Farewell 2010

Another year done and dusted.

Best wishes to you and your loved ones for 2011. May the new year be filled with health and happiness and (if you are so inclined) lots of craft.

To everyone who dropped by Hoppo Bumpo this year - thank you! Without the warm and funny people who drop by here to read and leave comments, it wouldn't be half as fun.

Luck

Luck (n): unpredictable phenomenon that causes an event to result one way rather than another

For example, in the pan above we see 3 cups of sugar, 2 cups of water, a stick of butter and some bicarbonate of soda at a rolling boil. The fact that 30 seconds later the volume of the mixture exceeded the pan's capacity is what we might call bad luck.



By contrast, the example above is one of "good luck". Here we see that commenter number 4 from this giveaway has won a 2011 Sewing Calendar. Congratulations to Peppermint Penguin and thank you so much to everyone who gave me such a laugh. All of your excuses were brilliant and I enjoyed reading them very much!

Sprite skirt

Its the most wonderful time of the year
With the kids jingle belling
And me sewing lots of girls frilly gear
It's the most wonderful time of the year
It's the hap-happiest season of all
Making holiday dresses and pink ruffled messes
Oh I have a ball
It's the hap- happiest season of all

[With apologies to Mr Andy Williams]

How I love December and all it brings. Most particularly the chance to sew gifts for little girls. Pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink.

(Permission to slap me: granted).

This is a little party skirt I made for one of my nieces. Its a two-layered, gored skirt with a yoke and elasticised waist. The over-skirt gores have nice vertical gathers, using elastic. I had so much fun making this.



The over-skirt seams are embellished with a bit of pink ribbon.



The underskirt seams are top-stitched with the fanciest stitch I have on my machine. (I call it the cardiogram stitch, but you might know it by something else. Something, ahem, eminently more sensible.)



The prints I used are from Alexander Henry's beautiful Sprites of Tillbrook range. I adore the fairy and toadstool prints. Regrettably, after labouring over positioning of said fairies on the skirt panels ...



... I must admit the yoke cutting was a bit slipshod. Headless sprites, anyone? Hopefully my 5 year old niece hasn't noticed the decapitation situation.



The pattern I used for this little skirt is by Farbenmix. The Insa skirt pattern is available individually or as part of the book "Sewing Clothes Kids Love" [Langdon & Pollehn, 2010 Creative Publishing International].



If you a fan of the whimsical Farbenmix childrens' patterns, the book is a great way to purchase a selection of patterns. There are 10 patterns all sized from babies 18 months through to kids size 12. And the designs are gorgeous.



Skirts, dresses, leggings, shrugs. Frills, flounces, ruffles. So much pretty eye candy. Hmmm ... Clothes Kids Love, you say?

It might not be the sort of book you'd invest in if you had say, eight or nine sons. None of the designs are specifically for those of the more Y-chromosonal-persuasion and only a couple of the 10 are unisex (that is, unless your boy child is open to wearing something twirly called the Feliz Party Dress).

Never-the-less, its a delightful book with beautiful patterns and excellent instructions. My only qualm is with the title. (Though I should think that my alternate title - Sewing Clothes That Boys May Object To - would be knocked back by a marketing focus group.)


My review of the Insa Skirt pattern can be found over here at PatternReview.com

If you would like to enter my 2011 Sewing Calendar giveaway, click here.

Excuses, excuses (or: "How to use a sewing-related giveaway to gloss over a 50 day absence")

Alibi, clearance, confession, cop-out, cover-up, excuse, defence, extenuation, facade, gloss, immunity, guise, indemnity, justification, lie, mitigation, pardon, pretense, pretext, rationalisation, reason, sham, story, subterfuge.

Goodness gracious; its been a while. What reason could there possibly be for not writing one's blog for so long? If you could think up a suitable excuse, I would be very much obliged.

If you leave a suggestion here, I will also pop you in the running to win a copy of the "2011 Sewing Calendar" released by Accord Publishing. Entries are open until 9am Thursday 30 December (Australian Eastern Standard time) and anyone is welcome to enter. A winner will be drawn at random and - being as 2011 is almost upon us - the calendar sent post haste.

(Remember: Outlandish is good. Mirth is encouraged.)

In the meantime, here is a little more about this lovely calendar.

2011 Sewing Calendar
Page-a-Day Calendar, 430 pages
Megan Smith (editor)
ISBN 0740797077
RRP AUD$27.99

The year-round sewing enthusiast will love this calendar. There are over 100 terrific projects for everyday home use, as well as lovely gifts for giving. If you enjoy reading sewing blogs, you will recognise many of the contributors, including these talented ladies. There's a new project every three days, presented as a handy fold-out page. Step-by-step instructions are accompanied by illustrations and pattern pieces.

Thank you to Megan Smith, for including a project from me too. Coincidentally it falls exactly one year from today - 26 December. Maybe I'll see you this time next year for a spot of sewing?