British bunting

Everyone in the UK is in on some Union Jack action at the moment.  Between the jubilee and the impending Olympic games British patriotism is at an all time high.  You don't just buy strawberries, or potatoes at the supermarket, you buy 'British strawberries' or 'British potatoes'.  The Union Jack was even making a star turn on a packet of nappies at Sainsburys.

The British also love their bunting and it's hanging all over the high street.  Here's a little sampling:

  Prim and proper shop front bunting

 Historic courtyard bunting

Upper crust jewellery store bunting

Bunting keeping a stiff upper lip in the cold wind and rain while cozy things beckon from inside

Sewing machine shop bunting!

A cute cushion made with British crowns, taxis and buses fabrics.

In a sunnier moment: English country garden patriotic pinwheel 

The effect of all this patriotism rubbed off on my five year old and he was compelled to give flag waving a bit of a try.

Tally ho!

Up, up and away

Image from here

Let me just say that sewing, blogging, school holidays and preparing for an overseas trip are not really a good mixture of situations!  Blogging has definitely had to take a back seat over the last few weeks. 


Today we are taking off for the UK, Bulgaria, The Netherlands and Hong Kong.  It's been quite stressful getting all the required gear together for the little ones and myself, but I think we are packed now as much as we are ever going to be and I'm actually looking forward to getting on the plane and taking to the skies.

By the way, the Maika shop is in holiday mode and will re-open when we return in August.  I won't be disappearing from here though, I'll be posting little things from our travels, maybe even catching up on blogging a few sewing projects I've finished with photographs from these exotic locations....

See you from over there!

For one week only

For just a week and only a week I had to move my sewing machine upstairs to the comfort of the dining room table.  Larger work space, better light, direct access to cups of coffee and biscuits as I work.  Bummer, hey?

It was too cold downstairs and there was too much sewing to do to spend time away from the living room during the day when there were also children to be looked after!  The crawling one had a fascination for the foot pedal and I had to turn the machine off for a while so he could make its acquaintance and get it out of his system.  It's not easy trying to sew when both you and your little one are pushing down on the foot pedal - its a bit of a run away stitching situation let me tell you!

Why all the sewing?  My friend Elizabeth from Nest Nappies requested that I make some baby pants for her cloth nappy shop and I agreed.

Three pairs for boys.

And three pairs for girls.

I even made my own swing tags from recycled materials!

Attached with kitchen twine along with a business card I think these turned out very presentable indeed.

The little bit of holiday pocket money I earned didn't go astray either.  I'm excited to see how there are received in the Nest Nappies store.

Sharing on Sunday

I'm stealing a Sunday night blogging catch up here - heater is on, telly is showing something decent, a cup of tea is made and there's pear and chocolate cake for dessert.  We've had a busy week just gone - the last week of school term was full of activities, my parents came for in impromptu visit and to be honest I've enjoyed a little bit of a break away from the computer (but not the sewing machine!).

I'm going to ease myself back into blogging by sharing some pictures of the blouse I made from my own pattern.  The basis of this top was pattern New Look 6892 which is a peasant style blouse.  I've made it a few times before and it's fairly tight fitting.  I wanted to loosen it up so widened the bodice to be more like top B from The Stylish Dress Book, which I made here.

Instead of creating a casing for an elasticised neckline I gathered the front part of the bodice only (which keeps the neckline nice and low instead of drawing it up higher), 

I gathered the top of the sleeves at the shoulders, 

and put some tucks in the back neckline.  

I finished the neckline with bias binding, hand sewing it on the inside.  I also didn't make elasticised sleeves, again using bias binding around the hem edge to finish them off.

To be honest I didn't really know what I was doing here in terms of making the blouse fit around the neck and shoulders.  I took some measurements of tops I already had in my wardrobe and tried to make an educated guess about how much to gather where etc., but it was a healthy dose of luck that got it to fit as well as it did.  I did have a moment of panic when I thought that without the elastic neckline I wouldn't be able to get the top on over my head...but my worries were unfounded.

One thing I was aiming to do was bring the back neckline up higher as I found it scoops down a bit low but had one of those "ah-ha" moments when I eventually realised that such a modification is due to the cut of the armhole and not a matter of how gathered or not the back bodice fabric is.  I'm learning, learning here I tell you!

Then to finish I (rather stupidly) sewed a double hem at the bottom of the blouse.  Once you get a little bit of wonkiness in either of the rows of stitching its super noticable where its not in a single row of stitches. Ergh. I was also thinking I might bring the sides in just a little but, and now I have two rows of stitching to unpick at the hem instead of the usual one, which pretty much guarantees that I'm not going to be making any modifications in that department any time soon.

In the gorgeous Brisbane winter sun I've been wearing this blouse with jeans, boots and a scarf, plus I've had some lovely compliments on it too so I'm further encouraged to modify and merge patterns more often....so of course you know I've got something going in the works already...

