Poppalina

Goldfrapp love

A Kapinny post

Being a lucky birthday girl last month, I had tickets to see Goldfrapp last night at Sydney's Luna Park (thanks to my clever husband). You have to love a band that takes dressing up as seriously as it takes its (seriously good) music. I want to be Alison Goldfrapp. Here's my favourite image of her, from the 2006 Supernature album. Imagine making such a fabulous thing as those peacock tail shorts. (I won't ask you to imagine wearing them.)

So last night she was wearing a sparkly, shaggy, black cape/poncho thing that made her look like a short, black Big Bird with curly blonde hair. It was more fabulous than it sounds.

Under that was a pair of sparkly black legging/platform boots that, it turned out, go all the way up, jumpsuit style. It made me wonder what it was like to put on: do the platform boots dangle off your feet until you're all the way in?

For the encores, she swapped the cape for a wispy, wired silk organza top that gave her an angel wing silhouette, followed by a long-haired jacket, with the hair shaded from pale pink down to bright red. The first encore was a note-perfect 'Utopia', from Felt Mountain (2000): no mean feat, considering the previous hour's robust singing, with its operatic soprano-style beginning.

Totally gorgeous.

Babies love colour

A Kapinny post

It's nowhere near as impressive as the wedding jacket Shula made for a baby Mymlet, but here's one I made for a friend's new baby girl.

I adapted it from a much plainer pattern:

 

It has a picot edge (because I love them so), a dear little floral band and comes complete with complimentary dog hair, as do all my offerings.

 

I'm not a fan of pastel pink or blue on babies, not unless it comes with lots of other gorgeous colours. Babies have personalities too, you know.

When my sister Sophie was a bub, she looked stunning in navy blue. Now she's in her 20s, she pretty much looks stunning in anything. But that's another story.

Vintage pattern cache

A Kapinny post

My aunt found a bunch of '50s and '60s sewing and knitting patterns in a second hand shop. I have the choicest ones on loan, so I can copy them.

It's perfect timing: I've been so loving the Mad Men aesthetic (if not the culture) as we make our way through the DVDs.

Here's the first pattern I have copied and actually made up.

And the result. I'm not entirely happy with the way the sleeves sit (hard to show on the dummy), but this is only the first trial version; I'll be making some adjustments. I've made it up in a stretch woven, since it's more closely fitting than the illustrations would suggest. Also, I don't have that kind of figure any more.

I love the print on this fabric; for some reason blue and white always does it for me.

And here's a gorgeous coat pattern that I'm in the process of making up.

So much fun.

Stumpy

By Shula

 

 

Nothing much to report, unless you find medical processes interesting.

 

And I do not.

 

 

Much more fun to focus on a dinosaur

 

With a surprisingly short tail.

Stumpy

by Shula. July 2010. Wool, silk, cotton.

Happy Hookers' crochet club

A Kapinny post

Every third Sunday of the month, if I have the time, I go to a meeting of crocheting cronies.

We sit on an assortment of old sofas, at an organic food market, and crochet.

Bernadette helps anyone who's in need of technical assistance.

She was wearing a rather lovely hand-knitted jacket, her own, natch.

I'm making a crocheted jumper in a fetching watermelon colour. I'm doing it in a wool and silk blend, a discontinued yarn, of course. I say of course, because once I started it, it became clear that I would run out before I was done.

I did a search, and fortunately, I think I may have found some more in a tiny store in another state. I'll just have to be thoughtful about where in the garment I place the mismatching dye lots.

By the way, here's my husband's jumper with the brand new collar line, on its recipient. He says it's quite comfortable now, and very warm.

The Healing Power of Toys

By Shula

It's true.

I am well and truly laid up.

Sleeping a lot. Wombling about.

Bringing in the washing makes me puffed.

Very dull.

Lots of handsewing in the wee hours.

Rediscovering the serenity that stitching brings.

