Teapots, dresses and cake

September in Wellington can be a rather interesting month. Start of spring – lovely days, warmer weather, bitterly cold Southerly gales, heaps of rain. And often the entire lot in the space of a day.

Which makes it the perfect time to plan inside activities with friends, such as high tea. 😉

(And yes, it was rainy and windy outside. Perfect weather to get dressed up, eat small treats and drink pots of tea while chatting about sewing.)

I’d bought a discount voucher off one of those daily deal sites for a cute little retro-themed cafe that specialises in high teas. (I admit it – I find it hard to resist deals for high tea. I really enjoy taking time out to sit and chat with friends over cups of tea, and turning it into an “occasion” such as high tea makes it a lot easier to commit to finding time for it.)

It was a very lovely way to spend a couple of hours on a rainy Spring day. The food was (as always) delicious, the tea plentiful, and the company fantastic and inspiring. (Gotta love hanging out with other sewing people – I always come away with even more things I want to make!)

And since I had my camera there (for garment photos afterwards), here’s a bunch of photos from the cafe….

High Tea at Logan Brown

It may have been a while, but my plan to experience and review all the High Tea places around Wellington continues!

Today, I caught up with the lovely Mel and Nikki to get some photos for our blogs (so, so much more fun getting photos with other sewing bloggers!). And since it’s hungry work running around, posing, and shimmying into new garments half-hidden by trees in public parks (um, yeah. Anyone else do that? *cough*), we rounded off the afternoon by going for High Tea at Logan Brown.

I’d never been into Logan Brown before, but oh boy, you can’t live in Wellington and not hear about it. It’s a bit of an institution around here – one of the classiest/most expensive restaurants in Wellington, and it’s been around for years. The food is supposedly divine. (One day I may get there for dinner and experience this myself. One day….)

Plus, it turns out they do High Tea on Saturday afternoons. Yay! Perfect excuse to wander along and check the place out! (With a pre-booking, ‘natch.)

In we walked and were promptly greeted by a friendly staff member who showed us to our table (while another staff member immediately took over her position at the greeting desk – very smooth and efficient, I was well impressed!). The table was already set for three, with snowy white linen, cake forks, and blue-and-white tea cups and plates. Glasses of water quickly arrived. (I’ll say this for them – the service is fantastic.)

We were given the option of three different High Teas – the classic one (treats and a pot of tea), the deluxe (plus either a glass of bubbly or a cocktail (or mocktail) from their tasty looking menu), or the extravagant one (complete with a glass of proper champagne). We all went for the deluxe one – Mel and Nikki choosing a glass of bubbly, and me going for one of the two mocktails – I went for the one with raspberry and mint and Limonata (or whatever it’s called). Which, by the way, was extremely tasty. It had real raspberries crushed up in it, wedges of lime at both top and bottom, and a great tart-sweet taste.

They let us enjoy our drinks for a while, before approaching to see if we were ready for the treats to be bought out. (After all the outfit-photographing, oh yeah, we were ready for food!)

A three-tier plate of tasty treats soon arrived, along with a side dish of three little shot glasses, and our individual pots of tea.

And very tasty treats they were, too! A good mix of sweet and savoury, a good quantity, and an interesting combination of unusual and classic.

First, the savouries: sandwiches with cucumber, rocket, truffles and something else. Very tasty. Mini venison pies with a potato top. And a surprising and amazingly tasty little dish of some sort of fluffy cheese, battered and deep fried so it was all melted inside, topped with some sort of slightly spicy mayonnaise.

Plate two: orange and date scones with whipped cream and raspberry jam, and mini afghans with chocolate ganache icing.

Plate three: salted caramel peanut slice. And oh! That caramel! It was proper caramel, the soft and chewy sort that sticks your teeth together and takes ages to eat, while you enjoy every moment. And the raspberry lammingtons – seeped in good, real raspberry jam.

And to finish off: chocolate shots, with whipped cream, ruby red grapefruit cubes, and caramel cornflakes.

