Heaps of projects on the go

I'm a little busy juggling craft projects at the mo', we got our dates mixed up with the markets at Rozelle, but it's kinda good because there's more time to stock up!

Crafty projects:

Famillion little purses (it's a pun on the puntastic band from Sweden Familjen)

Altering this dress for my little Carmelinda

Making a white collared and cuffed black dress for myself (if it fits - so far so good)

Knitting a cutie flecked pink scarf (one row purl, one row knit) for the markets that I'll attend one day


So for this post, here is my virtual shopping experience for today:



Some of my fave online/handmade things on etsy at the moment!

xoxo

Lonely ARTS Club

I've become addicted to Sydney!

Yay! I've only lived here for two years! Oh, I've had some fantastic days here but Sunday was easily the best so far! I ate pancakes with Miss Claire and then saw my friend Craig talk about cool guys:



That's his first book, but he spoke at the Writers Fest at the MCA with bits from his new book!

And then we popped downstairs with a big gang to view the Zine Fair and I found Dear Dudley Redhead with all her fantastic things!!! I got really hot in my oversized fake fur, DR, otherwise I would have stuck around a bit more! I've never met a blogger from the crafty community before! Yay to you DR and all your beautiful things! Hope you had a great day! Here's a pic I stole from your blog:



Cuties!

And then we mopped up the day at the Opera Bar loving Sydney's sunny skies! Yay!

Currently I'm making a few more zipper purses (Rozelle markets are on this Sunday and I'm hopping in on a stall with a few friends - first market for me!) and a few dresses. One's black with a white colour, I'll see if it fits me or not, otherwise it's to market to market with it!

xoxo

Outfit Number 24 - Tablecloth skirt!

Here is the tablecloth skirt complete!





It's kind of barkcloth in texture, but gorgeous colours and lovely print! I'll add a little clasp on the back, but I think it's another one for the etsy shop! (if hubby takes a gorgeous fashion pic of it!)

I love making new things from older things that people have thrown away! I think this was from an Adelaide opshop, and it had some tatty edges that didn't make it to the finished product here, although I did use the good edges for the hem of the skirt, so didn't need to run a new hem. Yay!

Shorty Shorts - did I post these already? Outfit 23?

I made these short hipster shorts up from looking at a 60s trouser pattern, and making it fit a more modern body, ie hipster instead of extremely high waisted.

I gave them to my friend who's a little pregs at the moment, and she can jump into them when she's skinny again as a Yummy Mummy!



Also! I just sold one of my dresses on ETSY! It's my third sale online, and I was surprised to see the payment in my email and went "YAY!!!!!!" for ages.

Kitteh Pencil Case

When I went a little pencil case slash purse crazy last week, I also made this gorgie little kitteh case for my friend Nick:



CUTE! It's material my mum gave me when I started to sew (actually from her stash, I stoled it) and now a cutie little bag!

Thanks Nick for being a cute model!

Checkered Swinging 60s for Number 22

As you regular readers may know I've set myself a sewing goal of 100 Outfits! There's no date deadline, as I have to deal with daily deadlines at work, I thought I'd ease up on myself for my hobby fun time! So a "100 Outfits" piece can mean anything wearable by me or some lucky person, a dress, a top, a shirt, a skirt... mostly clothes. I've been known to sew spontaneously though, so I've decided these other things aren't outfits as such, just other things that are crafty and fun.

I'm feeling really happy with my pace of the '100 Outfits' Goal, since it's May now and I've reached 22 items. That's pretty good!

Here's outfit number 22 revealed!




I followed an old 60s pattern (Thanks Friday's Child!) and changed some of the fittings, seams & hem to be a little less rigid and fuddy duddy. The material is lovely soft cotton, that doesn't crease much, so good for short skirts and sitting down a lot! This fits me ok around the middle, but is a little big in the sleeve and the shoulder area. I love making the shoulder edges stick up a little (done by doing a long machine stitch all around the top sleeve and pulling it all in up the top rather than easing it in all around the sleeve, which the pattern suggested), I like a little puff on the shoulder, to make it stick up more.

Not sure what to do with this one... or the Outfit 21 below... let me know if you're keen and I'll list it on the etsy shop!

