$3 Patterns & Iceland

PatternPlus has all patterns at $3 + $1.20 shipping/handling per order (within Australia) - good deal! Naturally, I've ordered some more. (Ages ago I ordered some patterns from PatternPlus (great prices and only a nominal handling fee per order). The patterns came really quickly but two weren't the ones I'd ordered - correct numbers but the pics & company didn't match. As soon as I let them know they got back to me pronto and said that they no longer had what I thought I'd been ordering but would happily send me two others of my choosing and I could keep the incorrect ones or get a refund ....... only a couple of days later and some more patterns arrived (of course I went for more patterns!). I can highly recommend their customer service, mistakes happen to everyone, what makes the difference is how it's handled.)

I haven't been blogging but I do have a few dresses awaiting hemming, so I have been doing a bit of sewing (see the WIP list on the sidebar -->). I also did make up the V1258 Vena Cava dress in the metallic emerald (and hemmed it!) that I was debating here.

Some pics from Iceland (Sep 2012?)

 Let me tell you, they don't call it Iceland for nothing. We were there at the end of Summer, one day the high was 3 degrees C, admittedly that was the coldest day but still...

I did actually wear the bogan pants at least once here but usually I was wearing two layers of thermal longjohns, so yes, I was wearing my underwear as outerwear. Bah! No one knows me in Iceland.

Sampling the local fare

 When I travel one of my top goals is to eat and drink all 'new to me' dishes and drinks - Iceland was no exception.

Eating some dried fish - tough but tasty. (I also tried the rotten, putrified shark but Tigerboy lost his camera with the pics - it's actually worse than it sounds.)

Some Viking beer - had to be done!

Puffin. I had warned Tigerboy (who is crazy about birds) that I'd do this - he assured me that no one ate sea birds. I told him that I'm sure he was making it up and got confirmation that puffins were indeed on the menu. As he had a couple of months to get used to the idea, I'd confirmed that they weren't endangered and he is aware of my need to taste everything, he was fine - in the end he even tried some.

Snowmobiling on a glacier.

Hadn't tried this before - these little gizmos handle a bit differently to my bike (no surprise) but they were lots of fun. The drive to get to the glacier was not as much fun in our non 4WD vehicle but we finally made it there and back in one piece.

Everyone else was doubled up on the snowmobiles but after I took tigerboy for a whirl on a jetski one time he thought it best that we each had our own (sook!)

Snowmobiling - Iceland

Snowmobiling - Iceland

Snorkelling between the tectonic plates in Silfra - Iceland

Yep, you can actually snorkel between the European and the American continental plates but it's cold! Dry suits only but water still gets in your gloves and of course your face is exposed.

Very little lives in the water and the visibility is 100m+ but although you are over a deep chasm a lot of the time, you can't see the bottom because it just fades to blue.

Getting into the dry suit - makes getting into a wetsuit seem easy peasy.

That would be me (identifiable only due to the camera hanging off my wrist). Silfra - Iceland

Snorkelling, Silfra - Iceland

Looks like it could be me taking pics. Snorkelling, Silfra - Iceland

Another one that we think is me (on the right). Snorkelling, Silfra - Iceland

Finally made it - my hands and face were numb. Snorkelling, Silfra - Iceland

Jokulsarlon Ice Lagoon

This place is used for movies a fair bit. The first day we were there the weather was so bad that at times I couldn't walk against the wind. Thankfully, when we went back a few days later the wind had died down.

Jokulsarlon Ice Lagoon - Iceland

Jokulsarlon Ice Lagoon - Iceland

Jokulsarlon Ice Lagoon - Iceland

Jokulsarlon Ice Lagoon - Iceland

Random shots

Basalt columns near Vik - Iceland

Vik - Dyrholaey

All of these rocks covered with inches thick cushy moss, as far as the eye can see - it was the kind of thing you'd expect to see in Lord of the Rings. Iceland.

Vik - Dyrholaey

Colours, Stash building & Long Weekend away in Adelaide & surrounds

I think I've mentioned before that tigerboy seems to think it's mandatory to get out of Brisbane if there's a long weekend. We have quite a few long weekends in the first half of the year, so he's generally stressing himself and me over where to go - God forbid we should stay at home. Now, I like to travel as much as the next person (which would be why I've done quite a bit) but sometimes the stress he creates surrounding a long weekend makes me wish we didn't have a public holiday coming up.

I got to ride a panda at the Adelaide Zoo - it was near the enclosure for the real ones, so good enough.

