SarahLizSewStyle

So this is a very much at home look.  A long handknit jumper over old cords and of course, for warm feet and total comfort, black fluffy slippers.  What the best dressed always wear at home.  And of course, to complete the picture of elegance, a supremely bad hair day.  This is a pretty seedy looking me, because I took the pictures while I was still recovering from the nasty virus that did the rounds a few weeks ago.  My hair was overdue for a cut, and has now been tidied up, I am pleased to say. Anyway, enough about my sub standard appearance in this post.  Time to talk about the jumper. I have stashed wool for some years now and have quite a few balls in various colours that are too much for oddments knitting and not enough for a whole garment.  I mean why did I have 8 balls of 8 ply navy and 6 balls of black 8 ply navy? 50 gm balls, in case you were wondering.  It needs a minimum of 10 to 11 to make an 8 ply cardigan or jumper. So I decided I wanted to rid myself of these

The trials and tribulations of a sewing blogger have continued this week in that I found another piece of fabric with flaws in it.  So, although we are nowhere near summer down in Oz, I decided that this piece of stash annoyed me and I wanted to use it straight away because otherwise it was going to niggle at me, you know, what are you going to do with me, I'm flawed, sort of niggle.  The sort of niggle that distracts you and keeps you awake at night.  No, that niggle had to be dealt with... The fabric is rayon, and the first thing I noticed when I pre washed it was a strange streakiness in the dye.  I decided that if this was going to be the case and I was going to get a sort of washed dye look, that I would prefer the streaks to go up and down, so I decided it was best to cut  the fabric on the crossgrain. This also helped me avoid obvious flaws running about two inches in from each selvedge.  with these limitations, I chose a simple top - which also happened to be on

It's been quite a fortnight since I last blogged - and it is also unlike me to miss doing a weekly post. In a nutshell, I had one of the worst colds that I ever had.  I was so woozy I managed to lock myself out of my car, with the engine still running and the keys to the car and house in the ignition.  My handbag with mobile phone was safely locked inside the car.  I got out of that dilemma by quickly running up to my chemist, who was close to closing, and asked if I could use their phone to ring my husband.  He was doing his ward round, so it was quite embarrassing asking switch to find him for me!   He quickly came to the rescue though.  I have never done anything quite like that before, and still have no idea how I managed to do it! Then I decided that I would try to make my garment.  It was going to be my July garment for the Make a Garment a Month group - our theme for this month is opposite.  So, as we are in the middle of winter, I decided to make a dress for the middl

Winter has finally arrived in our part of the world with some quite icy mornings and some very chilly winds. Now, while I have smart coats, they are more appropriate for more formal wear, or for city use.  Newcastle is a regional town, and tends to dress fairly casually.  My  life is also fairly casual at the moment and in any case, it is impossible to fight the elements here - including the many spider webs that appear at night and end up all over your clothes. So I decided to make a coat that fitted the current conditions. I rummaged through the stash and found this polar fleece.  For some reason I did not like it in the stash, and wanted it out.  It was ideal for a coat/jacket though, because it is a thicker and firmer fleece. Then I went through my patterns.  Despite having quite a few (well, lots) I could not find one that I wanted to make. So I went to Spotlight, and looked though the Vogue patterns, which were being sold at $7.00 instead of the usual approximat