Christmas

We spend Christmas day with relations.  Here are some photos.  Christmas day was beautiful, sunny and not too hot, with a lovely blue sky.

There was very little wind and the reflections were great.

There was a stunning sunset.  It was splendid to stand in a cool paddock and photograph the sunset.

 
We celebrated Christmas on Boxing Day.  The cheese platter was delicious!

More on the blue and red dress soon.

Twas the night before Christmas.....

.....and I was running hopelessly late, as usual!  I only started Grandma's nightdress on Christmas Eve and finished it at about 9.30 that night, with a break from 1.30 - 6.30 for work.  I worked from KWIK SEW's Lingerie book, making a basic gathered night gown with a lined yoke.  Lined yokes are slightly more work than single yokes but they look much nicer!  Here are some pictures.

My sister received this lovely cameo that she spotted when she came into work last Saturday.  It's on a sterling silver chain.

Her one desire has been an Elvis Presley pencil case.  I used the 306, I gave it a break after that, any more and it could have found its way out the window!  I'm using the Necchi now.

I wore my Rose pinafore with the old tap shoes at Christmas.

I received a lot of dress patterns for Christmas.  I've already started making one.
Here is the pattern, I'm making view C in a size 8

Sorry about the angle of the photo!

Here is the material

Unfortunately there are a lot of faults in the dyeing of this material and one of them has found its way to almost centre front.  It's not hugely noticeable but it is annoying!

I'm sewing the dress on the Necchi Supernova Ultra Mark 2, a beautiful, Italian made machine.  Sadly we don't have any cams for it but it makes a lovely stitch.

Update

I can't get a bearing off the 206 motor at the moment.  It is in pieces at the moment though.  Pictures to follow.

This is the actual machine, set in its table.  I think it was made in Scotland in 1940 but I can't quite remember, I'll have to check.

It has a fabulous knee lift presser foot which is very useful.

The motor is 1/4 horsepower and mounted underneath the table.

Here are some pictures of the dismantling process.

Firstly I disconnected the electrical wires to the motor.

Then I unlooped the middle metal band, it just clipped down.

The ends then prise off, I'm not all that sure it had been cleaned recently.

Taping a shaped piece of cardboard to the vacuum cleaner nozzle worked very well for vacuuming it clean

After a thorough vacuuming

From the side.

More pictures to follow in the next post and some Christmas photos as well.

Bye-Bye Baby.....For a little While

I haven't completely disappeared......  I've been working on my 206's motor.  It has a bearing.  Quite a few actually but one of them is a naughty bearing.  It is my go-to machine because of its beautiful industrial table.  Its sister, the 306, is getting a work-out at the moment.  Blogger is refusing to let me upload photos tonight.

Rose Pinafore Dress

The completed rose pinafore.  From the front.

The dress has 4 darts in the front and a centre front seam.  There are gathers just under the bust.

From the back.

I tried to match the print across the zip and I hand-stitched the zip in place so that the focus is entirely on the print.

The bodice is lined but the skirt isn't.

I've also made my poor long-suffering overlocker a cover.

And I've washed some material.

I'm intending to make a  skirt out of the tartan.

My friend B wants a shirt out of this for Christmas.  As B is approximately a size 14-16 and all my patterns are in sizes 8-12 this is going to be interesting!

Weekend

Some photographs from Sunday.

The lighting wasn't overly good sadly!

Mother and baby.  They are those funny sheep that don't need shearing.  They shed their coat as can be seen by the mother's raggedy appearance.

The beautiful Red-Back Spider.  Deadly but beautiful.

And a stunning sunset.

Outings

This week I have spent out more than anything I think.  Work Monday, today, tomorrow and Saturday, college Tuesday and tomorrow and I'm going out with a friend on Friday.  The rose pinafore dress is now finished, along with the spotty skirt.  The patterns are shown below.

I'm wearing the pinafore tomorrow and needed some suitable shoes.  I found these tap shoes at an op-shop and have taken the taps off.  Tap shoes are lovely!!

On the weekend we went to see the sand sculptures at the beach. 

There should be some more interesting posts soon!