Thursday, December 8, 2011

New Look 6828

About a year ago my mum gave me some of this gorgeous silk dupion. It's been stashed away, waiting for some inspiration to come my way as to what I might make of it. Well I had nothing to wear for a friends hen's party, and after breaking back into my sewing with my wedding dress adventure, I decided it was time to put that skill to good use again. I had a few ideas in mind, and I particularly like clothes with a bit of a vintage influence. Sew I decided to use New Look pattern 6824.

http://sewing.patternreview.com/cgi-bin/patterns/sewingpatterns.pl?patternid=21209

I made a little belt to go around my waist and to add a little bling!


I loved this dress so much that I made another but in a different style.



When I made these dresses I wasn't pregnant, and I was a bit slimmer. These photo's where taken at 11 weeks so you can just see a little bit of a belly ;-)

It's all about the Belly!



Ok, I'm starting to get a bit of a baby bump and clothes just aren't fitting like they should. Am I unhappy? No way! This means baby is growing well and I get to start making some brand spanking new clothes to wear
;-)  I just finished making a cute little dress out of a vintage poplin that I bought from spotlight.

http://sewing.patternreview.com/Patterns/50265
 Using pattern 6069 from NEW LOOK, I modified this dress to be a bit more maternity loving. When I cut it out I added a little more width to the front skirt piece at the top sides, and then gathered the extra material in  just under the bust to accommodate  my ever expanding belly. It worked beautifully and what you see below is the finished product.


I also added little rosettes around the front of the bodice to give it a bit more of an original flair. I learnt how to make these from my horse riding days as a kid and I would make these out of ribbon for the sides of the brow bands on the horses bridals.

Now I do really like this dress but I have already out grown it :-( But not to worry that's just a good excuse to make something new ;-)

SewNVS

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Introductions




Hello and welcome to my blog. Please sit back and have a cuppa as I introduce myself. My name is Natasha, and this is my very first blog. In fact I am completly knew to the world of blogging. Let me start by telling you a little bit about my life, or maybe just the last 12 months because they are the most interesting.


My Life has changed in more ways than I could have ever imagined in this past year. My now husband and I packed up life in NSW, and moved to Melbourne to a house we had never seen before. Our first unrented home together. Lucky for us, my husbands parents are pretty realestate savvy. We trusted them to do our buying for us and they did a fantastic job. They found us a beautiful little house of which we now call home. It's a lovley neighbourhood, with a little park at the end of our court and a reserve that is 2min walk from home, which is great for some daily exercise.
We moved to Melbourne on a nice sunny day in late July of 2010. When we first walked into our new home we knew we had our work cut out for us. The carpet would need replacing and the house smelled really damp and mouldy. The walls would need panting and the bathroom floor was covered in these weird plastic tiles that I had never imagined existed. I remember pulling up tiles in the toilet only to find some one had left a little suprise under them LOL! The joys of buying an ex rental property. We had the removalists put all out belongings in the garage and temporarily moved in with my husbands parents. Lucky for us they were very accomidating because what was meant to be one month turned into nearly five months.


We worked tirlessly for months on end, sanding, prepping, filling holes and painting. I think we could go into painting as proffessionals now!



After three months of renovating it was time to start searching for a job. Lucky for me I walked into the right place at the right time. I started working at the local health food, which was a bit of a shock to the system being back working full time when I had such a big break from it all. Nothing like jumping in the deep end to help you learn to swim again. 

Before I knew it, with our busy schedule of working and renovating, it was Christmas eve. It just sprung up out of nowhere. Our kitchen was finished being renovated and I was keen to start cooking. Call me ambitious but the first time I used my new oven was to cook a big fat turkey for Christmas Lunch. It was soooo delicious!! Lucky my knew oven was a dream to cook with.


On Boxing day I received some very sad news from my mum in NSW. My grandmother who had been sick for quiet some time had past away on Christmas night. So we drove to NSW to be with my family and to attend my grandmothers funeral. My Grandmother never asked for much but she did have one last request from me. She had asked me to sing at her funeral. Whilst it was a hard thing to do I'm grateful that I was able to fulfill her wishes.