I've started a skirt, made from a thrifted tablecloth, so shall see how that ends up! I've got a few sexy tablecloths (did you ever think those two words would be put together in a sentence?) so if the skirt looks hot, I'll fix up a few of them for etsy too! xoxo

Outfit Number 21 - cute!

Here's a gorgeous maxi dress I've been working on over the weekend just gone, and just got around to taking the photos yesterday! It's a very light cotton fabric, that would be awesome as a pool dress or a beach dress over your bikini!





I once made a top like this for my friend back when I first started to sew, so I was pleased with how well this turned out as a dress, the criss cross is nice too at the back, although it's a bit big for Diana.

Pencil Cases and Little Purses!

Right, so here's the little bitty purses I've been making HARDCORE!






One of the green bags I'll give to my friend for her b'day, but the others I'll save for a rainy day!

xoxo

My Review on the Etsy Dust Blog

I've written a review that's been published on the Etsy Dust Blog!

It's about Kim Grant's Mosaics!


I volunteered to write a review, and they signed me up with Kim, and it was really lovely getting an insight into a professional craftser's work and mind. Yay to you Kim! Etsy Dust stands for Down Under Street Team, so it's for people who have esty stores who live in Australia, and whilst I'm not totally profesh with my store, I thought I'd have a bit of time to write a review!

My aim this week is to take photos of the stuff I'm making and get them online faster, as in try and get them online to this blog each day. Often I wait til the weekend, but then I get busy making stuff again, and I wanna try and blog as much as possible to keep the site busy here! And then I'd like to get some more stuff on my etsy site, as people are looking but there's not a lot of new stuff there.

Thanks to you all for your nice words on my refashioned hot dress, I still haven't worn it out as have been staying home most nights and pottering around. We're buying a house at the moment, and it's hard work finding the right one! We've been bidding here and there, but don't want to spend too much!

Refashioned 80s Dress for Outfit Number 20

Well, here's a great 80s dress in the $5 bin at my fave second hand store on King Street, SCRAGS! They always have a great bargain basket out the front for trendsetters to find odd cheapie bits. I saw the fabric first of course, but what a Joan Kirner number!!! check it:



And the sleeve detail:



So, I took it home and thought about it for a bit. I wanted it really short, but it needed some taking in... I did the side seams first (about 3 inches on both sides, leaving the sleeves as normal, which was tricky) and then it was still a little baggy, so I put some DARTS in the BACK! Yep, am super impressed with my skills there! Just two on either side of the zipper. I didn't want to touch the zipper as it was really long and in perfect condition, so the darts are about 10 inches long and I curved them a bit. Clipping the curves of course! What do you think?




For the hem, I kept it about 4 inches longer, ironed it flat where I wanted it to sit and then BLIND STITCHED THE HEM! I'm super happy with it, as I've never blind stitched anything before. My sewing book said that a machine could do it with the right 'foot' but I only have a normal foot and a zipper foot, so was stuck there, but luckily the same book explained how to do it by hand, and voila! A blind hem (that's kinda chunky, so to keep the dress from flying away) - YAY!

Now I just need to be invited out to a red carpet affair and I can rock it out perfectly!

Oh, and this is a great time to introduce a little side project! Nina Las Vegas and I have started an op shop blog, we started mailing each other pics of our op shop finds and so we set up POPTRASHED - a found items kinda blog of show and tell! We've opened up the blog for numerous authors, so if you're keen to get involved and you live in Sydney, then let me know!

I'm at veronicadarling AT gmail DOT com and I got the idea from the Melbs group I Op Therefore I Am, so thanks guys over there!

Little Biker Bunnies

Mr Veronica Darling and I went to his sister's wedding a fortnight ago, and I made the happy couple some little bunnies to go along with their wedding present.

They love riding their motorcycle, so I made these ones with a 50s biker theme in that the boy one is wearing his biker goggles and the girl one has a ribbon:



Cute!

Little purses

I made 4 more last week, and 4 more on Sunday. Yes I have gone LITTLE PURSE crazy! I've had a chat with Dan at work, and she's thinking the Surry Hills Market in June. She & a Pal have second hand clothes to sell and have asked me to join! So! I have a totes deadline and will sew like CRAZY!

Update soon!