As an added bonus, they topped our tea up for us so we could sit there and enjoy another cup or two before we headed off home again.

All up, I’d recommend Logan Brown for High Tea. It’s decent value for money ($35 per person for the classic high tea, $45 per person for the deluxe one), the service is fantastic and at just the right level of attentive (they discretely leave you alone yet manage to appear just before you realise you want something), the food is fantastic and there’s a good quantity of it – enough to leave you feeling satisfied without being overly full.

Plus, it’s a rather interesting venue. Very high ceiling, in fact the room is probably nearly as high as it is square. They’ve done interesting things with the space to make every table feel private and comfortable, and there is rather random art work dotted all around.

Unlike a lot of other High Tea venues, it’s actually quite a masculine setting, which makes for a change. (I must admit I have a bit of a penchant for the girly venues though, like Marthas Pantry and Hippopotamus.) Idea for dressing up ‘classy’ rather than ‘vintage’. 😉

Floaty Floral Tanias

Hey, check it out! I made a skirt!

Or did I….

Nope, that’s right. They’re culottes!

Megan Nielsen‘s Tania Culottes to be precise.

Now, I must admit that ordinarily this pattern wouldn’t interest me. But, well, February was the Smarty Pants challenge over on The Monthly Stitch. And a couple of the girls were making the Tania’s for it. And the next thing I knew, there was a meet-up planned, with a trip to the Newtown fair, all wearing Tania culottes. What can I say? I kinda had to make a pair and join in the fun!

Yep, that’s five of us, all wearing Tanias. From left to right: Nikki, Emma, me, Mel, and Jen.

That wasn’t all of us though – we also had a remote participant – Mel’s sister Tania! (Tania doesn’t have a blog (yet!) but she makes some pretty fabulous jewellery. Both her and Mel are wearing it in these pics.)

Tania

So much fun making the same pattern and wearing it out together! And the fair was awesome – we got to eat hot dogs and roti and fudge and spend far too much money on jewellery and dance to the Batucada drum troupe.

Want to get a better look at everyone’s Tania’s? Here you go:

Jen

Mel

(Mel’s blog post about her Tanias can be found here.)

Nikki

(Nikki’s blog post about her Tanias can be found here.)

Emma and I (plus toddlers on our backs)

I made my pair up in a soft cotton – white with a pink and blue floral design on it. (If it looks familiar, it’s because I also used it for this dress over here. The Tania’s took the last of it though!)

This is such a fun, easy pattern to make up. Only four pieces, and nothing complicated at all. There’s a rather ingenious way of doing things at the centre front and back – the fabric is pleated and joined so that it looks like a box pleat, which neatly conceals the centre seams and hides that they’re culottes.

And very full culottes they are, too! There’s pretty much a circle skirt around each leg. (Admission: I may have accidently put both of my legs into the one leg hole when I first tried them on, and wondered why I couldn’t get them up. Yeah, the legs are that wide it’s rather easy to do!)

I cut out the size M. However, this pattern is (extremely!) super short, so I used the XL hem length and then added another 13cm of length on top of that. And next time I’d probably add a couple more cm on top of that….

The other adjustment I made was to add an in-seam side pocket on the side that doesn’t have the invisible zip fastening. Coz, you know. Pockets are awesome. I put it a bit further down that usual, to make sure that when I carry (heaps of) things, it won’t spoil the line of the culottes.

There’s one other adjustment I’d make next time – I found the crotch on these to be a bit higher than I was expecting (and, truth be told, a bit higher than is fully comfortable when sitting down!) and had to lower it. Next time, I’ll take it down a couple of centimetres, since they’re culottes I don’t think it needs to be that close to the body. (Definitely something to watch out for if you’re lining them, as it’ll be even higher on lining pieces!)

But yes, overall this pattern was a win! Fast, easy and fun to make, and fun to wear as well. 🙂

Since it proved rather difficult to get decent photos in the crowd at the fair, Jen and I took the Little Guy to one of our local playgrounds to get some other shots. Where he proceeded to demonstrate new-and-improved climbing skills and lack of fear by going as high as he could, running across the swing bridge, and hurtling down slides. Eek!!!

