Veggies!

I thought I would blog about something other than sewing this week, because there's been a lot of sewing posts lately. I am still working on my Alison swimsuit, but it has been a tiring effort. Everytime I have to stop and unpick something, I tend not to pick it up again for another week. My latest hitch is as pictured below...


Yes - it's lopsided! Argh! Despite carefully cutting, pinning and (I thought) stitching it evenly, it didn't work out that way. So, a little more unpicking for me.

Anyway, onto more positive things. Something excellent that we have done lately is join a fruit & veggie co-op. Basically it's a group of people who live in the same area who share the fruit & veg shopping and save money by doing so.

Just look at this delivery of goodies we got last week!



I thought I would share our model with you, so you can start up a co-op in your neighbourhood if you want. It's so great! I highly recommend it!

Firstly, you need to suss out a farmer's market in your area that sells fruit & veg in bulk. You get your best value by buying boxes of veggies and dividing them up.

You will also need to rally up 6 households in your area who are keen to join. Then put together a 6 week rotating roster of whose turn it is to go do the shopping. We started a Google group to keep track.

When it's your turn to go to the market, you spend $120 (that's $20 per household, per week) on a range of fruit, veg and herbs that are in season and look yummy! Then you take them home, divide them up, and deliver the boxes to your fellow co-op members. No money changes hands, and you only have to do fruit & veg shopping every 6 weeks. Brilliant!*

We have found that we are getting so much fruit & veg that we can barely eat it all! So we are trying out new recipes, eating more meat-free meals, and (hopefully) getting healthier.

It's a great model if you can set it in your neighbourhood.



*credit to our friends in the Chelmsford St, Newtown area that came up with the original system

Buttons

My favourite part of making tea cozies is, undoubtedly, choosing the buttons. I pour them all out of their box onto my desk and start to sift through them for the right colours. My vintage collection comes mainly from my grandma and nana's stashes, then boyfriend's mum also gifted me her button stash for Christmas. Score!


Then I start matching them up with the cozies. Look at that brilliant big red button!


Sometimes I get a bunch together and I have to choose the right combination - so hard! Because they're all vintage, sometimes they match, sometimes they don't.


And then, somehow, the perfect combination just comes together. Yay!

These are a sneak peak at some coffee plunger cozies and mug cozies that are being added to the Stitchybritt store over the next few days. If you like the look of any - be quick! They won't last!

Valentine's Pants

Wondering what I made boyfriend for Valentine's Day this year? Well, boyfriend likes to hang out around the house in track pants, but it's been so terribly hot in Sydney recently that track pants are out of the question! So I thought it would be nice to make him some simple loungey trousers.


I bought some nice light green-check gingham and decided to try the cheat's version of making trousers - by tracing his old favourite track pants on to the fabric. I literally just layed them on top of the folded fabric and drew around them with a texta. I cut them out bigger than the track pants, as I knew the gingham would have less stretch than the originals.



Miss Snork Maiden, overseeing the sewing, again

Once I had all four pieces cut out (both sides of the legs) it was very easy to sew them together. Simple folded hems, and some button holes to thread a drawstring through at the top. Obviously this was to be a surprise, so I was hoping and praying the whole time that they would fit ok.



As you can see - they fit! They only needed a little rolling up as the legs were too long, but that makes for a cute look anyway. Boyfriend is very happy and he has named them "my comfy pants".

Hope you all had a lovely Valentine's/Friend's Day (depending on which one you celebrate).

Stitchybritt makes a swimsuit

In a recent bout of heat-induced madness (it has been excruiciatingly hot in Sydney lately) I decided to have a go at sewing my own swimsuit. A few others in the crafty community were making Burdastyle's Alison swimsuit, and it does look pretty good, so I thought I would try it out.


(sewing supervisor, the Snork Maiden, on duty)

There are two reasons why I think I'm mad for trying this:
1. I have little experience sewing stretch fabrics, and
2. I never go swimming (just not a beachy person by nature)

Nevertheless I have persevered and am getting closer to an end result (which might even fit! Hooray!)



I will say, though, that the Alison pattern is troublesome to say the least. The pattern misses some important instructions and I have had to rely on some more experienced sewing peeps to help me along (many thanks Tegan, Nikki and Isabelle). If you are a beginner sewer, I probably wouldn't recommend it.

I am hoping to finish this before summer is over, so I will keep you updated!

Coffee Plunger Cozies

Hello lovely peeps! Just a quick note to let you know that I have been stitchin' away at some product development of late, and this is what I have to show for it - Coffee Plunger Cozies! These babies are now available in the Stitchybritt store.

So now it doesn't matter if you're a tea person or a coffee fan - Stitchybritt loves you anyway xxx