Mirroring Suzy Bee Sews - Life So Strange It Should Be Fiction

My Mum lives on a few acres outside of a small country town and a few years ago she painted her front fence in rainbow colours. People either love it or hate it, but it certainly suits my Mum and her extroverted personality! I've been wanting to make her a quilt for ages and it had to be a rainbow one. I started to make her the Wavelength quilt out of Modern Quilting but after I started it, I just didn't like it so did some panic googling to find another idea to use the fabric for. I found this awesome quilt by buttontree lane . I had enough different shades of fabric and already had the dark charcoal for the background. I wanted it to end up nice and big so used fairly big hst (6.5"). The quilt is 96" x 96" (240cmx240cm) finished. I didn't get any photos but the backing is the left over grey and the binding is a black and white stripe. I had help basting it from our new kitten! Its kind of huge, I free motion quilting the grey sectio...

I seem to be going back through my old patterns lately and sewing them up! I made this as the blouse a couple of years ago. I always wore it with a wide belt though as it had a tendency to poof out on my stomach so I got rid of it in the big wardrobe cull of 2015. This time I wanted to correct the things that bothered me with the first version - added a waistband to eliminate the poofyness, used smaller bias binding to make the binding sit smoother, got rid of the darts and added princess seams. Otherwise its a fairly similar colour palette - purple ponte and a basic black lace! Pattern details; Size 14 Added 1" FBA Changed darts into princess seams Added the waistband. Dropped the neckline by 1" Left out the zipper (hooray for ponte!) Sewed the side seams last and took it in by 1/2" each side. Took 1.5cm out of the bodice length (once the skirt was added the weight dropped it all too low) Made the length somewhere in between the short and long leng...

Year 12 Formal time!!!! After months of hunting around for a dress for Ashlee, it was my turn to whip something up to wear to this event. So hard to do, as I didn't want a fabric that would distract from Ashlee's beautiful dress, but needed something that would compliment her unusual colourings. And it also had to suit me...... After much searching at fabric shops, not that this was the hard part, I decided on Simplicity 2497. A Cynthia Rowley design, it seemed to tick all the boxes that I was after. The completed dress.... and from the back.... From the start the dress was a dream to make, though the fabric was a challenge. Being a silk dupoini it had the positive aspect of being resistant to wrinkles which helped to enhance the finished garment in looking crisp and formal. Though the downside was that the rough silk fibres woven through tended to fray a lot in the construction. The vibrant colour of the fabric is a gold base with black silk threads woven through. Anot...

Yet another Marcy Tilton creation. This time a real quickie! Described as a loose-fitting, unlined jacket with dropped shoulds, sleeves and fronts longer than the back. View B, my design of choice, has contrast bands.

I have had this pattern in my stash for a few years, picked up on a whim due to the bright colours used in the outfit. What was I thinking??? No way could I ever pull this off myself!!! The interest in the shoulder detail did grab my attention, as to the mandarin collar, even though I knew they were easy features to pull off. So, this was the week to give it a try. I was a bit apprehensive when only one other person on PatternReview had tried making the jacket that it was going to turn out to be a real dud...what did everyone else see that I didn’t??? Anyway, make it I did and here are my thoughts... My finished version..... My final verdict – not a bad little everyday jacket. I was after a jacket for work, one that wasn’t involved to make and would be easy to wear. We are coming into our Spring here ‘Down Under’ so a lined jacket is not needed. And being a teacher of little 8 year olds, a jacket that I wouldn’t cry over if paint or grubby hands touched was also needed. McCall...

My first Burda creation from the Burda magazine.

This is just a great jacket.  Well, my first Marcy Tilton garment!!! . And how brilliant it was to sew! An absolute delight from start to finish. Having prowled over the reviews from such talented sewers on Pattern Review in detail, I had the urge to try this jacket for myself. I am always on the look-out for clothing that is just that little bit different, creative without being bizarre. And this certainly fitted the bill. Though I must wonder why I wished to whip-up a jacket in the sub-tropics of Brisbane. Our winters definitely don’t require such a high neck jacket, but I sooooo wished to try it. So, Vogue 8709 was to become my first item ever reviewed, and hopefully not my last. Even though my sewing skills are average, it is still daunting to have your finished garments on display to so many talented sewers around the world. Hence the photos taken on my sewing dummy (whom I must name one day), and not modeled at this stage by myself. One step at a time… Back ...