And photo-bombing at every opportunity….

Rock-a-birdy Bleuet

A month or two back, the lovely ladies of the Wellington Sewing Bloggers Network (WSBN) were debating – what will our next self-set sewalong challenge be? We put it to vote, and the winner was – making something using a Deer&Doe pattern!

And since we were using Deer&Doe patterns, we figured we may as well head to where the deer were for a photo shoot, so decided on a day trip to Staglands, a family animal park just outside of Wellington. (Not that any of us had been there before, but we figured that with a name like ‘Staglands’, the chance of there being deer there was quite high. Plus, we were somewhat curious as to what it was like!)

So last weekend, a few of us drove along a narrow, windy, steep, surrounded-by-native-bush road, being deafened by the sound of cicadas, until we reached Staglands tucked away in it’s valley. And oh my, was it worth the trip! We spent all afternoon there, and didn’t even get to see everything. It’s set up so well – lots of zones, lots of different animals to meet and feed and watch. Heaps of native bush, creeks and streams and bridges. And a Secret Garden with rabbits running around to pet!

And of course, some deer, too. 🙂

But anyway, I guess you want to hear about what we made, right? Well, would you believe it – the four of us that turned up wearing Deer&Doe creations all made the same thing! The Bleuet dress. So we got to roam around the park in a pack of matching dresses. 😉

(From left-right: Nikki, me, Mel and Jen.)

I made my Bleuet out of a stretch denim. (Admittedly, I would have preferred it not to be stretch, but that’s what I had to hand. And I’ve long been wanting a denim shirt dress, because I found these awesome swallow iron-on embroidered patches at a store a while back, and they’ve been needing me to make them a denim shirt dress for them to live on. So a denim Bleuet it was to be!)

Deer&Doe – Bleuet dress pattern

Just because it was fun, I used the reverse side of the denim for contrast – on the collar (although I used the ‘outer’ side for the inside collar band, for contrast on the contrast, haha!), the bow, and the sleeve cuffs. The original plan was to use pearl snap fasteners, but I’m trying to be very good and not buy more stuff when I have so much already, so I went digging through my stash and unearthed enough red snap fasteners to use down the front. So, red fasteners it became!

I figure it’s got a bit of a ‘rockabilly’ look to it, what with shirt dress, denim, swallows, and red. Don’t ya think?

And because all dresses should have pockets, I added pockets to the centre side panels. Nice, deep ones, good for carrying things.

My little sis’ made a Bleuet too – we spent all of Saturday sewing together, getting them finished in time for the outing. I used some of the scraps of her (covered with birds) Bleuet for the pocket lining in mine – check it out! More birds!!

Changes I made:

• Lengthened the skirt by 15.5cm
• Added pockets to the centre side panels (I’ve written a tutorial on how I did this in case anyone is interested in how to do this)
• Did a super-dodgy small bust adjustment (SBA) by shaving 1cm off the bust curve of the side front (don’t try this at home, kids!)
• Only put interfacing on one side of the collar and collar stand (I figured with a heavy fabric, it didn’t need more than that)

This was my first experience sewing up a Deer&Doe pattern, and I must admit it was a bit mixed. Things I loved – the packaging and booklet are super cute, the language is friendly and engaging, the design is adorable (seriously – that bow is just so cute!!), and the pattern paper is nice and thick, really easy to trace and work with. Oh, and the bow is not only super-cute, but also made in a rather fun and easy way. 🙂

Things I didn’t love to much – the instructions were a bit odd at times. They don’t include cutting the interfacing in the cutting layout, so you have to hunt through the instructions to figure out what bits you need to cut – not so good when you want to do all the prep in one go as it’s very easy to miss things. Also, I felt they ask for too much interfacing – usually only one side of the collar and collar stand gets interfaced (if I remember correctly anyway – I’m now doubting all others I’ve made in the past, oops!), rather than both. I don’t feel that the sleeve cuff needs interfacing either, since it’s essentially folded in four and is therefore quite sturdy and strong. Also, the instructions for attaching the collar and stand are just plain weird – not clear at all, and what they seem to be asking you to do is a heck of a lot harder than it needs to be, with lots of room for having to unpick and resew things due to things not 100% lining up. (Same with attaching the sleeve cuff, for that matter).

