You don't have to sew it to de-stash it

Ok so I know the plan for this weekend was to spend more time sewing through my stash, but I decided instead to take some time to dig it all out (yes, this took up most of the surfaces in my workroom to do!) and have a good look at it and work out what I wanted to keep and what had been added at some point in the past but no longer fits with what I wear at the moment / projects I'm likely to be doing.

In the end I decided to get rid of 10 lengths of fabric. You'd think this would make a big dent in my stash but the drawers are still groaning under the weight of their contents! The fabric is up for sale on my eBay shop and there are some absolute bargains to be had, including 4m of lightweight cotton, 2m striped crepe and 1m of loose-weave fuschia fabric which is perfect for a bright spring skirt! 

A little teaser...

Not a finished project this time, just some teaser pics of the next commission that I'll be working on. I'm not going to tell you too much about it other than to say that it's a dress and a cape, from these fabrics....

Gold/Black sequined fabric:

Gold Tissue Lame:

(a much closer colour match in real life, but they photograph differently for some reason!)

The calico toile for the dress is and tried on, and I just know they're going to look amazing once they're done!!

Very nearly three!

I think I did fairly well on the stash-sewing this weekend. My third item was a top made from some fun fleece I bought a while back. It's not quite finished, as I haven't yet decided what fastening I'm going to put on it (invisible popper, button or just close with a brooch...it's sitting on the dressmaker's dummy while I decide!). The sleeves on this top/jacket are quite fun - they flare out from the elbow and come to a point over the hand.

Total stash-busting tally for the weekend - 3 different metre lengths of fabric that have been sat around for a while.

I've got some exciting commissions in to be working on this week, and then I'm looking forward to working through more stash-fabric next weekend!

Start as you mean to go on...

It won't surprise anyone if I say that I've got a lot of fabric. You could say that this is part of being a dressmaker, to have fabric in that you can make garments for customers from, but when your personal stash starts to expand out of the drawers it's supposed to be stored in and become piles of fabric that never get worked through, you have to admit that you might have a bit too much fabric. An awful lot of this fabric was bought with a particular project in mind, but I haven't been very good at getting round to making up the projects I planned.

So, for the first part of 2012 at least, I will be dedicating my Saturdays to sewing for myself and working my way through that enormous stash. As an added incentive, this will mean I get some nice new clothes to wear!

Last weekend saw the trousers I'd been meaning to make for ages finally getting done, but strictly speaking they weren't from stash as I'd 'accidentally' used the black cord for something else and had to buy some more. 

This weekend has been a bit better on the stash reduction front. First up was some green patterned jersey I bought last September, with the plan of making a wrapover top. I stuck to this plan, and drafted up a pattern that made a very nice top:

In fact, I like the top so much that I decided this was a good pattern to use for the black jersey with grey spots that had been loitering in a drawer for a couple of years. I tweaked the pattern slightly, shortening the body by a few centimetres gave me just enough fabric to lengthen the sleeves a little:

It is nice to have new clothes, it has to be said, so shortly I'll be heading back to my workroom to dig out another piece of fabric and start work on the next project. And yes, I know it's Sunday and I only mentioned Saturdays, but why stop when you're on a roll!

Bauble, anyone?

Time to show off some of my personal knitting this time. I'm not one for colourwork really, but the pattern for these knitted tree decorations really took my fancy so I decided to do 3 as part of my mum's Christmas present. After all, she still has one of the first tree decorations I ever made, so why not add my first ever colourwork to that?!

The pattern is originally from a book called 55 Christmas Balls to Knit, but I saw it in the December edition of a magazine called The Knitter. My first two balls were the pattern included in the magazine:

For the third, however, I decided that rather than duplicate one of the two above I would have a go at designing a snowflake:

Fortunately they came out ok, and I have to say I'm quite pleased at my first attempt at colourwork. You never know, I might do some more at some point...