ASG Industry Day

ASG Industry Day today at Niagara Park. As always there were 3 excellent speakers who enticed us with their skills and knowledge. Firstly Larraine Jenkins presented a range of helpful tips for general dressmaking, including lots of products to assist in the process. She recommended some products from Judi's Studio in Orange. I purchased a new sleeve pressing board to replace my old constantly collapsing one. I already had the pattern weights and clapper from Judi's - great products and she does mail order.

Out with the old ....

Then we had Marina Lindsay - a fibre artist from Sydney. Marina showed us her embellishing techniques (needle felting) and her lovely range of embellished items. Then she demonstrated another favourite of hers - the couching foot - which was great. I have dabbled with the embellisher previously, but my most recent experience involved lots of broken needles, but after today, I feel that I could give it another go - it is a great technique.

Feeding specialty yarn through the couching foot.

Finally, Maureen Locke Maclean from the Central Coast gave us a presentation of her Shibori techhniques where she uses natural indigo dyes - a process that is just amazing!! She also uses the embellisher machine - not so much to "felt" fibres to another fabric - but to give interesting effects to a fabric alone. I am constantly amazed at the talents of people like our three speakers today - I can totally appreciate their time and skills to produce work that has developed via their passions over many many years - and we are so lucky that they share their enthusiasm and ideas with us!!

ASG Industry Day Ryde

Yesterday Nicole and I traveled to Sydney for the Australian Sewing Guild Industry Day, Crowle Home at Ryde. Crowle Home is operated by Achieve Australia - a support organisation for disabled people - they do some fabulous work and they have a Vintage and Value Enterprise where they raise money by selling donated goods ...... here's where the sewing fits in ..... they have a "Fabric Cave" and a "Needlecraft Emporium" .... well, goodness me, I've never seen such an amazing collection of ... well, EVERYTHING!! Patterns, books, haberdashery - you name it - they'll have it - bargain prices - and it's all guilt free because the money goes to a worthy cause - thanks to the wonderful volunteers!  They are only open Monday and Friday and the 1st Sunday of every month - they also have an upcoming Fete - 6th November, 9am - 4pm. Their number is 02 8878 3353.  Here are some snaps of the goods on offer .....

Colour Coded Fabrics!!!

We also had a talk from Gaku and Tina Imada from Japan Made with their exquisite collection of Japanese Textiles.

Lastly we had Kate Marra from Babylock. She had some new machines to show us. I was particularly interested in the Coverstitch machine - she had tonnes of samples to show us - things not only utilising CoverStitch , but also the overlocker ....

This machine just does a Sashiko stitch - a hand look running stitch - it was impressive - so was the price tag $3895 AUD ... interesting!

As always it was an informative and very pleasant day.   Do I really need a Coverstitch machine .... I think I do!!!
And for the locals .... BROWN OWLS is on TUESDAY night 12th Oct at Nords Wharf!

Australian Sewing Guild NSW Industry Day - Kirry Toose

Three posts in one day!! At least I'm consistently inconsistent - anyway - WOW !!!!!!

My mind was blown away by this amazing person yesterday ...
My friend Nic and I went to the Australian Sewing Guild's NSW Industry Day at Simplicity at Revesby, Sydney - (where patterns were available for $5 each) and the lovely Rosemary from Chic Fabrique had lots of yummy fabrics available ...... I also met Sharon in the flesh - and you wouldn't believe it, but we both grew up in the same town and went to the same high school!!

Anyway, Kirry Toose was the main speaker - she is a Textile Artist extraordinaire .... my words and photos will go nowhere to doing her any justice - you just have to see it and listen to her to be fully aware and appreciative of her talents and amazing techniques.

You name it - she does it ...




She had lots of wonderful recycled suits that really inspired me .....
Sew, Kirry is a "local" - she lives at Cowan, NSW. There is an invitation to one of her Show and Tells from the Guild: Tues 10th August, 2010 at Wyong Council Auditorium, 9.30am to 12.30pm Cost $10 - contact Barbara (02) 49905091 if you're interested. You WILL be blown away!!!

Monica Poole and Elaine Lye

I am a member of the Australian Sewing Guild, and while I am usually unable to attend their Neighbourhood Groups, I do like to attend their Industry Days. Yesterday it was at Niagara Park, Central Coast, NSW. Monica Poole from Moonshine Designs was our first speaker. Monica has a fashion industry background, but has worked on Patchwork Patterns and designs - especially Quilt-As-You-Go designs - she is now venturing into fashion patterns. Her work is just lovely! Her output is impressive! She has been using the Texture Magic or Shrinking Sheet products to add texture to some vests ....




It's been a little while since I've done a quilt - and yes I purchased a couple of patterns - sounds like a good autumnal project!
Sandy Curtin was the next speaker - she has an amazing collection of fabric, buttons and bits and pieces for sale - her new shop is in Whittingham near Singleton.
Her hubby sells old farm machinery and she looks after vintage textiles - what a combo!

