Fail.

In my defense I was tired and distracted. That's all I have to say on the matter.

Guess I'll be having another date with the stitch unpicker.

Can you see it?

I have a date with my unpicker.

It's not the greatest picture but if you look at the top row of chenille squares (yes.....it's chenille again lol) you'll see the pile is going in the wrong direction. Don't you hate that?

And I thought I was done with piecing this quilt top. Oh well........that's what happens when I sew when tired.

Lots of dunnyruggers.....and a cat

I promise after this I'll make something other than skirts or pants in chenille.........

The cat says "Hi" :)

Dunnyruggers

The name has stuck. Pants made out of chenille are called 'Dunnyruggers'.

This pair has some pockets on the back made out of vintage sheets. I'd love to show them off but I still don't know how to upload 2 photos at a time which is very frustrating as I'd like to start doing some tutorials just to give a little back to the community and help anyone new to sewing.

I love sewing with chenille - especially when the fringing is still on the bottom. This fabric was given to me by another lovely sewist and blogger quite some time ago. Thank you Claire :)

Thinking outside the box

I was looking at my 55 litre tub of UFO's the other day when inspiration struck. I had a few squares cut and sewn for this quilt, it's a truly scrappy quilt. The kind only mad people make and people who can't throw even the tiniest scrap in the bin (I fit both of those categories lol). Then I spotted the unfinished Feliz that I was making out of calico. Light bulb moment. I needed calico squares......I didn't want to finish that Feliz. Out came the rotary cutter and problem solved. Then I found another unfinished peasant style calico dress. It too was cut into squares.....yeah!! I won't go into a whole description of how this quilt is made as there are plenty of other people doing the same thing out there and they have far more experience and can offer much better advice than I can. I'm not a quilter at all, I just happen to like using up little bits of fabric. I just cut them into strips and stitched them over the calico squares. I wasn't sure that I liked the look at first and was going to turn it into a dollies quilt, but it's grown on me so I'm going to keep adding to it. Which is great cause I have an unfinished dress in that cute blue cherry print and my rotary cutter is itching to get stuck into it :D

Slinky Laguna leggings

Another couple of things out of the UFO tub! These are panne velvet leggings made using the Farbenmix Laguna pattern. Panne velvet makes such great leggings....it's stretchy, recovers well so there are no 'knees', it's warm, comfy, feels very "slinky" (so I'm told lol) and it looks really cute. Can you tell I like them? :D The only issue I have with the panne velvet is the waist elastic tends to roll over and over inside the casing, so to fix this I have stitched the elastic in 4 places......over the casing and through the elastic at the back, the front and at each side. I'm actually pretty happy with this method as one of my gripes about handmade is the loose elastic turning over inside the casings, but I have had no luck with overlocking the elastic in (as you see on store bought pants/skirts). I find the overlocking method permanently stretches the elastic so that the waists are then too big and it's such a pain to re-do. I think I'm going to do all my elastic waists using this method from now on. It makes for less fiddling later when the clothes are being washed and put away. I also found the Laguna leggings pattern was a bit generous so I didn't add seam allowance and this made them a bit more fitted.

So this is not the most exciting creation ever but it is one thing out of the UFO tub. It's just a simple little nightie. I used some horse rib knit that I bought from the US. I know I should buy Australian but I have to be honest and say that the US knits are nicer than what I can buy here and even with the shipping it's a whole lot cheaper to buy from the States. I do have quite an enormous stash of fabric now so I shouldn't have to buy anything for quite some time. The pattern is a Kwik Sew nightie pattern that I picked up in an Op shop for 50 cents. Bargain! I can't remember the number but I can dig it out should anyone want to know. It's easy peasy and has become my go-to pattern for nighties.