Craft stall makes

Scrunchies (25 of them)

Earrings (a dozen)

For my charity craft stall in May.

Soft Stripes

Also from the remnant bin this lovely soft fabric has made a really cosy turtleneck in some of my favourite colours. It'll work well with either my coral or duck egg fleece tops I bought in the sale.

New Look 6735 with sleeves lengthened by 4" and a deep cowl neck added instead of the neckband. These are great in the winter.

 It is not really looking like a SWAP is it?  hmmmmm
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Ok I think I have it now.

I have got two SWAPs going and I can't really mix both together.

One is navy, white and something else (spring green perhaps).
The other is closer to my original concept board it has coral pink and duck egg blue mixed with ivory, stone and taupe.
Perhaps we'll see which gets the furthest? My favourite is the coral/duck egg blue/neutrals though.
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Jungle January : Leopard print tee

I'm not quite sure how one joins in with Jungle January, but here's my attempt to do so.

I've used my usual favourite knit top pattern, New Look 6735, and lengthened the sleeves by 4" to make them long sleeves.
I think this is a leopard print. It is maybe not that easy to see but the background is off white rather than cream or tan and the print is taupe and dark brown, so a less obviously warm toned animal print.
It is a very fine jersey print which I handled with great care, and avoided any stretching in the wrong direction. There was a section of fabric without the darker colourway, that went into scrap filling as it didn't look good at all.

The fabric was pulled from the remnant bin at the local roll end shop on Saturday afternoon, so its been in the stash under a week which is good.
This is the same bin from which I pulled the navy marl print I used for this top. Which I love and wear a lot.
However its also the same bin which provided the fabrics for the magical shrinking stripe top and the magical growing ribbed top as well as various fabrics which ran in the prewash etc, so very much hit and miss, at bargain prices. Hoping this one is a hit.

There seems to be a navy grouping, a neutrals grouping and a duck egg blue grouping. I have plain bottoms planned though not yet sewn so maybe it'll be OK?

Ottobre Autumn Winter 5/2014 Hoodie no 9

Here's Ottobre Autumn Winter 5/2014 Hoodie number 9 in the navy/white/silver shooting stars print. I made a size 46 flared out a bit at the hip.

 front

 back

 side showing the split hem

The line drawing

This is such thick cotton fabric I have had to replace a needle in the overlocker and the one in the sewing machine as they were totalled by this fabric.
It was supposed to be a neutral to wear with navy jeans, but it is quite a strong print. 

Navy and white shooting stars tee

This is actually cut from the scraps after I cut out the Ottobre Autumn Winter 5/2014 Hoodie number 9 which will be coming tomorrow hopefully.

So in the meantime you have the usual New Look 6735 tee with the short sleeve lengthened slightly.
The fabric is white printed with the navy/silver design so I have used white thread in the sewing machine, overlocker and coverhem machine for the construction.
This wasn't originally planned to be in my SWAP but in may end up in it depending on how things go.
This year I am allowing my inner child a bit more creative leeway to choose what to sew next, because I need it to be fun and not too planned.

Blue and white floral sweater knit

Here's a top from a blue and white sweater knit I bought on Monday.
It was absolutely lovely to sew, so will have to see what it is like to wear.

I think this could be really nice with jeans or anything navy. There is some left over so I am thinking about a colour blocked sweatshirt for the weekend. I seem to be slightly more drawn to these florals at the moment though I am not sure why.

Here's the gold stripe top on the dummy showing how it drapes at the side when worn.

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I bought some new brown leather boots and want to sew some things to co-ordinate those with things I have previously made. The inspiration fabrics from stash are all animal prints and mostly sweater knits, so would not go with each other, but would work with existing plain pieces and the new boots.

So for example one sweater knit has a cream background with grey and brown print, this would let me wear my grey Vogue 2989 ponte skirt with the new brown boots.

This is always the tricky thing for me. I come up with the SWAP plan and start on it then get distracted by shiny new things.
Do I stick to the plan to prove to you that I can do so, or do I follow the current inspiration of fun things I want to sew?

My current approach is going to be stay with white thread and sew things this week using that. I'll try to do as many SWAP garments as I can in that time. I've already rehemmed two white curtain sets so it has been useful.

Then give myself permission to switch over to ivory thread on all the machines, sew some SWAP garments and also some of these new animal print items.

Then move onto navy thread, make DBFs travel robe and my navy based things.

After that I will go to another thread colour and see what I need to sew next.

Navy components

I've been thinking about a navy set using the dirty denim for some jean leggings, sewing two tunics or tops, a Cardigan and a hoodie. Maybe a denim skirt if leftovers permit.
Only the dirty denim jeans are in the plan at the moment.

So fabrics are
Navy and white stripe knit
Navy knit with star print
Navy white and silver star print sweatshirt fabric
Navy and natural dirty stretch denim.