Finders Keepers market aprons {exclaim}

Last weekend was spent at the Finders Keepers market in Melbourne, helping out my friend Nic with her awesome Yardage Design stall there. We had a great time, and the market was amazing - so many inspirational people!

In the sewing department, I made some market aprons for us to wear over the weekend, made from some of Nic's gorgeous fabrics.

They were whipped up late on the Friday night before the weekend (nothing like a bit of last minute sewing - yes, I was the type to sit up all night before my assignments were due at high school).

They are a short apron with a set of three contrasting pockets across the front for various market necessities, the middle pocket had a zipper so we could run around doing cartwheels without stuff falling out - although we didn't actually test this feature...

The fabrics used were the brand new {exclaim} fabric and the swizzle fabric (the blue one). Check out Nic's blog and shop if you like the fabrics. Also check out Nic's blog for the obligatory photo of us in action wearing the aprons. The fabric is lovely to sew, which is why they were so quick. Most of my sewing lately has been with knits and stretch - so the linen was a welcome reprieve; it ironed nicely and stayed put and didn't move all about the place whilst trying to sew - very nice indeed.

I also got these gorgeous pears, made from Nic's fabric (not my own handiwork, made by Brenda) which look lovely sitting happily on the mantelpiece.

The market was fantastic, however I managed to get away without splurging too much, a cute handprinted tee for the newborn's summer wardrobe and some hand printed stretch fabric (oops, back on the stretch fabric bandwagon - a stickler for punishment), which hopefully you will see soon, made into something cute.

Autumn outfit

I'm back-posting. This was a post I started way back in Autumn, but never actually finished and made live, so here it is now.

The little one got another new outfit for the Autumn, which matched perfectly to our Boston Ivy which was turning beautiful shades of red at the time. Now we've moved, and left our wonderful garden behind, boston ivy and all, and now have a backyard full of weeds, sand and building mess. Maybe one day we'll get a beautiful garden back... But, I digress.

Back to the outfit:
The top is the Pumpulipilvi voile tunic from Ottobre 1/2010. It is actually quite a lot of fabric, pulled together at the neck and sleeve edges with elasticised shirring. The fabric is cotton voile, so it scrunches quite nicely, but creates an overall puffy effect when worn. It looks cute and I like it, but it is definitely a puffy outfit. The shirring was fun and turned out really well, particularly after I remembered the shirring trick - to iron after sewing which helps to pull it in tight.
Then there are the Jodphur pants to match from Ottobre 3/2010, made from brown sweater fabric. They have a fake button fastening at the bottom, and I had some cute pink duck buttons which helped to girly the pants up. These pants were super easy and look great with the buttons.
We've had a fair bit of wear out of this outfit through the winter, and the top should still fit in to wear it through the summer too. The bad bit is that since making the outfit, I worked out that the pink in the voile print runs when washed, so I have had to hand wash it in cold water everytime. It always pays to wash fabrics before making things I guess.

And now that Spring is well and truly here, how I am lovin daylight savings and some warmer weather. Yippee! Bring on Summer!