Lingerie: white silk half slips and lace top

One of the things on my to-sew list, is a wrap drape top that I'm planning on making in a semi-sheer fabric that my husband bought in Vietnam a few years ago. I haven't used much of the fabric that he bought for me, it feels too special to use for just anything. Another issue, is the see through factor. It's not the sort of thing that I really want to line. That would make it bulkier, and hotter to wear in summer, which would probably mean that anything I made from these wouldn't get much wear.

Lingerie: The Maya Bra

The second new bra that I'm showing you this month is the Maya bra by Ana Filimon.

This bra pattern literally stormed the internet last year (well, if you're part of any lingerie sewing groups on Facebook, or read lots of sewing blogs it certainly felt like it did!) I love the beautiful curved upper cup on the pattern, and thought it would be interesting to see how a pattern not drafted to my measurements would fit.

Stashbusting Sewalong - May is Lingerie Month

It's that time of the year again, I get to talk about sewing lingerie all month. I'm your host for the stashbusting sewalong this month, so let's get to it.

Knitting Adventures - Red Lauriel

This cardigan, the Lauriel by Ysolda, is the reason that I started knitting again. When I first saw Tasia of Sewaholic's version of this cardigan I fell in love with it instantly. Her review however did not instil me with the confidence needed to tackle it straight away, at the time not having picked up a knitting needle in like, 20 years or so. Tasia's opening line, and I quote: "This is quite possibly the most beautiful and complicated thing I've knit so far", gave me second thoughts.

Sewing for men: underwear

What's more ridiculous? The fact that men's underwear costs $15 per pair, or spending an entire day working out the perfect pattern to make undies for your husband?

A few months ago I offered to make undies for my husband, and in return he would tolerate the fact that I was going to blog about them and show the whole world the undies that I was making for him (as long as he didn't have to model them). I briefly toyed with the idea of making my own pattern from his favourite undies, but then saw a special on the Thread Theory Comox trunks pattern, so decided to buy the pattern and go from there.

Stashbusting 2015: A Year in Review

So, another year has come to an end for the Stashbusting Sewalong.  To recap, my pledge for this year's Sewalong was

"I, Andrea, of Obsessive Creativeness, pledge to end the year with no more fabric in my personal stash than I started with"

So, I was aiming for a breakeven position with my stash. I made myself a little spreadsheet to track incoming and outgoing, and printed out some pages so I could just grab my folder and write everything down as it happened, without needing to wait until I had the computer on.

This year for stashbusting, we had guest hosts for each month, and I hosted May with the theme of lingerie. I tried my hardest to sew at least one item each month that was on theme, but for most months that had school holidays I wasn't always able to do this.

My totals for the year were

Fabric intake ........ 56.2 m
Outgoings ............ 58.49 m

Lingerie: White stretch lace Sierra bra

I have so much work to do for others at the moment that to make something for myself I carved out a bit of me-time this weekend while my daughter was at a birthday party. Despite having two other bra patterns that I want to try out, I decided to have another go at the Sierra bra. Although I can't really wear my last bra, as it is too tight, I wanted to prove that I could make it work. The Sierra is a free bralette pattern by Madalynne. If you're lusting after this bra and haven't downloaded your copy yet, you can get it from here.

Lingerie: Stretch lace Sierra bra

I don't often get to the end of making something, and then think, "Should I really blog this? It didn't really work and I don't want anyone to know." There's nothing wrong with this bra itself, it just doesn't really suit my figure, and it's too tight. More on that later though.

This is the Sierra bralette, a free pattern from Madalynne. You can download your own copy here. I just missed following along with the sewalong, but have caught up now. This is unlike any other bra that I have made before. In many ways.

Blog Hop

Thank you to Sue from fadanista for the nomination for the blog hop. I love seeing all the new things that Sue has been making. She sets such a fast sewing pace that I can't always keep up with her new makes! I've been enjoying reading other people's blog hop posts, and seeing a bit about what makes them tick.

Always inquisitive about things like this, I did a bit of research to try and find where this blog hop all started, and for the most part have come up with other bloggers saying that they have done a bit of research trying to find out where it all started. Example.

I'm not sure if it started as the same blog hop, but I found lots of quilters participating in the Around the World Blog Hop (even with it's own button you can add!), some posts with slightly different questions to the ones that I will be answering here. One post suggested if you want to know where it started that you go back through the nominations and find the start. Which is what I started to do, but gave up after a while. My computer had so many tabs open that I thought it might rebel and crash on me, and I'd only gone back about a month!

The quilters questions seem to be aimed more at the creative process of their quilting, whereas the sewing blog hop seems to be about the blog itself.

Anyway, enough about that, I'm sure you're much more interested in my answers.

Stashbusting Sewalong: September Theme "Children"

I know I totally missed posting this in September, but I also missed sewing most of this in September! The (optional) theme for last month's stashbusting sewalong was making something for or inspired by, children.

I was thinking of tackling a quilt cover for my daughter, but really didn't have any time to even think about that, and as yet have still done nothing about it. My brother however, asked if I could make a few sleeping bags for his daughter. She is growing like a weed, and has already outgrown all of the sleeping bags made by my sister and I for her and then and my children!

Menswear: Shorts for the Hubby

My husband often complains that I make so much stuff for myself, and the rest of the family doesn't get that much at all. When he asked me if I could make him some shorts, he was expecting that I would say no so I could get on with some other stuff that I am working on. Much to his surprise, I actually agreed to make him something.

I let him "shop my stash" and of the fabrics that he chose I picked out two of them to use. I have only made up one pair of shorts now, and I'll get to the second ones when I have some more time to spare.