And looking for a rich patron who is happy to pay me a retainer.

 

Anyone....?

Kwali,

30 x 20cm, handstitched from recycled yoga blanket, and Jude's fabrics

Treasure Chest

A Kapinny post

My beloved Grandma will be 91 years old in August. She's very much alive and kicking, in fact she'll kick your Scrabble-playing arse any day you care to take her on.

 

This year, she sold her home and moved to the only actually cool retirement community I've ever heard of. This meant downsizing her formidably large collection of gorgeous STUFF.

And look what ended up in my clutches.

It's a beautiful chest full of crafting things ...

... fabrics, knitting needles, buttons, laces, ribbons and braids.

Fine, hot pink silk; natural linens; batik cotton. A tiny floral print (blue) that she made the dress of my favourite doll from, when I was little. She'd also made the doll, Amelia, whom I loved dearly.

Do you have any gorgeous 'inherited' things in your stash?

  

 

Knitting Conundrum

Not sure what to say to that introduction. Now you've all seen my cleavage, is there anything left to share?

Yesterday I finished - ta da! - the jumper I'm knitting my husband for last Christmas. Shut up. Here's the pattern. I've knitted it in the round, and grown on the sleeves (why sew seams?). I also had to reduce the number of stitches going around the body; my gauge was correct, but when I started knitting (the smallest size) it looked like it was going to be enormous.

It's knitted in 100% Alpaca from Bendigo Woollen Mills and feels very soft and beautiful. It's a nice colour, too.

So I finished it and he tried it on and promptly complained that the neck was too high. He's got a thing about feeling clothing pressing against his throat. (Maybe he was strangled by clothing in a former life. Maybe he was Isadora Duncan!)

I'd already lowered it from its original position, since two tiny triangular gussets at the sides of the neckline don't make much of a difference to a front neck that just goes straight across from the shoulder. But not enough, it seems.

So I unpicked the collar, and was then faced with unpicking the front. Not so simple. It's bound off together with the back at the shoulders, plus I knitted on the sleeves by picking up stitches along the armhole. So unpicking the front would involve cutting the sleeves off (and grafting them back on again later). Pooh to that, says I.

Lying in bed this morning, I pondered the problem. I have decided that I will cut straight down through the centre front neck about 3 1/2 cm, keeping the side triangular gussets in place, then unpick and bind off just the stitches that need to go, in a nice curve, and somehow weave in all the ends of rows at the edges of the neck line. Then I can pick up the stitches along the neck and knit the collar as normal.

Wish me luck.

Meet the Folks

And you thought this blog was dead.

Shame on you.

Actually, shame on me. Has it really been 6 months? That's a long time. I imagine you've all given up on me by now. I seriously considered letting our poor old blog go for lack of something interesting to say, but in the end I just couldn't do it.

Instead, after much thought (and some surprisingly insistent nagging), I decided that a spot of  re-invention might be in order.

Currently on a toy-making jag, and being in a spot of bother with the 3D thing (surprise, surprise), I found myself, once again, wishing for the presence and wisdom of my sewing mentor, Kapinny (currently living interstate, to my eternal annoyance), my primary source of techinical advice for all things textile.

I will pull no punches, here. Kapinny is a bloody genius, and that's a fact. I'm yet to see something with fabric that she can't do. She can make you a wedding dress, a wonderbra, a dog-carrier, or a renaissance dinner jacket that is historically accurate in every detail.  My daughter once asked Kapinny to turn her into an Armani handbag for a school performance, and bugger me, it happened.

Over the years Kapinny and I have shared children, clothes, studios, incomes, food, friends, beds, and even the odd lover (though not actually at the same time). She is also a founding member of Poppalina and quite frankly, I'm ashamed that it didn't occur to me to ask her to share this blog earlier. This is her a few years ago, sporting an enviable cleavage:

 

So. Introductions finished. Good.

There may be the odd technical hitch.

Your patience is appreciated in advance...