My creative space: operation alteration

I've got a little alteration job to do.  I found this lovely dress hanging on a rack of left over summer stuff at the BigW department store.

Talk about a super special. That's right, the price tag says $5.

The dress is a size 16 though, which I am not, but it's not massively huge on me so a little taking in down the sides, particularly around the armholes ought to do it.

There's always a tie to bring it in at the back.

I've started by removing the side zipper.

Yes, there's a bit of summer sewing going on....because in a month we are heading to the European summer for a bit of a frolic in the sunshine.  Whoo hoo!

For more creative spaces pop on over here!

From the bottom of my stash

There's quite a lot happening at my place at the moment.  This week in particular is so hectic that it seems to have a life of its own.  Among all the "life" stuff I have a list of sewing jobs that I really, really want to get done in June - both for myself and for my shop.  I don't know why I have suddenly had such a burst of activity to make things for the shop right now, I guess I felt like it had been ignored for too much of this year.

So here's another little pinafore that I have just uploaded - again a size four.  A vintage fabric skirt with a denim and red cotton bodice.

You might recognise the fabric from here.  I still wear my skirt in this fabric, it's a summer staple in my wardrobe, I love it.  I'm so glad to have finally put the left over piece of fabric to good use (and if you've clicked on the link you can calculate how long I've had that fabric in my stash!).

Staying in

A wet, cold and windy Queen's birthday long weekend here.  Three out of the four of us are in various stages of recovery from a runny nose lurgy that swept through our household last week.  We are inside with the heater running and the oven on making chocolate cake, meringues and grilled cheese sandwiches.  Later I'll be putting in some lamb to slow cook with potatoes.  When it's cold go for comfort food I say.

The floor is strewn with Duplo, kid craft paper offcuts, baby toys and sandwich crumbs.  The dining table is covered with sewing, sheet music and recipes and the coffee table is covered with my crochet granny squares.  

This weather is great motivation to try and get to the finish line with my crochet blanket. I've got 18 squares done and I'm aiming for 20 squares to make a small 4 x 5 blanket.

I have to get those spaghetti ends woven in and then work out how to join them together and do a nice edging around the outside border.

  

I'm also working on my couch dint in the process.

Are you having a cozy long weekend too?

Shop update

I've added a few new things to the shop lately that I thought I would share with you.  Mostly I seem to do my shop updates on the Maika Creations Facebook page, so if you would like to be more up to date than my rather sporadic updates on the blog, then you know what to do!

Size 4 pinafore dress in blue and vintage green daisy fabric

Size 2 gathered pocket skirt in blue

Size 2 gathered pocket skirt in pink

Hopefully I'll be getting a few more things listed, including some boy's long sleeved t-shirts, during the month of June so stay tuned!

Small, fast and gratifying

I've been struggling a bit with making my new blouse.  It's coming along, just at snails pace, probably because the result I will end up with is still a bit vague in my mind and not concrete like it would be if I was simply following a fixed set of instructions.  To be honest it's kind of annoying me actually.  I need some free time to concentrate on it properly.  A lot of free time I don't have.

While I was cutting it out though the left over fabric suddenly and unexpectedly said "baby pants" to me.  My lovely friend's new baby is already one month old and I had been meaning to make a few baby things for her so I whipped up a pair of basic baby pants and a few bibs from fabrics I had in my fabric stash.  

Nothing like sewing something small as a little side project distraction, then to finish, wrap and pop it in the post gives a satisfied feeling of a job well done.

Welcome to the world Deunan Rose!

Escape artists

On Friday we skipped the whole school thing and ran away to the coast.  We were tired, sick of our relentless daily routine and personally, I needed to get out of town.  I took a leaf out of Kate's book, bundled the boys into the car and hit the highway. The weather was terrible but we barreled along in the rain to the Gold Coast to have lunch with my little brother and his girl who were holidaying from Melbourne.  I haven't seen my brother for about 18 months so a catch up was long overdue.  We ate toasted sandwiches and coffee and milkshakes, and finished with a serve of ice-cream for the five year old.  Simple and satisfying. Heading home the boys both caught up on some sleep in the back of the car and arriving home mid-afternoon we flicked on the heater and got cozy inside to while away the last few hours of our day.  A day off well spent in my book.

On Sunday we escaped again and had a lovely morning tea with friends and their brand new baby, decided going home was the least desired option so grabbed some lunch at a cafe and finished the day up down at Sandgate.  There was lots of rock throwing and splashing about, even a little bit of crocheting on top of the sea wall.  With the tide going out you could look like you were walking on water.

The afternoon weather was beautiful, definitely one of those days to appreciate all over again the place where you live.  Nothing like starting a new week refreshed in mind, body and spirit.