So yeah. The pattern itself I like, but I do feel that the instructions made it harder than it needed to be.

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out though. The sleeve cuffs are a little bit tighter than I would have liked (I’ll extend the sleeve cuff width by about 3cm next time so they’re not so constricting), and I’m not 100% certain I like it the length I’ve ended up with, but still I am rather fond of it and I suspect it’s going to be getting a lot of wear, especially in weekends. 🙂

Oh, and we got to meet, and feed, lots of animals!

My Little Guy (and my Bigger Guy) both came along too and really enjoyed themselves. Such a fun day all around! 🙂

Archways and undergrowth

Continuing on the Papercut love, here’s another Papercut make just for you.

That’s right, it’s the Ensis tee!

After we became accidental twinsies with our Bellatrix blazers, the lovely Mel and I thought it would be fun to carry on that idea and be Ensis twinsies, too!

And also use it as an excuse to go to random spots around Wellington and take photos together, just for the fun of it.

(And oh my, was it a fun way to spend the morning! Well over 300 photos, we may have gotten a little trigger-happy with all the fun spots to get shots, and the enjoyment of a) having someone with you who ‘gets’ why you’re taking photos, and b) not feeling like a complete idiot standing by yourself with a timer. Seriously, you guys who do the timer thing, I take my hat off to you – I am far far to shy to do that! 😦 )

We went for a wander up part of the Southern Walkway to Truby King Gardens. (A favourite photo/walk spot of mine – so overgrown and shabby and lovely.) Mel had never been there before so I got to introduce her to the little archways and the seats and the tumbling-down brick walls.

Our walk was punctuated by happy exclamations of “oh! There’s a log with ferns all around it! Let’s stand there!” and “check it out – a stump in a clearing, like a mini stage!”, followed by us taking turns dancing around and pulling odd poses just for the heck of it.

Culminating in a bunch of “twinsie Ensis tee” shots, oh yeah! (And a conversation with a couple of ladies who wandered by and were a bit bemused by our antics, haha!)

All up, a great way to spend a weekend – make a top on Saturday, go for a walk on Sunday with a friend for photos. 😀

So, the tee….

Quite frankly, I am now in love with this pattern. It’s super-fast to make up, you can use up little bits of fabric for the top contrast panel, and I can see lots of variation possibilities. The line between the two panels ends at a flattering spot, and the shirt is long enough to not worry about showing skin when you sit down (even for us taller girls!). It’s a good cut, too – not too tight, not too loose. The only change I made was shortening the sleeves for a summer tee.

I have a couple more of these planned already – one in black and silver with a lower neckline to wear tucked in to skirts for work – I think the contrast panel with a dressier fabric would translate quite well into office wear, we’ll see how that goes. I’m also thinking of using the Ensis pattern for a sweatshirt by cutting a size bigger and using the version with cuffed sleeves and hem. Could be cute, yes?

The entire thing was stitched up using my trusty four-thread overlocker, gosh I love that thing, makes things so fast and the coverstitch is great. Me and my overlocker, we’ve got a little love affair going on. (Complete with occasional tiffs where it throughs it’s toys out of the cot for no reason at all. Huh.)

The Facts

Pattern: Ensis tee from Papercut
Fabric: pink/navy stripe cotton knit from Levana; grey marle cotton/synthetic blend knit no idea it’s been in my stash for a while
Size cut: a straight XS
Alterations made: sleeves shortened to summer length
Verdict? Loving this far more than I thought I would! (Even though the pink stripe makes me feel like a bit of an 80’s throwback, haha!) I can see this getting a lot of use, and have plans for more already, maybe even this weekend….