Elaine Lye was another speaker. She was very cool and had a very interesting story - TAFE teacher and world traveller ..... her work is amazing - she is a textile artist in the true sense of the word! Here is a Shibori jacket, that must have a gazillion different techniques in each little patch - the more you looked, the more you found .......

She was prone to buying tablecloths as she travelled and then made them into jackets and embellished them .....
She doesn't throw anything away - here is a little bag made from fabric strips knitted together.

Here is Elaine ....
And finally, here is one of her great necklaces - I might have to look into doing some classes with her!



Elaine is one of the tutors at the next Guild Convention in Ballarat - the convention has a most impressive line up of classes - i can't go this time, but hopefully one day!

..... a myriad of uses

... and sew it seams that the old plastic bag scrap catcher system isn't working (either that or I'm too lazy to change it before it breaks) ....
At some of the Guild workshops I'd been to, I had seen little mat things under the overlockers with a piece of fabric to act as the bag to catch the scraps ..... thought I'd have a go .... Here is the underneath part -MAGIC GRIPPER .... it has a myriad of uses .. I like that!

So, I cut a length to cover the base plus an overhang, and I cut a piece of fabric for the "bag". At the top of the bag I made a casing and inserted some plastic strapping from cardboard packages, this hopefully allows the bag to stay "open" ready for the scraps.I used a Teflon Foot to sew over the rubbery stuff.
Then I attached some binding strips using the walking foot.
and here they are .... for the one on the left, I cut it a little larger then I put in couple of pleats in the base seam to allow the top to open a little more, the one on the right is a flat piece of fabric - no pleats. Let's hope they work!

A Joint Effort

Inspired by the recent sewing efforts of Colette's daughters, I decided to get my daughter into a little project .... it ended up a joint effort - we made a sweet little drawstring dress to wear over swimmers up to the beach .... I drafted the pattern - front and back the same - and just traced a similar style dress she already had .....
I really like this Bernina clear foot - #34 - it's great for beginners to see exactly where they are sewing and they can use the middle red line to line up where to stitch - in this case I wanted her to sew along the top part of the overlocking ...
I attached some Satin Bias Binding around the armhole edges ....
We used some Cotton Herringbone Ribbon / Tape to thread through the casing at the top which then becomes the ties at the shoulders.
Fabric from the stash - Spotlight I think. Cool and happy - she was really impressed with how quickly this came together - about an hour all up - yes, a joint effort! Thanks Colette for the inspiration!
Now, recently my own motivation was definitely waning. I don't know why .... I'm on holidays .... nowhere to be .... nothing awaiting a deadline .... all the time in the world and a thousand projects just waiting to get off the ground. Yet I slumped into a pathetic and miserable nothingness - I was even watching Dr Phil and Judge Judy ...... eek!

Anyway, hopefully I've turned the corner and having done some sewing with Sweet Pea, I whipped up a little dress for moi! Firstly, as I was using a knit fabric, I wound some woolly nylon onto my bobbin. I learnt about this doing a workshop with Pam Kerr as part of the Australian Sewing Guild - are you a member? It's really worth looking into - the Guild is a treasure trove of knowledge and skills .... Anyway, the woolly nylon needs a little help to ensure that you don't wind it too tightly - you simply hold it in between the tension guides - you just manually adjust the tension - not really loose just not super tight ....
This is woolly nylon ....
Another thing I recently learnt about at the Palmer Pletsch Workshop I did was an overlocking thread by Mettler called Metrolene - it's super fine - just lovely - not bulky - you can hardly see it on your seam edges - but is still easy enough to thread and handle.

So, back to the dress. I made up another BWOF 04/08 116 Dress - this time I decreased the length of the front V neckline, as shown below - the red asterisk is where the new point is for end of the CF gathering, you can see the old asterisk in pencil. I also took out a small dart since I was gathering up a much larger piece.
I used this lovely fabric from Marting & Savage 94% Poly 6% Spandex.
And here it is, pictured at Bondi Beach (well, at the front car park). We went to Sydney to see Circus Oz - it was excellent - highly recommend it! As well, did you know CityRail has a Sunday special for families? Each member can travel all day for $2.50 each - bus, train and ferry - I think the area allowed is from Wollongong to the Hunter Valley - bargain!

I'm happy with the neckline alteration - this is a great dress. The last time I made this dress I forgot about the armhole binding piece and simply attached the sleeve and then did the underarm seam and side seam as one ... this time I made a point of putting in the sleeve as instructed - but no way! The sleeve was too large - a mystery to me - so I did the same as before and it's fine.
Psst .... have you entered my giveaway? Entries close this SUNDAY 24th January.