Well, back in June? the decision was finally made to go to Adelaide and stay with my Aunt who I hadn't seen for ages and he hadn't met. She also used to be quite the sewer and has a formiddable stash - not that that had any bearing on me deciding on Adelaide ;) .  Normally I'd only take carry on for a trip lasting 2 weeks or less but she informed me that I had to bring at least one bag to check in because she was counting on me to clean out some of her stash, naturally, I'm a considerate niece and I obliged.

Unfortunately for me, my Aunt does not wear the same colour palette I wear and loves shiny fabric. I did mention to her that she could have kept me and my future tastes in mind while purchasing fabrics decades ago, you know, if she really loved me. She admitted that it was shameful negligence on her part.  It seems that she also got rid of all her vintage patterns eons ago and what she has left are mainly 80's styles (as I came of age in the mid 80's, it's not something I like to revisit). I did however manage to get a stack of fabric, some notions (dang it, I forgot to take her bias binding!), and some patterns - yes, I used that checked bag!

Speaking of colours, PoppyKettle did a post on having her colours done and I wrote an essay in reply - I'll just repost that essay here:
My aunt was a big follower of the whole "having your colours done", my mother however was completely opposed to it. I've never really known which colours did or didn't suit me (or anyone else for that matter) but I've always wondered if there was a magical set of colours for me. Over the years I've found that there are colours I avoid (yellows, beiges, greys and pastels) and colours I always gravitate towards (black, occasionally bright but dark colours and more recently red) but as for shades? No clue. I was really just going with colours I liked and had no idea whether they suited me or not. Oh, I like purple too - I think it makes my eyes look bluer. To make things trickier, my hair has been every shade between platinum blonde to fire engine red, including deep, dark auburn - surely that's got to make a difference as well.

I don't think I have an 'eye' for these things. Recently I went to said aunt's place and while going through her stash (to pilfer fabric) this topic came up so I asked her to "do my colours" as she was the expert (anyone is compared to me). After much draping with fabrics she concluded that she thought my instincts had been fairly correct and that yellows looked awful on me, pastels looked wishy washy and although black looked pretty good, red and deep orange were better. One thing she said was that if you wear something and everyone says how fabulous you look in it, that's probably a great colour for you (which is why I pounced on red a couple of years ago, a particular red dress I have never fails to get lots of compliments - thinking I was on to something, I asked tigerboy about it "I think red dresses just stand out." was the reply, not helpful, apparently we're both useless in this area). But those compliments are going to depend on the style of the garment too, aren't they?

I've known women who slavishly followed the colour swatches they had and in one case in particular, I thought she always looked washed out and dreary - I'm sure that's just my particular preferences interfering, so maybe it depends on the "eye" of the person that does them and their particular preferences? Upshot - I'm still clueless and likely to be wearing all the wrong colours now that I'm actually injecting something other than black into the wardrobe. Maybe all those years of wearing black, black and more black have made me even less clued in to this concept and I'll improve - for crying out loud, if anyone ever sees a pic of me in a colour that either does or doesn't suit me, please give me the heads up, I need all the help I can get!

Adelaide Zoo

Hahndorf

We went to Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills where I bought more patterns and such from an op shop. I also picked up this nifty thing - apparently, it's for communion glasses but it's very close to a scissor holder that someone on pattern review got her husband to make (I promptly ordered one from tigerboy), the only difference is, hers didn't have holes at the bottom.

I couldn't resist the chocolatiers in Hahndorf either - the mocha I had from one was so rich that later that day tigerboy asked if I wanted to visit a chocolate factory  - "I never thought I'd say this in my entire life but I think I'm still chocolated out!!". I bought a dark chocolate with chinese five spice (a combination I hadn't tried before) - amazing! If you get the chance, try it.

Getting some petit fours for dessert.

Apparently, Hahndorf is normally packed with tourists but we were lucky, there were hardly any people around - maybe because we went on a weekday?


Gorge Wildlife Park

We also went to Gorge Wildlife Park which was fantastic - I'd highly recommend it if you're in the area. We could have easily spent the whole day there, the place is huge with so much to see. They also have free koala holding where you can cuddle with the koala for ages and take as many pics as you want - at most places these days that would cost you more than the $15 entrance fee, actually, I think that at a lot of places these days you don't even get to hold the koala, just pat it while someone else holds it. Major bonus, there wasn't a two mile long queue, booking or any of that palava, just turn up, wait a couple of minutes and cuddle with the koala while it eats eucalyptus leaves (their breath smells nice).

Cuddling with a koala at Gorge Wildlife Park in the Adelaide Hills.

