Painting completed

Well the painting is completed, which I am pleased about. It gives a nice neutral back drop which should indeed be 'Soothing' to sew in.
The minus is that I was stashing unsorted boxes in this room and now have a LOT of sorting out to do, all of which keeps me from sewing :-(
But hopefully it will be all worth it in the end.

Painting (sigh)

Have painted two walls of my revamped room and I am pleased with the neutral feel it gives which I think will work well for sewing.
An offwhite colour from Crown called Soothing LOL.
However complete chaos has ensued form this and will get worse before it gets better as I still have to move all the office portion out of the way to paint the walls in that area.

New Look patterns are on sale in the UK at only £2.95 instead of £5.75 ($6 in the sale instead of $11.50) so I went to the sewing store in the next town which sells New Look and picked up New Look 6617 and New Look 6755 whilst the paint dried!

I might use the blouse pattern in the SWAP, though since it has a waist seam and peplum it may need some alterations to the pattern tissue to fit well.
The jacket/coat I plan to use for a mini SWAP type wardrobe in the summer in the Safari style which is popular again this year.

Sewing room reorganisation

I've decided to merge my sewing room in with my existing study to keep all my stuff in one place (and get the sewing stuff out of the bedroom). However the study is currently painted blue and I need it to be more neutral in colour before I can sew in it. So this weekend I plan to paint the walls ivory or similar and then have a massive move around/sort. That will leave me with a great hobby space but will rather interrupt sewing. So don't expect any garments from me this weekend unless I manage to finish the current pair of pants whilst the paint dries.

Here's wishing you all a very productive sewing weekend.

Simplicity 4699 Peach Top

This is the completed shell top from Simplicity 4699 in peach slinky. A little more challenging to sew than the previous version as the knit is softer.

In real life I feel the cold, so I would wear this with a soft knit cardi with 3/4 sleeves in burnt orange (yes its a darker shade of the shell honest).
I tend to wear these shell tops under other things, but its not too scary if I then take the top layer off! (Compared to a camisole where you can see bra straps etc)

Timmel SWAP Progress as at 15th Feb 2008

These are the garments made so far

• Simplicity 4125 wrap shirt in green/rust/brown print
• New Look 6177 panelled skirt in green/rust/brown/print
• Simplicity 5099 knit top in brown/orange/coral print (extra)
• Loes Hinse 5007 Gore Skirt in dark brown
• Simplicity 4699 pants in dark brown denim
• Simplicity 4699 top in dark brown slinky knit
• New Look 6943 waistcoat in rust wool (extra)

Partly made

• Simplicity 4699 pants in dark brown self stripe suiting
• Butterick 4295 skirt in brown with gold/cream/orange stripes (extra)
• Simplicity 4699 top in peach slinky knit

Still to come

• Simplicity 4699 jacket/coat in burnt orange embellished cord
• Simplicity 4699 rust cropped pants (extra)
• New Look 6252 wrapover orange crinkle blouse
• New Look 6513 fitted blouse in cream broderie anglaise (eyelet)
• New Look 6513 fitted blouse in orange stripe

Simplicity 4125 finished

Here's Simplicity 4125 finished and modelled with the denim pants and with the matching skirt as a dress look. I think its quite convincing. For the 'dress' I left off the removable tie belt and tucked the blouse into the skirt, finishing it with a purchased leather belt.

SWAP so far on a rail

I assembled my push together wheeled hanging rail (£5, approx $10) and hung on it the items already completed using nice wooden hangers. It looks good and should help me continue to be inspired by the project. You really get a sense of the wardrobe as a whole when they are all together like that.

Obviously the print top second from the back is an extra piece as it doesn't work with the green print, although it is fine with everything else.

Since I took this photo I wheeled the rail back into the sewing room and added more hangers with the partly completed garments.
Partly done are:

• Self stripe brown pants
• Brown skirt with orange/gold stripes (extra piece)
• Green print wrapover blouse

This is a great way to keep the current items off the sewing table, and encourage me to get to them, and make them garments instead of projects!

Simplicity 4125

I recently bought Simplicity 4125 from Sewing World magazine. They have a deal in the UK with Simplicity to sell on the end of line patterns for £2.75 each which is a good price here so I bought some.
This evening I managed to cut out view A from the leftovers from my skirt. This involved cutting the facing with the print running in the wrong direction and cutting the two front out individually to make best use of the fabric.
One thing you can't tell from the drawings, but is in the directions is an inner ribbon tie and an outer button and button hole keep the blouse closed, the tie belt is then just tied on top. I'm not a frilly girl so would not add the flounces even if I had enough fabric. I'm also not keen on any of the sleeves but my fabric yardage made that choice for me, and I have the extended shoulder with sleeve bands instead!

Wearing the New Look 6177 Skirt

Here I am wearing my skirt made from New Look 6177.
I wore this today, and whilst its way more colour than usually goes in my office I loved wearing it.

DH made me laugh just as the flash on the self timer went off, but I quite liked the shot so included it.

New Look 6177 Skirt Completed

I hadn't done any sewing for a few days, and realised it was, at least in part, down to the fact that I had had enough of brown.
So I cut out this skirt and sewed it up in glorious green, which I enjoyed very much!
Apologies for the hanger shot, I will wear it in earnest tomorrow and take a photo to share.