Saturday 4 May 2013

Happy 80th Birthday Mum! -- New Look 6009 Top.



After doing a suck-up - I mean some sewing for  my MIL I needed to be fair and do the same for  my own Mum. She has just turned 80 years young and still sews most days - most of her own clothes and  patchwork and machine embroidered quilts. She can also do that thing with knitting where she knits really fast without even looking and doesn`t make a mistake - totally jealous and hate that but then again I am not a knitter so there.

Just when I was wondering what am I going to make Mum this year  I found 3.6 metres of Thai hand woven  silk in the op shop for $8.00!  In a background colour of mauvey, browny I don`t know what with blue and brown diamonds it was perfect . Talk about lucky - I just wish I could find that winning tattslotto ticket .

So I nicked - well borrowed - a pattern from my Mum`s stash - which is only fair really since it was for her ( and I promise I gave it back too - except I might nick it again to sew up for me ) -New Look 6009.
It is a simple drop shouldered top . The cute part of this pattern is the keyhole in the front with a loop of fabric above which gathers the  material into a sort of a bow look. The back is done up with one button / loop  .




It is a REALLY easy pattern - with only the front , back and facing pieces and a small rectangle for the loop.
The only tricky bit was because I used fabric with such an obvious pattern it just took a bit of  care to match the diamonds . I found some matching bias binding to finish the facings and a cool vintage button for the back from  my stash ( bummer that I only had one ) .






End result - one happy Mum who loves receiving ( and giving ) home made gifts. ( And the other best bit is that there is heaps of material left over for me .)

As Jen S said in her blog - yesterday was sewing group. One lady was doing a toile for a red lace dress for a wedding, someone else was sewing a self drafted dress , another was completing a chanel style jacket  impeccably  fitted mind you, another perfecting a toile for a shirt which already looked  well  perfect , another was making a lined coat , Jen cut out her houndstooth jacket and what was I sewing - a plastic fold up shopping bag - I am all class I tell you. Our new group is called From Tshirts to Couture - but perhaps it could be changed from plastic bags to couture :)  .

Cheers . Janine.