You can ride a hippo there too, a blue one, no less! (I'd say blue hippos are fairly rare)

Playing with kids - one of them thought my jeans bag was very tasty, and tigerboy started to panic when another one started eating my hair (probably wouldn't have been any worse than some hairdressers I've had!)

The park had a lot of albino animals - kangaroos, wombats, peacocks and probably others that I've forgotten. You can see a lot more albino roos in the background of this shot of me with a mother and her joey.

See the joey in her pouch?

They had some strange birds too - this one is looking straight at the camera, rather a limited field of view.

A pigeon? with a perm?

 I think I've been successful in either doing something crafty or picking up some crafting supplies on each of our long weekends - aren't I a lucky duck!

Don't you know it but the day after we came back from Korea, tigerboy started hassling me about where we'll go for Christmas if his workplace is going to shut over that period. It can't be somewhere that closes for Christmas (to hard to do things if everywhere is shut), and it needs to be close (we'll probably only have about a week), so soon I have to start looking into that.

Cheap patterns for Aussies and crafty business at Incheon International Airport

First, the important stuff - thanks to another blogger I discovered the site Pattern Plus where they have Butterick, Burda, New Look, Vogue and McCalls patterns on sale for $4 each ($3 for McCalls) with free shipping for Australian addresses. Of course the 10 million unused patterns I already own aren't enough, so I had to order more. For any North Americans that happen to read this, you're probably thinking "What's the big deal? That's not that cheap." Well, considering our next cheapest option is to wait for Sewing Patterns.com or Vogue.com to have a sale and pay inflated international shipping , this is a whole lot cheaper than buying at Spotlight. Of course, Spotlight has pattern sales every time hell freezes over too but you're sure to find that the pattern you want is one of the many they don't have and then of course there's the whole driving, parking, waiting an interminable amount of time at the checkout ...... you get my drift. Any way, I've ordered but haven't received them yet, so I can't comment on the service but The Perfect Nose had a good experience.

Next up - If you happen to be passing through Incheon International Airport and have some spare time on your hands, check out the culture centres (there are two I think) in the airport near the gates. You can try your hand at two traditional Korean crafts for free. I went with the painting of the wooden block and took it to England to give to tigerboy's parents. Of course, I left it on the plane and had to go back into the terminal to ask someone to retrieve it for me - can you believe that someone didn't see it and think "OMG, that is so exquisite, I'm taking it home to display it prominently in my living room.", turns out the people checking the plane did not covet my priceless piece ......... what a mystery!

As you can see, I wasn't as adventurous with my tiger colour scheme as the woman beside me. I also didn't have to draw anything (or else it would be unrecognisable), just colour it in.

Back from hobnobbing with world leaders

Yes, I'm back, holiday over, no more eating puffin or rotten fermented shark, no more sangria with tapas, no more picking wild blackberries while roaming the woods and no more hanging out with the President and First Lady of Korea ................ guess I'll have to start sewing.

And just to prove that I did hang out with the President and First Lady:

I know what you're thinking ..... "That's not a real picture!" .............. OK, you caught me. It was done in the area of Seoul that he lives and works though, so, you know, it's really close to real.

Oh, picked up some sewing mags in Europe and odds and ends in Korea too.

How to replace the bogan pants that will never die (much to Tigerboy's disgust)

So, I travel overseas at least once a year. I take a backpack and I travel light. Over the last 20+ years, I've come up with my own travel capsule wardrobe that works - most of the time. For the last few years, these pants always get thrown in (actually, they're usually worn on the plane). Here's some evidence:

Ecuador

Hawaii

Hong Kong

Cuba

Yeah, not the most flattering but they're comfy, lightweight, durable, don't take up a lot of room and can be worn in a variety of temps, from chilly to fairly warm - they also double up to wear under long pants if it's more than a little chilly (I don't travel with jeans -  too heavy and bulky and if it's cold, they're cold on my skin). Ok, I wouldn't wear them outside the house here at home, but where people don't know me? It's a free for all! (Unless of course I'm somewhere like the middle East.) They're also well over ten years old, so if they get lost or wrecked, it's no big deal.

The problem? Tigerboy hates them with a passion. According to him they make me look like a bogan which would fall into his "people to avoid at all costs" category (that would also be why there aren't more countries represented here - he can't even stand to take pics of me wearing them).

