One year ago today: Montmartre

One year ago yesterday, I was at Chanel's flagship store in Paris. One year ago today, I was in fabric shopping paradise: Montmartre.

Pity I didn't have a burning need for any fabric though. I was so overwhelmed by all the shops, all the fabric, all the buttons! Everything! That I didn't really know what to look for. Luckily my eagle eye husband spotted a shop with some absolutely fabulous furnishing fabric, and we grabbed some fabric to make curtains for our library. Still yet to be sewn (of course), but it's perfect.

My curtain fabric

Take a look at all of the shops that I didn't go into! Well, I did go into some of them, but I can't remember which ones.

One year ago today: Chanel Paris

At this time last year, I was fulfilling a life long dream of visiting Paris. Oh, I miss Paris! I think my husband was hoping that once I'd been there it would be out of my system, but having been there once just makes me want to go back and see more!

One year ago today was our first day of touristy things in Paris, and at the end of a day filled with walking past Notre Dame, visiting le Eiffel Tower, a visit to the Musee des Egouts, l'Arc de Triomphe, a stroll down the Champs Elysee, (complete with chocolate shopping), the Disney Store (blame the husband. And the children) and Haagen Dazs (because where else would you go for afternoon tea when you're getting a little chilly)! Then a walk through Place de la Concorde, we finished with a walk past Chanel's flagship store front at 31 Rue Cambon with what little energy I had left that day.

I took some photos of the store front (of course), but never really got around to showing them off. So, here they are. Chanel. March 20, 2013.

Window display

1900 Model 27 Antique Singer Treadle: Background and Restoration Part I

When I was growing up my mother had a Singer treadle which she had bought for $5. Before I even hit my teen years though, she sold it to friends of ours who were living out of town on a property, reliant on a generator for their electricity. My sisters and I all have fond memories of that machine, and I think we've all been secretly seeking to replace it in our lives. (Well I have anyway.)

Original eBay photo

Cargo Skirt Five Years in the Making

Do you want to know more about the skirt that I'm wearing in my previous post about my ruffle front shirt? Well, read on.

You may remember last year I blogged about a pile of fabric that I found hiding in the corner of my studio. I got quite excited, as one of the pieces of fabric in that pile was a stretch herringbone cotton blend that I had been looking for.

Inspired by a pin: Ruffle front T-shirt

I've had in the back of my mind for a while now a shirt tutorial that I pinned (via my sister) for a ruffle front shirt. When I was documenting my stash last year I also mentally allocated a piece of white knit fabric to the project. I finally managed to make my shirt last month, and I'm making the most of our dwindling warm weather (goodbye summer, I'll miss you, but not the extremes of hot weather you bring), to wear it as much as possible before I have to start layering up so you won't even know what shirt I have on!

Stashbusting Sewalong: February theme "Let's Talk About Love"

For my February themed stashbust, I have once again made a dress for my daughter. Remember this dress that I made for her last February? This new dress is the first one that I have made for her since then. (I know, slack mummy). It is a twist front bodice dress with full circle skirt.

The fabric that I used I bought last year specifically to make a dress for her. I even justified it to myself as not adding to my stash because it wasn't for me. It was an absolute bargain though. From memory it was $5 per metre. Well, everything is fair game this year, and if the fabric was already in my house at the start of the year I'm counting it as stash.

Last year when I bought pattern magic, I picked out a few techniques to try ASAP. Better late than never, this is my first project using this book.

I think I told my daughter the day before that I was making something for her, and it came together quite quickly. I had the pattern drafted and dress sewn all in one day while she was at school. I didn't quite use the whole piece of fabric, but it did use up 1.4m of fabric (150cm wide!) Most of this is from the circular skirt, which I cut out in one piece. The bodice is all self lined, as the front needed to have the same fabric front and back for the twist.

Getting ready to......

Twirl!

She absolutely loves it. You'd be forgiven if you think that it looks a little large on her, that's because I made it a size bigger than she currently wears. Being near the end of summer she won't get to wear it much this season, especially now that she is at school 5 days a week wearing a uniform. I already have it earmarked to wear to her first piano concert which should be sometime in September. (But now that I've done that, my son will be needing a new shirt for his concert too!

I only noticed after I'd taken all the photos
that this lion has an Oreo perched on it's nose!
Can you see it?

Not bad for a first effort with Japanese pattern making techniques. I'm thinking of trying something like this for myself with a self stripe fabric that I have - there'll be lines going everywhere!

I've gone Antique Singer sewing machine crazy!

What am I obsessed about at the moment? Antique Singer sewing machines, that's what.

At the end of last year I acquired two (more) antique Singer treadles. (Thank you eBay!) Added to my existing machines, that brought my total to four Antique Singers. A bit excessive you say? I hear you, I don't know what it is about them, but I start to swoon when I see a beautiful Singer. Add in a gorgeous cabinet, in mint condition if possible, and I might even start drooling.

Up until these latest two machines entered my house, I hadn't even been able to try out the other two. You can bet I'll be writing (a lot) more about these machines as I get to know them, but first I'll give you a brief history of the machines that I have, in the order in which they entered my life.

Firstly is a 2008 eBay purchase. It is a 1900 Model 27 treadle, in an absolutely gorgeous 7 drawer cabinet. The machine was in need of a bit of attention, so has never been tried. My husband took the machine out of the cabinet shortly after we got it home. It came with an almost complete accessories box and original instruction booklet, which was put somewhere safe. It'll surface again one day I'm sure. We did download a manual that was, if not identical, then similar enough to the original, so we wouldn't risk damaging the original when looking anything up. Unfortunately we were in such a hurry to clean this machine up that we didn't take photos of the machine before we did anything to it (and it's currently in lots of pieces), so the photos I have used here are scanned from our printout of the eBay listing.