Townmouse

Quilts in the making

This airing rack I bought a while ago seems to have become the place where my quilt tops hang out while they wait to be completed.

There are a couple of swoon blocks hiding there; there's my half square triangle star quilt (3 blocks complete) and some blocks made with the Quick Curve Ruler that are awaiting sashing.

Adelaide has taken a liking to this quilt because it's in the favourite colours of most little girls - pink and purple.  Not my favourite colours but this quilt seemed to call for bright fabrics.  These are Joel Dewberry Heirloom prints.

I've decided I'm going to take my quilt tops to a long arm quilter and get them finished.  There are too many now that at are the quilt top stage and aren't progressing any further.

In the studio

Two more days of school for the year.  That means I want to get all my Christmas orders out in the next two days so I can be free to play with the children once holidays start.

Today in the studio I'll be finishing off creche bags and Christmas stockings.  There are lots of t-shirts and bodysuits to detail too.  I'll be busy.

But before all that happens Adelaide and I will be making the most of this glorious sunny day and taking a walk to the local butcher to order our Christmas turkey.

More Liberty sundresses

It's official.  I have an all-time favourite Liberty.

This Liberty in the Tatum print has enough pink to satisfy Adelaide, and enough blue to keep me very happy.  So a win-win, which is why I have another few metres of it in transit from the UK as I type.

This dress is a Townmouse pattern from the last few summers. (You can pick it up on sale in other fabrics here.)

This is my contribution to Adelaide's summer wardrobe so far.

Let's see, there's this linen sundress from a few ranges back.  I kept the sample that my little muse wore in the photograph. There's yesterday's flutter top, a sundress with flutter sleeves from a few weeks back, a wrap skirt and coordinating t-shirt; and there's even a pair of Oliver + S Puppetshow Bloomers hiding at the back in a blue spotted fabric.

There they are.

I must say, it is so lovely to have reduced my workload this year. This is why I wanted to be able to free up some time - to enjoy sewing for my children before they are too grown up to appreciate what I make. Please excuse me if I overload you with frivolous Liberty creations. There's a lot of pent-up sewing in me that needs to come out. (There's also a sizeable Liberty stash that needs decreasing.)

I even made something for myself last night.  That will have to wait for another post as I haven't hemmed it yet.

Doing the laundry

Some laundry bags have recently left the studio.

The fun part about making these is using my favourite fabric pieces and putting them all together.

A bit of Strawberry Fields and Bliss made it in to these couple.

Vintage French Dress Form

This is my new dressmaking form.  

Isn't she chic?  She's French and, from her shape, I'm guessing she's from the 50s or 60s.  

The brand is Juvenia Paris and she's a size 40.  I'm very excited to have found her.

I know in Australia what was a size 10 half a century ago is much smaller than today's size 10.  The human race has grown.

From the measurements on this form, I would guess the same can be said for France.  A French 38 to 40 is my size, but Juvenia is smaller than me.

That's OK though, because at least it means I can try the clothes I am making on this form.  

I have another dress form that I bought about 10 years ago. It too is vintage and in excellent condition - better than Juvenia.

But she's too big, my clothes don't fit her, so she's not much use from a dressmaking point of view. (Although she's been lovely as a prop in my sewing studio.)

So my old dressmaker's form is now for sale.  Her measurements are: bust 89cm, waist 71cm, hip 100cm. She is very sturdy, the base is detachable, you can adjust the height. The base and the top of the neck is a lovely dark coloured wood.  The fabric seems to be a very fine weave linen or linen/cotton blend.  There are no tears in the fabric.  There is some discolouration of the fabric. If any readers are interested in purchasing this lovely sewing prop, please leave an email or comment.

Update:  The dress form has now sold.

A thread for any use

With all the sewing I do, it is a very rare occasion that I have to buy thread.  Thanks to the thrifty purchase 11 years ago of my collection of sewing threads (shown in the post below) I usually am able to perfectly match a thread to any fabric.  For just $100 I bought 4 of those wooden trays full of threads, from a friend's father who was closing down a women's clothing label.  

I was pretty excited at the time, but if I'd known how invaluable they have been I would have been doubly so.

Today is a case in point.  I'm sewing a tablecloth to cover a card table.  This piece of rather mustardy or wheat coloured linen has been hiding behind the door of my sewing room for years.  And the first thread I pulled out of its shelf was the perfect match.

Now I just have to master the art of sewing a mitred corner.

Seven friends and I are having Bridge lessons.  The girls and a Bridge teacher are coming to our house tonight for our second lesson.  When I told Will that our house was being used for Bridge lessons for the 5 Tuesday evenings of August he turned to the boys and said with a sigh, "Boys, your parents are officially entering old middle age."  I had to laugh as I do see it as a retirement pursuit.  That's what it's been for my mother who is a very keen player.

Anyway, 8 of us have come together to learn this challenging game.  We say we're trail blazing amongst our age group, and soon all our contemporaries will be in on the action.  Our mothers say it's good to learn while our brains are still young.

