A piece a week – A Summer Top

May 29, 2015May 28, 2016 | poppypeach

I found at some stretch fabric at FabMo recently and I thought to make a summer top – my wardrobe is lacking cute tops these days so I am on a mission to find the perfect one. So I found this book Casual Sweet Clothes when I was shopping at Powells book store in Portland – their collection of craft books cannot be beat. This is a Japanese pattern book that has really interesting basic wardrobe pieces to wear with jeans – my utilitarian wardrobe these days with the kids. The Japanese sewing books have so many patterns in them and if I can find 5 I like then the book makes up for the cost of a pattern. To copy the patterns you have to trace them onto kraft paper or whatever paper you have available (I save the brown packing paper and iron it and it is perfect for sewing patterns). This top is very easy construction and quite fun to make and learn new stitches like blind hemming on my sewing machine! I am now on a mission to create more pieces from this super cool Japanese pattern book!

Back view of the top – lovely draped sleeve!

I added silver seam binding to the neck – what a discovery seam binding is for stretch fabrics!

Hanging out with Mack

Captured my baby girl Bella!

Last Saturday we were meeting long lost friends / neighbors of ours for a hike but as we underestimated time from our Scouting event in San Bruno to Wilder Ranch, Santa Cruz we met for brunch at Whale City Bakery in Davenport, just down the road from the scheduled hike! This place is a find for it’s bakery with all their goodies made from scratch. This eclair from their case of goodies was delicious and looking at their pastry case I could have eaten much more but I went for an omelet with an english muffin for brunch and it was perfect with their chai tea. Afterwards we wandered across Highway 1 to the beach and explored for a little while. This beach is popular for local campers – though hauling your stuff down the cliff does not look appealing to me but I am sure it will be beautiful and quiet at night with the added bonus of being free to camp!!! Anyway I took some pictures of the landscape and turned them into clothing – I just love the textures!

Amazing eclairs at Whale City Bakery in Davenport

Textured leggings with rocks and tags

Graffiti rock

Looking down into a tunnel that led to a forest of trees!

Sunday we went over to Oakland for a day trip to visit the Cat Town Cafe and have brunch at a Jamaican place down the road. It was a lovely hour with the cats up for adoption at $50 each or $75 for two with their shots and their microchip all ready to go. I love the time we spent there and the kids enjoyed themselves too. It was $10 for the hour with snacks and coffee outside the cat enclosure while you are waiting for your appointment – I really recommend booking ahead on the weekend at their website as it is very popular.

Hanging in a cat tree using Oakland Architecture

You beautiful kitty pooping rainbows!

This week at school flew by with Market day on Thursday! Market Day at our school is a day where the kids make up projects in class and sell them for pony beads. Everyone gets 2 pony beads to work their “stall” for 15 minutes for their class. It is a wonderful morning out and the theme for the 1st grade class was a cardboard arcade, inspired by the Caine’s Arcade video. This is a peacock ride that cost 3 pony beads – made from cardboard and painted by Team Peacock and rolled upon a child’s sled engineered by one of our parents to make it safe for the kiddos to ride upon! Pulling the kids around the loop was quite a workout – volunteering and exercise what a score!

Wanna ride the peacock?

A piece a Week – An orange top highlighted with yellow

April 30, 2014May 28, 2016 | poppypeach

I am posting later in the week as the weekend was a busy one with dinner parties over friends places and the Mountain View Spring Parade and to end it all a little friends birthday party! Whew no wonder I did not get any time to sit and write! This week I made a lovely summer top from a favorite pattern of mine that is a dress and I altered it to make a casual top. The fabric my sister gave me for Christmas and it is from this Sapling Textiles in Maleny, Queensland, Australia – yay!! The weather is getting warmer now so it is just perfect to wear with a skirt of pants.

The Spring Parade was a lot of fun and we got to dress up as pirates as it as a Sail into Summer theme and our school were the Pirates – what fun! My friend got this great shot of a pirate in action!!

Flying the flag for Stevenson!

At the moment I have work to do for a friend and I need to make pillows so that is taking up the time I have in my sewing room for now. I will have to find a super easy project next week to post 🙂 Here are some pictures of the top.

The orange part of the top

A close up of the fabric

The top with the highlights of yellow

A piece a Week – A Spring Tunic Top and some Silk Dyed Easter Eggs

April 22, 2014May 28, 2016 | poppypeach

A whole outfit with the top and cute vegan shoes from Vegan Wares in Melbourne

This week somehow just flew by yet again! Still I managed to finish another tunic in rayon from the book I am Cute Dresses. This time the store had just over a yard of fabric left so I just worked with that so it became a top as I cannot get away with wearing skirts just below my butt anymore! I love the way this fabric drapes as a top and I would definitely choose this type of fabric as an alternative to silk – it is way cheaper and easier to care for as well.

Above is a shot with an outfit ready for a very hot day, it is super cute with a short skirt and I just bought some red pants that would go nicely as well from Betabrand in San Francisco – once I rock out in that outfit I will have to post some pics here! They were having a great sale on the weekend where my hubby scored this awesome hoodie for just under $100. Shop Local I say!

With buttons of three this week

A close up of the fabric

I managed to get an easter activity in at the last minute as a friend of mine did this fabulous trick with silk ties and eggs. I found a tutorial and made some eggs with some silk scraps from my fabric bin. They came out looking beautiful and I know for future reference to wrap fully not quickly but time was not my friend on Friday.

Silk dyed easter eggs in a ceramic bowl I made

Yay!! Happy to have found eggs left by the easter bunny in the garden!

A piece a Week – A cross back top for the summer, Cotton Candy!

March 10, 2014May 28, 2016 | poppypeach

I have this stash of fabric that I just buy not knowing what I am going to make with it, so I finally that I design a pattern from a little top of Holly’s that I just loved. I enlarged the pattern pieces and made a fabric version from the paper that I could modify on my body which I used to transfer back to the pattern pieces I had made and it turns out for me that this is a great way to make a custom pattern!

The fabric I found was from my trip to Portland last year to this amazing fabric store called the Mill End Store. I had such a fun time finding all these treasures from back in the day – the owners had scored a collection of fabrics from as far back as the 1950’s that I could not resist! The justification was I will never see fabric like this again so it has to go home with me 🙂

So the cross back top was a fun and challenging project to make as I had to use lining as the fabric was see-through. After I decided to use lining then came the challenge of sewing the straps together with the seam on the inside. Lucky that I had made bags that are of a similar design and I just crossed the straps at the back and with a bit of unpicking and resewing they came together. There is no zip or buttons on this top as it just crosses at the back and it is flowing. The only thing I will look at for the next version is not to cut the neck too wide as it just sits on the shoulder and may fall down, still I think it looks cute the way it balances on edge of the shoulder.

This is definitely designed for a really hot day as there is lots of space to breathe and you can never have enough cute tops to go with the utilitarian jeans that mammas wear around the traps. I will have to see how this goes with a skirt? Still the challenge of making a pattern from scratch and designing it to customize me was something that I have been missing in my sewing for a while – looks like in future posts I will be playing a bit more with missing pieces for my spring/summer wardrobe!

Flowers outside my craft room

The flowers for the tree above are just so beautiful in the Spring and remind me of fairy floss or what is it called here cotton candy. That’s a great name for the top that I made as the neon of the check fabric against all the other pastels really made this fabric pop. The lining of the top is a vintage feed bag cotton that is of such an incredible quality. They made a perfect pair!