Craft Room

The craft room is now in use! Originally our elder daughter's bedroom, this room became a spare bedroom/sewing room, then a spare bedroom/sewing room /toy room for our grandchildren. For six months of last year it held 28 storage boxes full of our kitchen while our extension was built - and served as a place to cook our meals on a sandwich press.

It has now been cleared and a huge wall-to-wall,  floor-to-12ft ceiling wardrobe installed to take some of our off-season clothes and all my stitching gear. We cleared some bookshelf space by culling about 400 books and then stripped and painted the walls. All my craft books/magazines are now accessible on the bookshelf.

I didn't take photos of the room before this year. I did take a few of my old storage and the room packed up ready for the wardrobe to be installed. The wide-angle lens needed to fit in the whole wall (or nearly) distorts the shape.

It is even harder to take shots of the whole finished room, especially as the wardrobe has one mirrored door. The two below, taken from the doorway, and the corner opposite the door give an idea.

More than half the storage is for my craft.

I have divided my stash into large pieces of fabric, stacked on shelves, and smaller pieces - sorted into baskets or boxes and labelled. My embroidery frames fit on one shelf - except for my standing floor frame, which goes into the high section already made up.

One drawer holds my store of cards made from my photographs, three hold embroidery kits and three hold wool.

My threads go in the Japanese drawers on a shelf below the fabric.

I still have a large footstool filled with fabric - but that can gradually be absorbed.

It is a terrific, workable space and makes measuring, cutting out, finding things and machine stitching very easy and comfortable.

I love the light and cleanness of it - and some of my favourite paintings and Japanese prints.

I am already working on a number of projects that are made easier by the space.

I am really pleased and grateful.

More on the projects soon.

Millie Molly Dolly Bags

http://peppermintpatcher.wordpress.com/millie-molly-dolly-bags/

I came across this pattern while looking for something else (as one does) and thought it would be great to make for my granddaughters so I bought a pdf pattern from The Peppermint Patcher. The pattern seems to have disappeared from the shop since I bought it but it still features in the Peppermint Patcher's blog.

It took me about two days to make these bags. I was a bit hampered by our building work. My stash is accessible behind racks of wine, my cutting out space was a bit of my desk and my ironing board the top of my office cupboard.

I intended to take more photos of the work in progress, but ended up just focusing on managing the project in the space.


The clothes are mostly from bits left over from dresses I have smocked for the girls at one time or another. One has pink underwear and the other pale green spots.

The clothes fasten at the shoulders with press studs. I am a bit nervous that they will be too hard for the girls. I could have replaced them with velcro, but  think the press studs give a better look if they work.

The project tested my skills at working with fusible batting and fusible webbing. I also used the three lines of stitching option on my machine for the first time!

It is a really fun project and went down a treat on Christmas Day.

The press-studs were fine - much better than velcro would have been.

Christmas fabric baskets

While I was working on the toy chest etui, I spent a few hours over a couple of days giving myself a break from  and making some easy bag/baskets to hold Christmas goodies. I used a couple of charm packs I had bought while they were on special. It is great to be able to run these bags up without measuring, cutting or figuring out how.


I'm not sure yet whether I will use them as they are, or insert elastic in the tops - depends what goes in them. With elastic they make great bags for a single ball of wool.

I made 8 and have shown them both sides.

A very satisfying result.

Smocked silk dress

While I am on a roll with the much-handled McCall's pattern and my Indonesian ikat, I took the plunge with the second piece of fabric from Singaraja.






This piece is silk and woven as a sarong, rather than a continuous length.  I tried to cut it to maximise the use of the pattern. I did lose a little from the top edge but managed to centre the large birds both front and back.

I stitched in the sleeves using a narrow French seam and again pleated it like a bishop. It pleated like a dream.


I went for 9 half-space rows, including 2 holding rows.

I chose a very simple trellis in graded colours matching the fabric, using two strands of DMC.
I was hoping to get a bit of a bargello effect so shaded the colours pink, through purple and blue then back again.

I couldn't get a long enough bias strip for the neck out of the fabric, so I used a purple bias binding, then feather-stitched around it to give a bit of texture.

I'm pleased with the finished effect.











I debated turning a hem or leaving the selvage. The piece was designed to wear as a sarong, with the border at showing at the bottom, so I have left it for the moment. If it seems too long I will take up a hem.

I like the simplicity of this - a little bit of smocking, a little bit of sewing and the fabric speaks for itself.

