Bright Lights, Big City Part 1

Just returned from a weekend in Sydney. It was my husband's annual Christmas work Social Club weekend away. We stayed at The Rocks and we enjoyed Friday night strolling around the markets and shops.


We sat down for a burger and milkshake, and as I skimmed through the local newspaper you wouldn't believe what ad I found ...........

WOW - a Mokum fabric sale - I had my chart set for a fabric shopping mission (which incidently was my hidden agenda for the weekend).
We wandered around some of the great shops at The Rocks. A couple of books caught my eye ...


Then we found this rather stunning window display for an up and coming bag designer ....




I'm sure that Nikki could whip up a pattern for this swanky little number.

All of this window shopping sure takes it out of a girl .... back to the hotel for some shut eye.


Up bright and early we set off for Alexandria and the Mokum sale. I am wearing Simplicity 2923 from their Project Runway range.
There were some fun Christmas trees on display in Circular Quay. By the way, thats a Sling Bag that I also made - though for this one I did lengthen the body of the bag.



Found the Mokum sale -
lots of big rolls of big big fabrics - mostly for upholstery
but I did manage to find a few nice pieces of quality decorator weight cotton that I'll probably use for bags.

My husband likes walking so we walked from Alexandria to Surry Hills to find The Fabric Store - just watch out - there are 2 Cooper Streets in Surry Hills - The Fabric Store one is near Foveaux Street. And, boy, was I glad to find it ..... gorgeous stuff - huge variety.

Here is what I bought - very exciting!




The conclusion to this adventure follows in Part II .....

The Guliette Silk Scarf

Last weekend I did a Textile Art Workshop at Zig Zag Sewing at Georgetown, Newcastle, NSW. We made a silk scarf using a kit from The Thread Studio. I made this one for my sister in law, Therese's Birthday. In the workshop I used free motion embroidery to stitch the fibres together, but for this scarf I decided to try using the Teflon foot for my Bernina and used one of the programmed decorative stitches.

The kit comes with everything you need; the gorgeous dyed silk fibres, the rayon variegated thread and the Guliette soluble film - like plastic. You begin by laying out the Guliette Film flat then arranging the fibres along the "plastic" then cover the fibres with the "plastic" and pin the edges together to make a silk sandwich.

Then start stitching the sandwich together. As I said earlier, this can be done by free motion embroidery (that is, drop your feed dogs and use the darning foot and go for it) or for this one I used the Teflon foot and kept the feed dogs up and used a pre set decorative stitch.

You need to do lots of repetitive stiching to ensure that you "capture" the fibres - so go in both the warp and weft directions (left & right AND up and down!). Here is the scarf - stitching finished:
Now, to wash off the Guliette...... rinse in lots of cold water - if possible soak in a bucket of cold water for 10 hours.

Now, hang out to dry .......

Voila! Happy Birthday Therese!

Here goes!

Hello and welcome to my blog. I am embarking on a new venture - my very own sewing studio! I love to sew and play with fabrics and I am very excited to be opening my studio to students who wish to also play and make textile things. This is my first ever blog entry and I hope to share the things that I have been making. I will also keep you updated on the progress of my business. We are renovating at the moment - but watch this space!