Sewing
Three Ways to Sew a Crownless Sunhat
A crownless sunhat has been on my mind for some time, but not literally…until now! I wondered if the low waste sunhat pattern I made last year (or indeed, any sunhat) could be converted to a crownless version. If a person had too much hair to fit within a hat’s crown, it could poke out…
Read MoreThe fabric made me do it
Just before Christmas, I broke my five-year zero waste sewing streak with a Burda pattern. I wanted to make my older teen a Christmas dress, as a surprise, using a spectacular wax print fabric that I already had. However, the print had a huge repeat of 80cm and really needed to be positioned symmetrically on…
Read MoreThe Grey Jacket Makes Progress
To tell you the truth, I was having doubts about this jacket. I’m making a hooded modular jacket as a sew-a-long project for Zero and Zen, a course I’m co-hosting with Kate Ward (we are already underway, but it’s still possible to sign up HERE). The first post on this jacket is here. The jacket…
Read MoreThe Floral Trousers Revamp
On my to-do list for some…years? has been to refashion a pair of floral trousers, because I just haven’t been able to work them into my wardrobe. The trousers are the wrap trousers from Zero Waste Sewing, but these were an early prototype when I was making the pattern. Here’s what they look like in…
Read MoreStitching Away at the Zero and Zen Jacket
It’s school holidays here, and sashiko stitching has begun in earnest on the grey jacket I’m making for Zero and Zen. There’s still time to register for Zero and Zen. It’s a course I’m co-presenting with artist Kate Ward, where you’ll make your own minimal/zero waste jacket and add sashiko stitching for a beautiful and…
Read MoreMum’s Sheepskin Vest (and the change of plans)
Many years ago, my mother was given a sheepskin vest by a family friend. I remember Mum wearing it on camping trips when I was a child, although she doesn’t recall this. An exhaustive search through the family photo archive to back up my claim failed to bring up a single image. So who knows?…
Read MoreFinishing Those UFOs
Regular readers of this blog may remember a post I did back in February, cataloguing the UFOs (UnFinished Objects) lying around the house. I decided to make the UFOs part of my Me-Made-May challenge, and pledged to finish three items during May. I’m happy to report that I’ve gone above and beyond, and have ticked…
Read MoreHow to dress a teenager
When I was a teen in high school in the 1980s, my dad decided that my sister and I should get an annual clothing allowance. Like almost all school students in Australia, we wore a uniform and school shoes, which our parents paid for, so the clothing allowance was for everything else. (Years later, on…
Read MoreThe UFO Catalogue (complete and unabridged)
We’ve all got them, haven’t we? UFOs or UnFinished Objects. Projects lying around the house that just need a hem or buttonholes – maybe you lost interest, or lost weight….or it didn’t turn out how you expected and you screwed it up in a ball and threw it at the wall. I regret to admit…
Read MoreGetting closure on the denim jacket
This blog post has been two weeks in the making – I was thwarted by an electrical storm last week which took out our modem and phone line. But after services were restored and I was ready to hit publish, Mr H happened to see it and said he didn’t like what I’d done with…
Read More