust the tightness across the back, but I added it both to look good, and to give the goggles' elastic something to tuck under when they were put over the finished piece. The buckles were also rescued from an old pair of trousers which I picked up at an opshop and only wore once, so they had a battered and authentic appearance :) Unfortunately they say "kathmandu" on them, if you look closely at the pics in the next post ;) but you have to be pretty close!
how time flies.
I've been a very busy squeak, but not very committed to taking photos of what I've been doing.
Sometimes I can't post pics until a certain time has passed, for instance, the pattern for the lovely clutch I've recently finished (and spent quite a lot of time on) was not released until very recently, and I wanted to hold off posting pics until now because it's a gift for my mumsy. So... The Eve Clutch!
(get the pattern here - it's a top pattern, and suitable for people who are only just learning to sew - the photos and instructions are fantastic)
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