Last week, before a severe sinus infection hit me, I made a plain black top and this top. The above top is made from a lovely mint green jersey knit with black polka dots. This pattern has several pieces, sleeves, top front, top back and then lower front and lower back. It is based on a store bought top that I love wearing.
I finally started feeling human again last night and decided to draft my own cap sleeve top pattern. This is after I searched through my own (one million!) patterns and then went online and bought more patterns from http://www.sewingpatterns.com. Needless to say, the patterns I bought were not what I was looking for! But they are very nice...
Once again, I used bits and pieces of other patterns and the rest I did by hand. Think this will work. As soon as I have time, I plan to try this pattern out.
Hope you all have a great week!
Are you familiar with the Interweave Stitch magazine? Just love it! Rather expensive at $15, but worth it. It only launched in 2009 and is published 4 times a year, but has great ideas and free patterns in. The new Winter/Spring 2010 issue is out now and on it's way to me! Did you also know that Interweave publish some of the patterns in this magazine FREE on their website? If you go here 
I have already made a few things with these fabrics and will share pics soon. I also bought some stunning yarn. I bought so much that I had to fill a seperate bag, send some home with Fedex and stash some in a colleagues bag! I found some awesome super bulky yarn, the burnt orange felting yarn I have always wanted and some super Red Heart Super Savers at only $2,79 for over 300m! 
I found this stunning cerise pink cover for my Kindle on Amazon.com.
What makes this cover awesome is the built-in light. Now I can read in bed every night!
At Barnes & Noble I found Amy's new book (and had hot chocolate at the Starbucks inside). Some stunning bag designs a la Amy inside, just waiting to be tried. More about the shopping I did in Chicago in my next blog post.
What's on my sewing table right now? Crappy pic but this is a skirt I cut from stretch knit fabric in lime green with black polka dots. I bought it this morning from a local fabric shop. I also have several tops cut out and ready to sew.
The pictures are not great because of the gloomy weather. This stretch knit fabric is a lovely bright yellow. I copied a pattern from one of my favorite store-bought tops. Really simple. I have been dying to try making a top with two different colour fabrics for a while, so here is my first attempt in yellow and black.
A close-up picture of the sleeve detail. I used a very fine zig-zag stitch, called an embroidery stitch on my machine, to finish the sleeve and neck edges. I decided to go for contrast detail and did it in yellow on the black fabric. Looks very nice. The original top had cropped sleeves that were shirred, but I made it longer and decided to rather go for a flair sleeve. I quite like it.
You might remember me making this bag a while back? All it needed was for me to sew in the lining. Shocking that I had cut and sewn the lining months ago, I just needed to sew it into the bag! Well, all done now. Love this bag!
My HTC cellphone decided to die on me just 3 months before my contract and free upgrade is due! I did not want to spend a fortune on a phone for just a few months and was delighted to find this cool Vodaphone for only R549! It has all the features I want and a camera too. Not that I ever use the camera on my cellphone...Best of all, it is simple to use and within hours I had my e-mail set-up on it, all my contacts in and my music saved on it. 
Ta-da! A brand-new, handmade cutting table! My FIL is a whiz with making stuff and I asked him to make me a table to specifications for my new sewing room. He added a second shelf below where my overlocker and some other essentials are neatly stored. I had to go buy another large self-healing cutting mat and my long steel ruler is finally being put to good use on top of this table.
Just love it and it works wonderfully for me. No more sitting on the carpet to cut out fabric.
The latest issue (#47 Summer 2010) of the quarterly Bernina Inspiration magazine was just the inspiration I needed to christen my new cutting table. 
This purple top is made from jersey stretch fabric and is super-easy to make. Just 2 pattern pieces and some elastic makes for a fast sew. I did not however like the off-the-shoulder look that much, so I played around and modified the pattern a bit.
This is the end-result. Two pattern pieces, front and back, all-in-one. I modified the neck and sleeves and it fits perfectly now. Here are a few tops I have now made with this pattern.
The second is just a standard stretch jersey fabric with lots of stretch in orange and brown. I am wearing this top today for the first time and love it. Also shirred around the neck with elastic thread.
I also bought two new books. Love Lisa's book! So many awesome bags to sew. Sew Liberated has a peasant top pattern in that I am also keen to try.
I have been sewing a bit lately, although not much. I made this very simple black and white top with some white stitching on the black fabric at the waist. I used my favorite top pattern from the Bernina Inspiration magazine and just modified it a bit. I am not a frilly clothing kind of person and although I love the ruffled neck, I should have made the ruffle smaller. When I wear this top, it feels as if the ruffled neck is HUGE!
Another one of my favorite patterns. I just love this bright fabric! This is the third top I have made with this fabric. I noticed though that the colors tend to run when it gets wet. This is handwash only fabric.
We have been trying for a long time to get a nice picture of all three our dogs together. Not an easy task! As you can see, my son had to hold the two smaller dogs for this picture! Both Maxine and Buksie have recovered well from their recent operations and Jessie is growing every day. Just look at those sweet faces!
Apart from the built-in closet, the carpenter also added a deep shelve all around the room where all my plastic containers with yarn can be stored. This was my DH's idea and what a great idea it was! I have sorted all my yarn by type and labelled the containers. I even have a container each for WIP crochet projects as well as WIP knitting projects!
This is my new Scrapbooking Corner. Although I have not done any Scrapbooking for over 2 years, lately I have felt like it, so I have hauled out some of my supplies. The closet will be divided into craft areas as well.
This is my sewing and computer corner. I must still sort out the wires. As you can see my sewing table sports a brand-new cover.
Another picture of my high shelving for yarn storage. I bought these really nice cherise pink fabric storage holders and labelled each one after I sorted the yarn by type.
This is my sewing (handbags and other) supplies corner of the closet. All my cotton fabric, handbag, apron and other patterns and tools for sewing is in this part.
This is the crochet/knit as well as part of my sewing (clothing only) supplies corner in the closet. Here you see (most of) my stretch knit fabric and clothing patterns as well as all my knitting needles and crochet hooks, etc.
This picture was taken from the door. It shows the large open space in the middle of the room, in front of the window. This is where my new cutting table will be! My FIL is a mean woodworker and he is busy making me a wooden cutting table to my exact specifications. It will be a plain wooden table the exact size and height to make cutting fabric easier on me. I cannot wait!