On one trip, the bogan pants developed a tiny hole. Tigerboy was elated -
"You'll have to get rid of them now, they're past it." 
"Hmmm, it can be fixed."
"Honey, I think they're just too old and they're starting to fall apart."
"I wouldn't get too excited, I have two pairs."
"You don't."
"I do."
Oh, the look of horror - to think that I not only purchased one pair, but two! Double misery!

So, we're off again and now I have him begging me not to take the bogan pants (honest to goodness begging). Now, it's not as if I'd wear them anywhere that we'll run into people we know or a city trip but I think he's reached his tolerance level.

Problem two? I just can't think of a suitable replacement. I have some knit palazzo pants but for a lot of our activities, all that fabric flapping around would be really irritating. I have the proper travel pants (you know, quick dry, pockets everywhere, dull, yukky colours) but they're not nearly warm enough for where we're going. I have 'nice' travel pants but they're not rugged enough for some of the stuff we do.

Oddly, I think one of his biggest problems is the two stripes down the side. In my book, that just marks them as 'exercise' wear, rather than 'I think I look good in these' wear.

As much as I enjoy teasing him, I think these pants are taking it to the level of mental torture for him. What to do? Maybe I should look into pants therapy for him, that would probably be the easiest way around it.


EDIT: I do actually have some decent, stylish pants that I take overseas as well, for those times when we're not in transit for 10+ hours or doing hours of walking in unpopulated areas etc. (ok, I occassionally wear these in populated areas too). BeaJay has me considering some super stretchy bootcut pants as a replacement though .....but then of course, they won't do double duty as thermals, and I already take a pair of bengaline bootcuts with me ..............

Fabric scraps, unwanted garments, UFO's .......... it's all yardage in my book

I can be stubborn when it comes to 'making it work' and I usually come up with a solution, otherwise it just has to go back into the stash (remember Butterick 5672? Not in the stash! Crumpled up in a heap in a corner of the sewing room as a threat to all the following dresses-to-be).

I rarely throw fabric away - including garments I no longer wear. I DO keep them for  experiments and others reasons that will probably come to light at some time in the future. And you know what? Sometimes, I actually end up finding this useful.

When I'm starting a new project with minimal 'left overs' (very common - I often seem to be finagling a knee length dress out of half a metre of 90cm wide fabric, or something nearly as ludicrous), I don't have room for stuff ups so to test that my machine/s will actually deal with the fabric, I go through the scraps and find a similar fabric to practise on.

Then there's also the linings and bindings of things. When I made the Vogue 8555 hibiscus dress, it needed just a small amount of fabric to line the bodice, a check in my 'accents' fabric box came up with a 25cm piece of plisse (I soon found out that that was not the best fabric for lining but c'est la vie).

I made a sun visor out of an old top, made a money belt with part of my sister's old top, lined a bag, made pin cushion covers and lined pockets in the Palin bag from the left overs of a robe I made a boyfriend years ago.

If, in the rare event that I am making a muslin, I'm not going to go and lay down dollars for a throw away - I'll cut some old garment/sheet/whatever up to use.

Any clothes I no longer want are regarded as yardage that can be cut up for other things as far as I'm concerned.

And that's another reason why my stash might seem a bit big to some people - not all of it is 'real' yardage.

Am I the only one that does this? C'mon, I can't be the only one.

And just because, here are some pics I took in the Galapagos when I was snorkelling with this little guy - he couldn't have cared less about me but I thought it was super cool to be snorkelling with him.

Quick and dirty moneybelt

Yesterday I put tigerboy on a plane (with his Palin bag) to take him to the opposite side of the world. (It was actually a planned trip, not a banishment.) The day before that there was much searching for one of the four moneybelts that we have but rarely use. I found one with several safety pins holding it together and a strap from another one .......... fabulous.
"Do you want me to quickly make you one?"
"Do you think you can? Will it have a zip?" (At this point I'm thinking "Oh no, don't tell me this is going to turn into a Palin bag saga.)
"I'll give it a bash." (I disappeared quicker than a glass of wine after a day of work at that point - I was not sticking around for his endless list of improvements.)

I went through a bag of clothes my sister had given me years ago and pulled out a white knit top, pulled out the bag of white zippers my Mum had reclaimed from various garments and other sewn things ever since Jesus was a baby (seriously, there are some with my baby sister's name written on them along with her primary school - she's nearly 40!) and I winged it, totally, completely, winged it, zero forethought, zero measuring.

Ok, there was some forethought - I decided to use a cotton knit so that it was soft and not as sweaty as some moneybelts (like some we've owned). There was a long skinny strip of knit left from my hacking, at the last minute I decided to make it the beginning of the strap.

