Book Week 2013: Hooded Cape

In previous years, my son has come up with an idea for a book week costume about a week before, and expects that I'll be able to whip up something for him. Last year when I said no, he went as the saucepan man, and I wasn't even there for the parade thanks to a quick trip to Melbourne with the husband (Book Week Parade, what Book Week Parade? I'm having too much fun!) The previous year I convinced him to use an existing dress up and go as Robin Hood. I did have time though, to make him a quiver for his arrows (which he was rather impressed with).

This year, I had plenty of notice that he wanted to go as Lief from Deltora Quest. He has been devouring the books, and just in the last few months has read all 3 series from start to finish. Quite an effort for a boy who isn't even 8 years old yet! Thankfully my husband had been borrowing the books from him and reading them too, so he was able to give me a pretty good idea of what we needed for the costume. The boys came home from a walk one day with seven giant gems to use in a belt, and we all went for a trip to Marrickville in search of some fabric for a cloak. We were after something dark, but not plain black, and when we came across this fabric we knew we'd found the perfect fabric. It's a black stretch fabric with sparkly threads all through it.

The Fabric

Rainbow Brite costume

If you've read my previous post on doing a leather jacket refashion, you'll know that I have started to do blog posts on some of my more interesting sewing adventures.

A few weeks ago I received a request that stated:

costume for city to surf

Nothing heavy but would like to know if you can make a Rainbow Brite costume?

"Matrix Jacket" Refashion

Sometimes I get some very interesting requests via my website. For a few of these recently I have asked my clients if I can write a blog post about these somewhat more interesting projects. I recently received one such enquiry from Sheila, asking if I could turn her leather jacket into a skirt. I got quite excited by the prospect of being able to cut someone elses leather jacket into smaller pieces.

  

Photo Storage Update

If you have read my previous post on Blogger Photo limits, you'll know that I hadn't been very particular about how I added photos when I first started my blog.

After I realised that there was a limit to what Blogger (GOOGLE) will allow you to store for free, I went through all of my blog photos and reduced them to (at the largest), 2048 pixels on the longer side. So now, all the photos are under the size limit that counts towards my storage. I then deleted all of the original photos from my Google + album (it looks like picasa is on the way out as I was redirected to Google +) I also changed the backups from my phone so they are all automatically reduced in size when saved to Google +

While I was at it, I watermarked all of my original photos (i.e. most of the photos).

One of my concerns in replacing all of my photos was what would happen to a photo that had been pinned on pinterest. I tested another photo from my blog before I replaced and deleted it, and it worked fine. What pinterest does, is take a copy of the pinned photo, and a reference to it's original location. So as long as my post is still there, the photo will still take you back to the page it was pinned from. Needless to say, I am happy for anyone to pin my photos. What I would not be happy with, is if the link back to my blog is broken, or if my photos are used in any other way inappropriately.

How has this affected my used storage? At the time that I made all these changes, my usage reduced by 0.08 GB. That's more than I thought I would have been using for my blog.

Since I completed all these changes in early May, my usage has however increased again. None of the photos that I have been adding now count towards my limit, but Google have yet again had a play with their plans, and I now have a limit of 15GB (up from my previous 5GB limit), shared between Google Drive, Gmail and Google + photos. Since I tend to keep a lot of emails, most of this usage is taken up from Gmail. If I find that I have more problems with usage in future, I know what I have to tackle next. (Eeeek!)

Tailored Jacket Finally Finished!

Almost 6 weeks after I last posted about this jacket, and I can finally say that my tailored jacket is done!

OK, so I'm not actually that slow at sewing, I've just had work (i.e. sewing that I actually get paid to do) get in the way. At least I still have two thirds of winter left in which to enjoy wearing it. Not that I have yet. It's turned out a little . . . . shall I say . . . sparkly? I'm sure I'll be the most overdressed mum picking my kids up from school.

Tailored Jacket Update

Before I started on my pattern alterations for this jacket, my plans were almost over before they began.

I don't often use commercial patterns anymore, and so when working out how much fabric I need when sewing fabric from my stash, I usually pick the fabric I'm going to sew first, and use gut feel and hope for the best when I've finished making the pattern. This time, I checked the back of the pattern envelope, and the requirement for my jacket was 2.4 m of 150 cm wide fabric. Now, I know commercial patterns have a tendency to overstate how much fabric you require, but I only have 2 metres of fabric (150 cm wide), and my plans for the pattern included making it bigger, hence using more fabric, not less.

The Fabric

As it turns out, the situation wasn't as bad as I thought. I tried my old jacket on again, and the fit isn't really that bad. Maybe if I was wearing a jumper underneath it, but, let's face it, it doesn't really get that cold in Sydney. I also decided to make my new jacket shorter, so there's about 20 cm saved already!

Stash Busting plans: A New Coat for Winter

I have been busy making a dress for a client, and haven't really felt like thinking about what I was going to sew next. I finished off the dress I was making last week, so now it's time to move on to the next project. (Check out my photos on my Facebook page if you're interested).

I've been wanting to make myself a new winter coat for a few years. I have an old woolen winter coat that I made quite a few years ago now, out of (my favourite colour) blue wool. It did the job while I was working a 9 - 5 desk job, and I even had to replace the lining after it wore out, but I'll be the first to admit that it's pretty boring.

I've been keeping the odd picture of long jackets and coats that I like, hoping that inspiration will strike and I'll come up with an idea of what I want to make. I want to do the whole works, make the pattern and sew the coat, complete with all the tailoring techniques I can throw at it. Well, inspiration hasn't struck yet, but I did get inspired to use up some of my fabric stash, and leave the new woolen coat for another year. Since I'm leaving the inspiration for another jacket, I also decided that rather than make a pattern from scratch, I would alter a pattern that I already have. I made a jacket a while ago from McCall's 9012 (from 1997, which I believe classes that as a vintage pattern!), and I thought that would make a good starting point.

The Pattern