After recovering from all the events of 2010 it was time to set some goals for 2011. My husband certainly had some goals he was ready to achieve. On Wednesday the 16th of February he took me on a romantic date featuring fine dining and a beautiful walk . We went to a beautiful winery with an amazing restaurant at Red Hill called Montalto http://www.montalto.com.au/, known for it's fantastic food and chefs hat award! They use ingredients right out of their own garden. It was just incredible!!!


After our bellies where full it was off for a walk around Arther's Seat Lookout. What an amazing view!  It was simply breathtaking. The day was squelching 30 something degrees and for some reason my husband was in a cuddly mode. I am thinking to myself I'm all sticky and after our big walk, why does he want to cuddle up when he's the one who normally avoids physical contact when it's hot weather? It's usually the other way around, I'm the one who wants hugs and kisses when it's hot and sticky LOL! Suddenly I got this funny feeling something was up. I turned to face him and got down on one knee and said to me " this view is beautiful but it's nothing compared to you" and then he asked me marry him :-D The funny part is I started nodding as soon as he got down on one knee hehe!. It was one of the happiest days of my life (the other my wedding day). We had been together for six and a half years and my dreams where finally coming true. I was going to be marrying the man of my dreams and my best friend in one.


On our way home from our beautiful my soon to be husband is already making wedding plan. He said we shouldn't wait years like others do, and that we have waited long enough! "No three months I think is long enough to plan a wedding" he said. So we set a date for Saturday the 2nd of July 2011.


What a year! Happy and sad moments all happening at once. We had moved to another state, renovated a house, started a knew jobs, lost loved ones. Now it's time to make some wedding plans. It's probably been the biggest year in my life, no make that defiantly!!


With all the stress adding up, I started freaking out a bit. I had allot of responsibility at work, wedding plans to make and we where still renovating. I had to cut back at work but even then it was still hard with my husband working full time as well. So I put in my resignation. We both decided it best for me to stay at home and try and get things in some sort of order at the house rather than stressing out at work. The house was still in such a state and with him working such longer hours it was hard for us to keep on top of all the day to day stuff. So now I have taken on the role of the stay at home wife (SAHW).


After shopping around and looking at wedding dresses, I was feeling unimpressed with what I had found. I decided to do something some people would call crazy! Make my own wedding dress! As a kid I had promised myself that one day I would make my own wedding dress. Lucky for me, my mum taught me to sew from a very young age. I was still a little rusty around the edges but I managed to some how sew it together in only three days. Mind you then it took me two months to sew all the buttons down the back to the end of the train and applique lace onto it. I am proud of myself for doing it, it's a great feeling having something unique, something you made yourself, that you can pass down through your family. It also saved a allot of money!


I found a veil in a bridal shop that I really liked but couldn't believe they wanted $135.00 dollars for it!!  I ended up making a veil pretty muck identical to it for under $30.00. I decided to do my own make-up after finding out how expensive that was too. I had experience in this area as I used to be a professional vocalist and was confident enough that I could manage my own make up. I did however have my hair done on the day. You don't want a bad hair day on your wedding day!


My two little nieces Ashley on my right and Daisy on my left where my flower girls. We decided not to have a bridal party.




On July 2nd 2011 we said our I do's to each other on a beautiful sunny day, surrounded by mostly family and a few close friends. The weather was amazing considering we'd had allot of rain and some flooding leading up to it.

VincentSmith-235



We had a beautiful honeymoon in Palm Cove, Queensland. It was10 days of bliss. Especially after freezing our but off in Melbourne for our first real winter (the coldest winter they have had for nearly 10 years). It was a balmy 25 degrees most days in Palm Cove, and we spent most of our time walking along the beach or lazing by the pool, and eating some fantastic food.

Only three months later and another knew surprise popped up on a positive pregnancy test!! And the awesome part is that our first baby is due on the 1st of July 2012, the day before our first year wedding anniversary. I couldn't be happier to be getting such a precious gift as an anniversary present.

That bring me up to date. Currently at week 10 of pregnancy. With this blog I will record my journey over the next 7 months and beyond. I will be sharing my little adventures and my favourite thing to do. I will explore what it's like to be a stay at home wife soon to be mum, and I am going to be getting down and crafty!! Making lots of baby things and a few maternity clothes as well ;-) Sew this blog will be mostly about sewing (pun intended), but I will also include some of my passion for cooking and gardening as well.

Thank you for reading my blog and being apart of my journey
SewNVS