Do you play Bridge?  We all loved our first lesson and are looking forward to the second installment tonight.

Where I sew

Do you love peeking into other people's sewing spaces?  I definitely do.  Pink Chalk Studio is sharing the eye candy you crave, with a month long look at people's sewing spaces.

Kathy is profiling different well known bloggers and giving you a tour of their sewing studios.  You can join in by adding a link to your sewing space.  Pop on over and take a peek.  There are some lovely creative spaces featured there.

Most readers of this blog have probably seen the photos of my sewing studio.  But for the fun of it, I'll share them again here.

I was lucky enough to score one of the two largest rooms in our house for my sewing space.  The other large room, on the sunny side of the house, is our master bedroom.

If I didn't sew, this room would make the perfect formal dining room I suppose.  Which means it would never get used, as no-one entertains formally these days.  I love this space.  As you would expect, it's my favourite room in the house, and where I spend of lot of time (when I can).

You can't quite see the full setup in the photo above, but I have three tables laid out in a "U" shape that contain my laptop, my industrial sewing machine, and my domestic machine and overlocker on the third side.  This makes sewing efficient.  I can check orders as they come in, and move from sewing buttonholes or applique stitch on my domestic machine to straight stitch on my industrial machine. Ideally I'd have another surface with a mini ironing board and iron setup so I wouldn't have to leave my chair to press seams. Then I'd really be humming along.

This is my favourite piece of furniture in our house.  It's an old oak shop counter from France.  I was told it was from a Parisian haberdashery shop.  It provides fabulous storage space for my stock - 16 drawers in total!

When you stand outside our front door, this is what you see through the sewing room window.  I had this armoire custom made many years ago to store my quilt collection.  It has proven to be perfect for this space, and for displaying the current Townmouse range.  Again, it offers wonderful storage. The top drawer contains t-shirts and bodysuits ready for applique, and the bottom drawer stores my stock of pyjamas. This means I'm not always running to the garage to pull stock to fill orders.

This set of pigeon holes is the perfect height to sit under the sash windows on the south side of the room.  At the moment it stores my fabric stash.  My favourite craft books sit on top.

So there you have it, that's my sewing studio.  I consider myself very lucky to have the space to spread out my craft mess, and to be able to leave it there until the next sewing session.  It's one of the reasons I don't want to move house in a hurry.  I know I won't be so lucky in our next house.  There are more photos of my sewing studio on flickr.

My creative space

The rotary cutter is getting a workout at the moment, as I whip up blocks for the Farmer's Wife Quilt-along.

More creative spaces over here.

Old fashioned and good

There is a shop in Melbourne called "Step Back In Time".  It sells relics from former decades in the way of furniture and simple household implements.  Everything from watering cans to beautiful old jars for the pantry can be found there, with lots of interesting ephemera in between.

I dropped in there on Saturday, on the hunt for something else, and came away with this simple wooden clothes airer.

This is so much nicer than those awful plastic coated metal ones of today.

There was also a rather large set of wooden pigeon holes there.  It would be perfect for storing and displaying a considerable fabric stash.  This is the shop where I bought my smallish set of pigeon holes a few years ago.

When you're there, say hello to Archie the corgi who spends his days in the shop.  65 Burwood Road Hawthorn.

A bit of Bijoux

I do love the small coordinating prints in Heather Bailey's Bijoux range of fabrics.

I took advantage of the strong Aussie dollar and recently ordered a few from the Heather Bailey online store.

And then when I saw this quilt on a blog recently, I knew what I was going to do with the fabric.

A quiet hour on the weekend found me in the studio trying out the pattern.

The other stars will have to wait as I have a busy week.  Lots on the To Do list.  Better get to it.

More Liberty

Townmouse will be at Mathilda's Market this Sunday at the Malvern Town Hall. In preparation I'm trimming some box pleat skirts with Liberty scraps. The skirts are trimmed in either a mixture of my favourite blue Liberty fabrics or pink.

Adelaide has been wearing a blue one of late and she's rather fond of it.

The fabric folder which holds my Liberty offcuts had grown to two.

In addition to a storage box that holds larger remnants.

So I needed to do something with all that fabric. It felt good to reduce the amount I'm storing for a change. The two folders are now not bulging with scraps. It's rather cleansing.  I must do more of it.

Kirsty from Kootoyoo has done something wonderful.  She's created a dedicated site for Our Creative Spaces, where you can share your link to your creative space.  Thanks Kirsty.

Liberty winter top

It's a frizzling day here today, as my boys would say; positively arctic. Hopefully that translates to a bumper snow season.

The heating is turned up and I'm in my woollens today, as I potter in the studio. I just made a little top for Adelaide in a Liberty remnant from about three Townmouse seasons ago.

It's the same pattern as this one, with less volume in the body and sleeves.  Adelaide is at creche today, so it remains to be seen if I have perfected the fit.

It's a bit hard to see the detail of the top in this busy fabric.  In this case that's a good thing, as there's a rather wonky seam there on the neckline that I'm not that proud of.  A few sewing challenges in this pattern.