New Hobby - Model Airplanes

Or in this case, model scooter replicas of airplanes.

Don't believe me?

Image credit

This is the exact kit I have. Hilarious! Andrew bought it for my birthday. The model shop guys were begging him to take it away. Apparently it's been sitting there for years.

The kit comes with three wee airplane scooter guys. One is straight, the other two are leaning to each side.

Firstly you assemble and paint the scooter with a (not so) steady hand.

Then you put the airplane base around the scooter.

Oh, and I also painted a dude!

Sorry for blurriness. Gee, what a bad pic.

This is about as much as I've done so far. You can also leave the little dudes out and put a canopy of the scooter instead. Haha! Adorable!

I'm pretty excited about these guys. I had a brief stint with the Lord of the Rings tabletop game, but I kind of only enjoyed painting the things. I wasn't very good at the game. These models don't really have any game associated with them, unless you include flying them around making 'broom-broom-neeeooowww' noises.

Simplicity 2727 (1958)

Simplicity 2727 is an adorable jacket plus dress combo from 1958. The jacket features kimono sleeves and six buttons, while the dress features princess lines, side panels, and a darling little bow.

I wish I could remember what the fabric I used was. Both were cotton blends, and the dress material had a bit of stretch to it, and on the right side had an interesting diagonal weave.

I don't have any photos from when I was making the outfit, unfortunately. Mainly because I started sewing about three and a half weeks before the wedding!

I added belt carriers to the dress as the belt flopped down a bit. I didn't want to attach it too tightly, or else the fabric would bunch too much.

This was also the first time I've made a jacket! I used the dress fabric for the lining, and I happened to have some very pretty buttons lying around.

This was definitely a big challenge for me. The dress wasn't as simple a pattern as I thought - the side panels were a particularly difficult learning curve. However (with the coaxing of Louella) I made toiles for both the jacket and dress, and remade them where necessary. It is a crucial part of making the garment, I've discovered!

I am very pleased with the jacket. It is comfortable and warm, and fits well. The dress has a lot of sewing flaws, but I was in such a rush I couldn't fix them!

All an all an enjoyable project, minus the stress of making it in a short time.

On Learning Languages

I started learning Chinese at the beginning of this year, if I recall correctly. When you choose a language to learn, one might not think that a language as far removed from your mother tongue as it can get would be the best choice.

However, the fact that the language is so very different, I feel like I'm starting from a clean slate, and there's very little from my native English that can interfere with the almost grammar-less and tonal Chinese.

Learning Chinese is particularly enjoyable! I love learning the pronunciation, and the tones make it sound like you are singing as you speak. The abruptness and almost monosyllabic nature of it makes commands and short phrases easy to say quite quickly. For example, 不要 (Bùyào) or "don't want" can be said very, very quickly when one of your friends is trying to make you eat something you really hate! 不要不要不要不要不要! Compared with the contortions your tongue has to perform when speaking English quickly, it is most refreshing.

Character writing and reading is particularly challenging, but with each attempt at reading I become more and more fluid with my comprehension. Chinese grammar is incredibly different from English, and turns-of-phrase and the "way you just say things" makes translation from Chinese difficult, even with beginner texts.

Writing is a whole different story. Recognising a character is one thing, but reproducing it is another. Stroke order and proportion of the character are very important in making it legible.

Learning Chinese also opens you up to the world of Chinese and Taiwanese drama! I love the period dramas (eg, 还珠格格), but I try to watch some modern ones every now and then as the language is much more applicable and less 成语-filled.

Resources

• Chinese Grammar Wiki - fantastic resource for Chinese grammar points, organised in different levels (beginner to advanced)
• Memrise - great for learning new characters
• Mandaread - collection of articles and stories from around the internet with a fantastic translation/reading aid tool built in to the site
• Chinese Reading Practice - beginner to advanced texts with great translation and reading aid tools
• FluentU  - while no longer completely free, the subtitle overlay and subsequent vocabulary study from FluentU's videos is a fantastic learning tool
• Viki - Taiwanese and Chinese drama source ;)
• ZhongWen Popup Dictionary - a neat little Chrome extension that you can switch on and hover your cursor over unfamiliar characters while you browse the innernets

Alas, my language learning adventures are not limited to Chinese. At the coaxing of one of my friends, I've started learning German. From a language as far removed from English as it gets to one that is almost too similar! German grammar is very close to English (both being Germanic languages makes this an obvious point), except for the addition of gendered nouns and verb conjugations, that is. German is incredibly phonetic, and has a Roman alphabet to boot (shock!), so reading something like "Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen" is not as far off a dream as reading "哈利·波特与魔法石".

German learning resources are very easy to find, but my favourite by far has been Duolingo. An interactive language-learning tutor and game website, I think I would call it. Very soon they will have more languages available. I'm crossing my fingers for Chinese!

再见 and Auf Wiedersehen!

Project Update - September

Long time no post! Jeez I'm bad.

Here's a rundown of my latest crochet projects.

 A pair of bobble mittens! These are super adorable, and the cotton is very comfortable to wear.