So, here it is. NB: This is a very quick and dirty project - one look at the stitching (not to mention that antique zipper pull) is enough to support that claim - but really, I'm not going to agonise over making a money belt look good.

• I cut the back out of the shirt to give me a big rectangle
• folded the rectangle in half, attached each end to the zipper (the hem of the shirt is actually attached to the top of the zipper)
• opened the zip a bit, turned it inside out
• inserted the straps inside
• sewed up the sides
• turned it right side out again
• then I sewed up the front of the money belt from the bottom to just under the zip so that it has two compartment - one that holds notes and one that's smaller (credit cards, notes folded in half etc.)
• I used a piece of elastic between the two knit strips
• for fastening I used those flat hooks you get in pants - I wanted something nice and flat (I also hate that most money belts leave you with a mile of extra strap hanging around)
• I put two bars in for the hook because I don't trust the cheap shoddy elastic not to stretch out - this was a quick and dirty prototype remember?

Tigerboy's take on it? "Oh, it's so comfy! I don't even know that I'm wearing it. Oh, honey, that's not good - I wouldn't realise if it fell off!"
"You can't have everything baby."

Travel shorts & bla bla

I made these little black shorts years ago, specifically for travelling overseas (where no one I know will see me). I copied the pattern of some pyjama shorts, modified it heavily so that they weren't actually gathered at the waist and the inside legs were perpendicular to the ground (I've discovered that that curve on the inside leg generally doesn't work for me - it needs some serious readjustment). I even lengthened them but not really enough - there's no way I'd be wearing these anywhere except places where the odds of me running into someone I know are slim (Panama, Cuba, Ecuador etc.).

Tigerboy was suitably scandalised that I was going to wear something so revealing out in public (suck it up baby, my entire reason for living is to have you fear for what I'll wear next ~rolling my eyes~). The waist band is actually just a piece of the knit doubled over and serged to the body of the shorts - no elastic, no rope. I had my doubts that this waistband arrangement would stand the test of time but it's still fine. They're great for travel, comfy, crease proof and can scrumple up to fit in my two hands (bras take up a lot more room).

I don't have any good pics that feature them but you can actually see them in these pics (two of them, anyway).

Heron Island - ha, see the shorts? Oh, you can't even see me?

Ecuador - I would have to say that I am accomplished in the art of falconry (cough, cough, cough) - just ignore that concerned look on the assistant's face.

Hawaii - just look at that glowing skin lol

In other news:

• The Palin bag is finally finished - that thing is like the cockroaches, it'll survive a nuclear disaster (it had better after all of the blood, sweat and tears)
• Butterick 5672 - many people have made it and it looks awesome on them. I had a feeling that it wouldn't go so well for me, I could see those pleats drooping but really, how can so many people (all with different body shapes) get such great results and not me? Well, I've managed to sucessfully go against the crowd - droopy mess. I'm undecided as to whether I'll put MORE frustration into it or not.
• Burda scoop neck dress - late last night I realised that I'd cut it out without the s.a.'s - what can I say? I have had some serious brain malfunctions lately, B5672 actually had me concerned for my sanity at one point.
• The size 22 dress refashion is done, it's also been worn - I imagine that in a couple of months there will even be pics.
• Of course there's also been the (seemingly) endless but incredibly exciting (no, not so much) mending and fixing jobs eg. 

"Hon, these pyjama pants keep coming undone and falling down."
"Tie the waist tighter." (Yes, I am very sympathetic to these situations.)
"I tried, they keep coming undone, is there anything you can do?"
"There's a lot of things I can do - water ski, shoot, cook - I don't think any of that will help though." (Ok, I didn't actually say that, I took the path of least resistance and offered the elastic solution - I'm a saint.)

Back from South America

So .......... I can't believe it's been so long since I posted. What can I say? I got busy, very busy. Work turned manic and then we went overseas (US, Panama & Ecuador).

We arrived home just in time for some serious flooding of practically our entire state. I volunteered, first for filling sand bags and then for the clean up - lots of stinky mud which of course I managed to get from head to foot.

We arrived home just in time for some serious flooding of practically our entire state. I volunteered, first for filling sand bags and then for the clean up - lots of stinky mud which of course I managed to get from head to foot.

Updated Google Maps - yes, most of my state was missing!

In other news, my drive to sort, refashion and toss continues. Due to the QLD weather, I've had oodles of shoes give out, unfortunately they were my 'must haves' and had to be replaced ........ I don't think the collection is dwindling too much :-(

I've also been sewing .......... stay tuned.