Giveaway Winner

…and the winner is…(drum roll)…

Tanit-Isis!

…(cue cheers from the crowd, confetti and streamers!)…

Congrats Tanit-Isis, I hope you enjoy your new pattern and I’ll flick you an email soon for postage details.

Thanks for entering everyone xx

100, 000

I like stats and I often have a cruise through my blog stats to see where I’m picking up new readers from and which posts are the most popular. As much as any blogger claims they blog for themselves it’s still pretty cool to have others along for the ride.

On January 31st I was checking out WordPress’ new dedicated stats page and glanced down at my overall hits total, seriously, it was on 99, 999. I thought that was pretty cool so I waited for it to tick over to get the print screen of the special occasion.

Have you never taken a photo of your cars speedometer when its clocked over to a “special” number? No? It’s just Nerdy Husband and I then?

Lots of bloggers I follow like to have giveaways to celebrate reader milestones. I have thought to doing that too but to be honest I don’t really know my exact reader count since I don’t think you can get accurate stats on subscribers who use the RSS feed. I do know I recently cracked 60 email subscribers.

Well, 100, 000 hits is surely something to celebrate so let’s do it shall we?! I just happen to have this fabulous Suzi Chin for Maggy Boutique pattern in my stash that’s looking for a new home:

It is Butterick 5490 in the size bracket BB (8-10-12-14), it has a cute lined and fitted bodice with beautiful dart detailing at centre front and a pleated skirt in two lengths. Purchased during one of my out of control online pattern purchase sprees it is uncut and still factory folded.

Just in case you are suspicious I’m giving it away because I have since learn’t that this style of dress doesn’t really suit me – pleated fronts (especially with a raised waist) and I simply don’t get along,  as evidenced when I tried to make BurdaStyle’s Danielle dress (which got ufo’d and then saved and turned into a Jenny skirt instead) and of course the NSFW Dress.  So, in keeping with my New Years Resolution it is being evicted from the filing cabinet.

I bet it will suit one of my beautiful readers perfectly though! Check out Butterick’s size chart here and even if it suggests you are a size 16 then you’ll probably still be able to fit this dress since we know the “big four” tend to run large.

So, you want?

Here’s how you can get your hands on it: Leave me a comment on this post telling me about the sewing project you are working on right now, or the one you are about to start (feel free to leave me a link to a photo if you want too).

If you are a first time commenter or possibly because you leave me a link to a photo in your message may go to moderation (because that’s how I roll, and to protect myself from the evil spammers) but don’t worry, I get an immediate email notification and I’ll approve you almost straight away so you won’t miss out – unless I am asleep in bed, in that case you’ll have to wait until tomorrow but I promise to release all comments before selecting my winner. About this time tomorrow I will randomly select that winner and contact them for postage details and if that’s you then it’s all yours.

Cool?

So, since we are talking about current projects I’ll go first: I have just cut out Simplicity’s Misses Vest 2556 (view C, sans pockets and collar).

It’s a Project Runway pattern which means you get all these pattern parts that you can mix and match on the supplied croquis, kind of like playing paper dress-up doll. They also supply you with separate pattern pieces for different cup sizes (A – D) so no need to do an SBA or FBA. I’m really interested to see how it fits since it’s the first time I’ve tried any bust adjustment at all.

Just before I started tracing I realised I made a bit of a boo boo when buying this pattern, it only goes up to a size 12. I must have misread the size chart or just clicked the wrong size when I was purchasing it online because Simplicity seem to think I should be cutting out a size 16…so I graded it up using this method. Now I know, two sizes up is a bit of a risk but I think it’ll be OK. In fact, with the bust adjustment, this might even be a tad too big but there are lots of seams where I can pinch out the extra ease when the time comes…I hope I haven’t just jinxed myself…

I was going to buy fabric for this vest but after tidying up my fabric stash the other day I found the perfect pin striped suiting. I had 1.6m x 148cm but managed to get the vest cut out in just 0.65m so I still have some left over for another small project. I’m planning to find some wicked buttons and lining this weekend but I also have enough left over lining from my Hikaru jacket if I can’t find anything.

Now the only thing left to decide is which image is cooler? The one above of 100, 000 hits, or the one I snapped before it of 99, 999?!

Good luck!

Winners & WIPs

Congratulations to Tineke and Natasha who were the winners of my Silly Sewing Mistake giveaway. Because their answers both came in within 2 hours of each other while I was offline (read: outside taking more photos of snow!), and being first time commentors ended up being held for moderation I decided to be a Generous Kiwi and give two Manequim issues away.

Tineke will be enjoying issue 625 and Natasha will love my second spare Manequim issue 624 which is also super amazing. I hope you girls enjoy the goodness that is Manequim and thank you so much for reading

The answer was that, despite checking and checking again, I managed put my buttons on the “wrong” side!

I’ve heard two theories as to why women’s tops button right-over-left and men’s left-over-right. The first is that in ancient times wealthy ladies (who could afford buttoned items which were quite expensive) would have maids to dress them and it is easier to button a shirt up from the outside in that manner if you are right-handed, but men tended to dress themselves. The second is also from ancient times when men wore swords but of course, women didn’t. The majority being right-handed would belt their sword to the left hip, buttons are placed on the opposite side so that as they drew their sword it wouldn’t catch on the overlap. Either way it’s all a bit old fashioned isn’t it and as Natasha pointed out to me in an email, no one will pick my mistake unless they try my blouse on. It does feel a little weird buttoning it up the “wrong” way though

What do you think? Have you heard these anecdotes or have you heard a different one?

It has been absolutely freezing in my sewing room the last two days so yesterday I set myself up in the lounge with a laptop, some machine-less sewing tasks and the fire.