A Shaun the Sheep toy for my wee niece Mishka.

As for sewing, I'm making a pair of shorts using this tutorial. I'll make a dedicated post soon!

I've also been invited to a wedding (eeee)! I've settled on this pattern. I haven't decided on fabric yet, so I'll make a post once I get all that sorted.

Cross-Stitch - It's a bird!

Hooray, you can actually tell what this thing is now!

Next up will be the nest - the most daunting part, I think. Probably because the colours of the nest are so similar.

First Post

Grumpy Cat Crochet Beanie

I've been waiting a little while to post this, because it's a present for my friend Louella's birthday.

It's a grumpy cat beanie!

I used this pattern for the actual hat, and made up the rest. Bonus - it's actually comfy! And she loved it. :)

First Try at Cross Stitch

I bought a cross stitch kit from the internet a while ago, and finally go started on it yesterday. The kit came with all the floss, so I got to use my organiser that came with floss-storers.

Can't really tell what it is yet! It's a lot larger than I thought it would be, so this will be quite the project.

Painting Finished!

It's done!!!

Well, I finished it a little while ago, actually. Just never got around to posting an update. It's now hanging up in the lounge.

Birds!

My flatmate bought a sweet little birdhouse a little while ago. Today the birds finally got brave enough to eat the bird feed!

Creeper Crochet Blanket - Complete

Talk about a long haul! I started this project in October of 2011. It has nearly been a year and a half!

I'm very happy with the results. Afghan blankets take a lot of effort to make, it turns out.

I cheated with the last row - I couldn't find any more aqua so I just replaced the aqua square with the light green.

The border uses this crochet puff stitch edging tutorial, and turned out pretty good. I was going to use black, but I figured it would look to harsh so opted for the dark green instead. Turns out it was a good decision as the puff stitch uses a lot of yarn, and I didn't really have that much black.

I'm pretty excited to test it out when the weather gets a little colder!

A Quaint Garden

I've always wanted to plant a herb garden, and today I did!

My flatmate Scott bought a small greenhouse recently, and had planted about six chilli plants in it.

Six chilli plants and a little herb garden

My herb garden consists of coriander, thyme, chives, and parsley.

It will be so handy to have fresh parsley and coriander on hand all the time! Hopefully I can also make some pesto with the basil. Yum!

Low Carb Maple and Walnut Ice-Cream

I've been hankering for ice-cream lately. It's Summer, and it's hot, and all I want apart from to sit on the deck all day is some gosh-darn ice-cream!

I was initially going to make Keto mint choc chip ice-cream courtesy of Caveman Keto, but then my mind wandered to the sugar-free maple syrup I had sitting in the pantry.

This maple syrup uses Sucralose. After a bit of digging, I found that Sucralose produces pretty much no insulin/blood glucose spike.

Source

That's good enough for me!

I then found a Maple and Walnut Ice Cream recipe. Note how there is no extra sugar - the sweetness comes from the maple syrup. I prepared the custard as per the instructions. I couldn't resist taste-testing it along the way (more than a few times, I'll admit).

However, I still had a conundrum that needed solving. I had no ice-cream maker! A quick Google search led me to David leBovitz' freeze-and-stir method.

This method takes a long time, and it hadn't reached the right consistency when I wanted to go to bed. So the final result was a little icy, but still delicious! I would compare it to store-bought maple walnut ice-cream. Except, sugar free!

Yum!

Mint Seersucker Dress - Hemming

Part One • Part Two

So after buying some extra yardage, I cut out the rest of the skirt sections. Instead of three sections, I cut four, so that I could easily insert the side pocket.

Here's the finished bodice:

I think the bust it still a little off. I'm probably going to tack down the facings as they are only slip-stitched to each other.

So the part that has been the most tedious of this dress has been the hemming. Four metres of bias binding, then four metres of hand-stitched slip-stitching. It took about six hours all up...I don't think I'm even exaggerating.

The good part is it looks neat, so I'm pretty proud.

I didn't have any cream binding left, so I used a dark green that I had left over from the Butterick 50s Dress.

I love pockets in dresses, so I added one!

A technique I've used a lot in this dress is stay-stitching, which keeps the inner fabric peeking up and showing on the outside. I used it on the pocket, neckline, and arm holes. The pocket looks good, but the opening is too large. I should be able to fix this fairly easily by just sewing in the right spot.

I have actually gathered the skirt (that also took forever) and sewn it to the bodice, but it needs tidying up. The gathering stitch is peeking through in one spot, and a bit of gathering got caught awkwardly so looks off. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of this part!

There's not much left to do, apart from finishing a few bits and pieces, sewing in the zipper, and stabilising the waist.

[META] New Blog Design

Well, it's finally done!

Once I figured out that you only have to do all the complicated stuff if you want your blog theme to be compatible with every single widget, I managed to churn this out in about a week.

It looks a lot more appropriate for the content!

I have to add a home button or breadcrumbs or something, the usability is not too flash.