Another dress from that pattern

I love reusing patterns to get different effects but the same fit. Given the success of my McCalls pattern on a top and a dress, I took the plunge and cut out a dress from a piece of ikat I bought in Indonesia 4 years ago.

 It came from Pertenunan Berdikari in Singaraja, a small hand-loomed weaving factory that specialises in traditional designs and has supplied ikat to all Indonesian Presidents in the last 20 years.




At the factory you can watch the whole process from base thread dying,







through tying, pattern construction










to weaving.

I bought three pieces of cloth - one cotton and two silk. This is the cotton coming off the loom. It was this cotton that I tried out first.

I went to Hetty's Patch to find a contrasting plain cotton, and tried the version of the pattern with a V yoke and hem border.

I think it worked really well. The colours are great and it is really comfortable. I wore it to lunch on my birthday.

I now have plans to make up the silk pieces with further variations on this pattern.

Smocked dress from my versatile McCall's pattern.

This is the second top from my McCall's pattern. The fabric is Mali cloth that I bought from Weavers of the World a year or so ago. This time I thought I have a go at smocking from this pattern.


I cut out a dress, adding about an extra 18cm in the front and the back -  a bit of a guess based on the first top I made from the pattern.

I then stitched in the sleeves and pleated it as I would a bishop. It pleated quite well although it was a lot of cloth!

 I pleated 9 half space rows and chose a smocking design that gave me a bit of an echo of the circles, while opening out at the bottom to the gathers. I used three strands of DMC - pretty sure it would have been easier to stitch in perle, but it worked.

I realised when I came to gather and stitch the frill that I hadn't added any fabric to the frill to compensate for the additional fabric front and back for the smocking. It was,however, quite enough of a frill! I seem to have spent quite a lot of time lately gathering and stitching frills!

I also cut the neck binding a few centimetres shorter than the original top. It still fits over the head easily but comes a little higher on my shoulders.

It worked. I feel a bit like Mma Ramotswe when wearing it. It's been great in our current weather.

My batik top

One of my ambitions since retiring from full time paid work, has been to make some useful, comfortable clothes for myself from some of the material in my stash, much of it collected while travelling. With this in mind I went on a search for a pattern that I could use for making pants and tops - ideally a pattern I could adapt to smock some of the tops.

I wanted to try out the pattern by  making a top in the fabric my friend gave me on her return from Indonesia - the fabric I used to line the Alison Snepp pouch.

Eventually I found McCalls M5862 in my local fabric shop, but alas, the only size they didn't have was mine! Not to be defeated, I searched online and eventually ordered and received it from McCalls Australia online. This, annoyingly, cost considerably more than buying it over the counter, but saved me a lot of running around and I will use it many times.

I didn't have quite enough to use the border as a frill around the bottom, but I managed to use it around the sleeves. I added loops on the inside shoulders to clip a bra strap.

It is a simple pattern, but works really well - loose and comfortable, just as I had hoped (not the best photo in the world - best I could do taking it myself in the mirror!).


I have now cut out another one in an African fabric to smock around the neck, allowing a little bit extra for pleating. More soon on this, I hope.

Insulated lunch bags

I bought some Insulwool a while ago to make insulated lunch bags but experimented first with snackbags that weren't insulated. I used  the Design Collective's book.

I've been looking for a reason to make an insulated bag, so decided to make one for some friends we are staying with this weekend in Sydney. I thought I could take them some homemade quince paste, quince jelly and quince chocolates in an insulated lunch bag.

The pattern I chose required pieces of fabric just a bit larger than a fat quarter so a lot of the pieces I had thought to use weren't big enough. I finally found a piece that would do, and that I could match to a lining fabric. The instructions were clear - but I'd have liked a couple of diagrams.

Sewing in the Insulwool was easy. It has one side slightly shiny - a bit like glue on interfacing. It sews like good batting.

The bag has a velcro closure with a handy tag for opening.

I didn't have grosgrain ribbon that would match so I made the handles from the lining material.

I was pleased with the result, but thought the bag was a bit generous for a lunch bag and extremely generous for my gifts!









As we were staying one night with my brother as well as one night with a friend, I decided to have a go at making another bag a bit smaller and take some quincy gifts to my brother. This one was much faster (because I knew what I was doing!) and I used a fat quarter. I think the smaller size is better.

Altogether a good day's work. I am pretty pleased with the result and will probably make more of these.