And also – taking photos with another sewing-blogger is HEAPS OF FUN!!!! 😀

Strawberry Tiramisu

Everyone, I’d like you to meet my amazing, lovely, talented and gorgeous friend-who’s-like-a-sister: Agi.

Agi and her family are the reason we head over to Hungary every few years. I stayed with her family as an AFS exchange student, back when I was 18. Such an amazing year – I met lots of lovely people, made great friends, experienced another culture, and saw a totally different part of the world. Agi and her family are fantastic, and even though I only get to see them every few years, they’re such an important part of my life. Agi and I are the same age, so I kind of think of her as another sister.

So our recent big trip was all about going over to see them and introduce our little guy to them. (All the other places we went were just opportunity visits, since we were around those places anyway. 😉 )

Since I’ve been enjoying wearing my Raspberry Tiramisu dress a lot, I thought I’d make one for Agi as well. She lives on a farm and has a young daughter, so I figure easy-wash/easy-wear things are a good choice. (I know they are for me these days, with our young lad!)

After going on a huge hunt through my stash, I pulled out this gorgeous dark pink mid-weight tshirting, which I thought would look lovely with Agi’s skin tone.

Just like the last two, this Tiramisu was nice and easy to whip up. I did the entire lot using my overlocker – four-thread stretch stitch for the seams, cover stitch for stitching the neck and sleeve bindings flat. And I left it unhemmed, because for some reason I prefer the look of that on tshirting Tiramisus, and this fabric won’t fray.

Unfortunately though, even though I made it to Agi’s measurements, it’s ended up a bit too big. Boo! 😦 (Has anyone else noticed that with the Tiramisu pattern? I found the same when I made one for myself and ended up having to take it in by a full size….) Luckily, it’s an easy pattern to take in, and Agi has a sewing machine….

Aren’t the dog and cat cute? Agi and her husband live on a small farm, and they have all sorts of lovely and friendly pets. 🙂

And just because these photos were taken in Hungary, here’s a few more photos from our visit to Hungary…. (Coz, you know, I can.)

Agi and her husband took us on a day trip to Eger. We spent a few hours wandering around the town, visiting one of the biggest churches, the Turkish minaret, and Eger castle.

Walking through the streets of Eger

Church in Eger

Painted church ceiling, Eger

Looking down on Eger from the top of the minaret

The following day, we went to Csongrad to visit Agi’s parents (who are also super lovely, and who were kind enough to have me live with them for a year). Imre (Agi’s father) took us for a ride on his river boat, along the Tisza river. So incredibly pretty, with all the trees changing colour.

Summer bridge over the Tisza river. It’s a floating bridge, and is only out for summer and early autumn, when there is low risk of floods.

Imre and I on his boat

Travels near Hobbits

On Wednesday, we went for a wander into town to see the spectacle of the world premiere of The Hobbit movie.

Courtenay Place was alive with lots of happy people – all excited about the movie, the chance to see some stars on the red carpet, and the fact that Wellington put on a stunningly beautiful day for it all.

Lots of people in Gandalf the Grey hats, even more in Hobbit ears. Some dressed up in cloaks and full costumes, despite the heat (poor things!). And others in rather random costumes – it seemed like a few people just took the opportunity to dress up in anything, including a purple lizard, a dalmatian, and someone wearing both Hobbit ears and a cat tail. As you do. The area near the Embassy theater was all decked out for the premiere, with a giant Gandalf and Bag End door above the theater entrance, a huge banner covering the building across the road from it, and a stage set up all covered in grass and looking like the Bag End Hobbit hole on the street outside where bands played and speeches were given later in the day.

We encountered a ring wraith and I couldn’t resist grabbing a photo with him. Pretty impressive, no?

These fellas were lurking above the crowd, looking threatening. (They’re now lurking in the second-floor of Te Papa, for anyone in Wellington who wants to see them up close. Scary details, down to the hairs on their chins.)