Needlebook and New Bits and Bobs

I was getting annoyed with the current storage solution for my sewing needles: the original packaging. I had no idea how to store them and ended up stumbling upon a concept called a "needlebook" - basically a fabric and felt wallet in which you store needles.

I decided to make my own one based loosely on this needlebook pattern by Ever Kelly.

I picked up some fat quarters when I was out shopping yesterday and chose a cute vine pattern to use. From my stash of buttons I chose a cream one little triangle indents.

This needlebook would not have taken so long if I had focused more when attaching the snaps. Before sewing the whole thing together I attached the two snaps. After turning the piece, I realised the snap was on the wrong side! Durr!

I then proceeded to sew the thing on upside down (sigh). I finally got it right on the third go, though.

While I didn't have felt, I had some wool scraps lying around that did the trick. I cut out a few squares and sewed them on to a fabric backing.

Then I had my first go at embroidery! Eek! It was so fun that I've decided to look into more techniques, and hopefully be able to add little pieces to the clothes I make in the future.

I used some interfacing for the back piece and the tab to give it some stability. Along with the topstitching, I stitched two lines down the middle to simulate a spine.

This is far better than keeping the plastic packets or losing them in pin cushions!

A gift I got for Christmas was a $50 Spotlight voucher (thanks Chris!) so I put it to use yesterday. $68 worth of supplies for $18 - not bad at all!

I bought a few embroidery skeins. There were so many colours - I was overwhelmed! I also re-purposed a body lotion container to hold all of my thread.

Along with the embroidery, I bought:

• Bobbins with a plastic container
• A small embroidery hoop
• A tool for stamping rivets (plus some rivets)
• Beeswax
• Some fat quarters
• White elastic
• Clear elastic
• Black millenary elastic
• A large, clear ruler 

Basically all the things I've been thinking about buying, but never have because I didn't really need them. All except for the clear ruler which has proved invaluable already!

Mint Seersucker Dress

I was spending the day with Louella recently and re-discovered her stash of vintage sewing patterns. I found one in my size and she let me borrow it. We spent the rest of the afternoon at Whitecliffe mocking up a toile. It needed a few adjustments, mainly along the bust, and the waist was too small. The waist was easy to fix; the bust, not so much. I busted out my Vogue Sewing book which has a heap of helpful pattern adjustment tutorials.

After making the adjustments, I went fabric shopping (personally my favourite part!).

I found some delicious mint seersucker and bought it right away! I also got some off-white bias binding and various other notions. It wasn't until I got home that I realised that this will be the third green dress I've made, and I've only made three dresses! I really need to branch out.

I cut everything out using the adjusted pattern pieces. This stuff was really hard to draw on with the tailor's chalk. It is slightly stretchy, and the chalk doesn't transfer very well to the fabric. 

I pulled out a fabric remnant to use for an in-seam pocket that I can hopefully just chuck in there. I love pockets in dresses!

This is going to be a dress where I do everything properly. No cutting corners or being lazy, and making sure to plan where everything is going to go before starting to sew. The toile helped a lot in that I knew how to sew it before I used the fashion fabric.

This probably sounds bad, but it completely blew my mind when Louella informed me you can finish seams before you actually sew them! Before sewing the bodice together, I bias-bound the edges. This helps avoid the awkward binding into seam intersections that was happening on the last couple of dresses.

Seams that weren't really going to be seen were zig-zagged (and hopefully correctly). I bound the outside of the facing because I love binding things.

I finished the bodice section in a couple of days, then started cutting out the skirt sections. There are four, and they are about one metre squared. I managed to cut out three, then realised I only had half a metre left! I figured I had converted the yardage incorrectly to metres, or used the wrong yardage altogether. While the bodice has been completed for a while, I only managed to grab the rest of the fabric before Christmas. Soon I'll get started on the skirt, and I'll be able to show you the finished dress!

Christmas and Mishka's Capelet

My last post was a documentation of the capelet I made for my niece, Mishka. Christmas has been and gone and the capelet was well received! She wore it until she started getting grumpy (as toddlers do).

I'm happy to say that it fit well, despite it looking a little askew in the photo. After an adjustment it sat correctly and looked pretty darn cute!

Christmas also meant a lot of baking, cooking, and crochet. I left everything to the last minute (as you do) so didn't manage to make all of my family presents. However, the baking turned out spectacular!

Cupcakes with buttercream icing

Using my birthday present (the cupcake stand),
the cupcakes and ginger slice were
presented beautifully.

My mum (who knows me too well!) bought me an amazing companion cube cookie jar! Naturally I had to make cookies to fill it up with, so I took the opportunity to use a birthday present I got a while ago - a cookie making set with recipe book and cookie cutters. I made some passionfruit snowmen with little apricot noses. Too cute, and sooo tasty! Normally I find cookies made to be cut out to taste bland and awful, but the recipes in the book are far from it.

Weighted companion cube - weighted with cookies!

Dried apricot makes a rather cute snowman nose

Yum!

Ah, I almost forgot (how could I?)! My favourite gift was a Kindle from my boyfriend! It has pretty much increased my time spent reading about 200%, plus I'll get the opportunity to make a kindle case!