I did a little of this:

This may be previously mentioned "belated birthday dress"...

…and a little of this:

So warm...

Here is a sneak peak of my current WIP that is awaiting a last little bit of sewing. There isn’t a lot left to do but it’s way to cold to be whipping off the clothes for the final alterations before completing but hopefully I can share it with you this weekend. The fabric is from Potter’s in Perth, it’s a silk crepe that I picked up off of the “Remnant Table of Endless Inspiration”, I got the 149cm x 1.1m length for $10, bargain.

WIP

Forgotten celebrations (and a giveaway!)

Well we had a bit of excitment here in Wellington yesterday afternoon/evening!

Snow!

I mean, it snowed the other day, well not really, just in the hills and a little bit on our car when we were driving but I wouldn’t say anything turned white for very long, but tonight it really DID snow! So of course we had to go outside and get quite wet and cold but we got some neat photos. If you’re a little confused let me explain that it doesn’t normally snow in Wellington. Husband and I have been talking about trying snow boarding this season, I wish we’d bought boards, I could have had my first go down our driveway! But perhaps that’s a good thing, there isn’t exactly a soft landing at the bottom.

The scene this morning

Right, back to sewing. I think I may have finished* mucking around with my new blog theme. I can’t justify buying a domain or paying for the flash super-customise-able software and if I did that I’d probably have to give up one of my magazine subscriptions and that’s about as likely to happen as me using up my entire fabric hoard. Still, I think with a little kiwi ingenuity (kiwi readers are smiling and thinking about no. 8 wire) I’ve done ok and I’m pretty proud of the new look. I have a revised header now as well, a background and these neat little menu page things on the right to reduce the clutter. On top of all that I got my pages all fixed up (which was what finally pushed me over the “hrm, shall I have a go at my blog design or not?” edge) see them up the top there? Why don’t you click on over and see what you can learn?

Before

So let’s celebrate shall we? With all the excitement and stress of moving countries I managed to completely miss one exciting event and successfully forget another. The first was my blogging birthday, which I was quite excited about, and the second was my 30^th birthday, which I was not so excited about. Actually that’s not entirely true. I love birthdays, just not the idea of hitting such a milestone. But I’ve been 30 now for almost 3 months and nothing bad has happened, I still feel how I felt when I was 29, which is how I felt when I was 28, and 27, and 26 so I guess I’ll cope

This year I wanted to start a new birthday tradition of making a birthday dress each year. Some of the wonderful sewing bloggers that I follow do this and I really like the concept. I started thinking about it 2 months before it was thwarted by my life getting stuffed into some boxes. The plan was to start it in May each year, ready for my birthday in June.

I have plenty of pretty dresses in my “to sew list”. So, what would make a good (if a little belated, ok, a lot belated) birthday dress project?

First up is the everyone-else-has-made-it-but-me Vogue 8280 (aka Rouland Mouret Galaxy Dress) and I even bought fabric for it from Tessuti online and made up a Photoshop image to get me all excited. Also in my queue from Colette Patterns is the Parfait and Rooibos patterns and Simplicity’s 2724 ever since I saw Sunni’s Naughty Secretary Dress version.

Possible "birthday" dresses

My last mega-pattern purchase included Buttericks 5455, because who doesn’t love piping AND pockets? And several Vogues including 1190, 1161 and 1174, the last two because of Tasia’s amazing versions seen here and here.

More possible "birthday" dresses

For all of these dresses I could easily find an appropriate fabric in my stash so I’d still like to start this year but it may end up being a “Welcome Back Summer” or perhaps a Christmas dress instead. Life is busy at the moment so Christmas is an easy goal. Keep your eyes open, a dress labelled “birthday” might appear in a post sometime soon

Now back to my blogoversary…it’s been a fun year and I’ve learnt a lot about my sewing. I’m not going to go over it all since I covered most of my last year in my new years post, but I’ve discovered a heap of new online and offline sewing friends with all their delicious inspirational blogs and knowledge and I’m really glad I started blogging.

So to celebrate just a wee bit and to make my blog feel all grown up I’m going to do a little giveaway. I’ve got something super amazing too, it’s a spare copy of one of my favourite Manequim issues!

Manequim 625

Isn’t that a really cool prize?! If you haven’t seen this incredible  issue then take a look at my post here, you’ll have to scroll down a bit past the Patrones review. But you’re not going to get it easily, you’ll have to work for it Here’s how:

Patrones 290 - Blouse #9

In my Patrones blouse post I mentioned a few mistakes I made during the sans-instruction construction process, like having to un-pick my topstitching to sew the neck facings. I also have no idea if I finished the arm holes correctly but they work anyway. There was one other mistake, something that I didn’t mention in my post let alone spot until I was all but finished and it embarrasses me that I made it. It’s an elementary super basic mistake that only another seamstress would probably notice. It doesn’t affect me wearing the blouse and indeed I wear this blouse all the time regardless but I know the mistake is there. It’s something technical, maybe even a little old fashioned and I notice it every time I put this blouse on.

Did you spot it?

It’s most visible on the finished item images. The first reader (and this excludes the two sewing friends I have disclosed this sewing secret to, you know who you are) to tell me what my silly little beginner mistake was in the comments on this post will win the super amazing Manequim issue above.

Then we can all giggle (and learn) from my mistake.

Now I think you chickies are all really smart so I’ll give you a week and then I’ll give up a clue if no-one gets. If you are the winner I will contact you for postage details and then let everyone know how lucky you are.

Good luck!

*That is a complete lie, I’ll probably tweak and re-tweak it forever and ever ad infinitum until I decide change it drastically again