The guardians at the start of the red carpet walk:

We didn’t feel up to battling the crowds around the red carpet (especially in the sun, and with a pram) so wended our way along to the Hobbit Artisan Market at Waitangi Park.

The market was lovely – various stalls showing the workmanship of people who worked on the Hobbit (including gorgeous jewellery by Steph Lusted, who makes amazing pieces with things like found objects, bugs and butterflies in them), and lots of cute “Hobbit market” style touches like barrows in corners and a maypole.

We sat on the grass at the market square to watch the start of the red carpet parade on the massive screen there, then wandered home, happy and tired. I’m very much looking forward to going to see the Hobbit movie – are you?

Goodies from the bloggers meet up

Would you believe it? I completely forgot to gloat over share my new goodies from the Wellington bloggers meet up!

The first lot are three patterns I bought from Unearthed, as we made our way down Cuba St. There were so many other lovely patterns I wanted to buy there, but as far as vintage patterns go they were a bit on the pricey side, so I restrained myself and only bought three. (Ha! Like I need more patterns. Oh well!)

• Simplicity 1225 – a lovely 1944 suit pattern. It’s too small for me, so I’ll have to practice my grading skills with this one. I have a hankering for a wardrobe of 1940’s suits for some reason…. I’m building up a bit of a collection of patterns for them, now I just need to make them….
• Weigel’s 1783 – I like the double-breasted cross-over style of this bodice, I’m curious to see how it would work made up.
• Academy 2414 – for a 4 year old boy, shorts and a shirt. I love how the shirt buttons onto the shorts so they stay tucked in!

And then from the patterns and fabric swap we held, I managed to get my hands on these three pretties:

• Simplicity 5040 – a pretty shirt-waist dress, in variations for short, medium and tall women.
• Simplicity 8316 – a skirt pattern with four variations.
• Australian Home Journal 11614 – how cute is that lace overlay?!

I also got this lovely fabric:

• A burgundy shirting with blue pinstripes through it
• Black lightweight cotton with a pretty floral design

We’re planning the next Wellington bloggers meet up for mid-late January, and we’re each planning on making something from something we acquired during the November meet up. I’ve narrowed it down to four choices so far I think – the Weigel’s dress (assuming those buttons on the bodice actually work and aren’t just for show!), the Simplicity shirt waist dress, or one of the lots of fabric. What do you reckon I should make up first out of those three? Whichever one gets the most votes will get made for the January meet up. 🙂

From Martha’s to Marion’s – a Wellington bloggers journey

Once upon a time, in a land far away at the bottom of the world, lived seven little sewing bloggers. These bloggers all happily squirreled away in their own little homes, stitching and crafting, writing and photographing, making their lovely creations and sharing them with the internet world.

Then one day, one of the little sewing bloggers (we’ll call her the Crazy Gypsy) had a brilliant idea. “I know!” she said, “Lets arrange for all the Wellington sewing bloggers to meet, so we can finally meet each other in real life, away from the internets!” The other little sewing bloggers jumped for joy at this wonderful idea, and busily emailed back-and-forth, organsing where and when to meet.

Finally, the day arrived. The seven little sewing bloggers made their way to the pantry of Martha, where they exclaimed in delight over each others handmade garments, and indulged themselves with sparkly pink cake, milkshakes of surprising thickness, and talks of fabric and sewing.

Next, the seven little sewing bloggers wended their way down the Street of Cuba, pausing to unearth vintage pattern treasures at Unearthed, browse books at Minerva, and fondle fabric at Global Fabrics.

Eventually, the little sewing bloggers made their way to their final destination – Made Marion, where they descended on the large table at the back of the store and gleefully strewed fabric and patterns all over it’s surface. The bloggers nibbled biscuits (baked by the Crazy Gypsy), and poured over the offerings covering the table. They exclaimed at the patterns, draped the fabric over themselves, and each selected several offerings to take home.

And then it was time for the day to end. The seven little sewing bloggers, tired and happy, packed up their new-found goodies and wended their ways back to their little homes (and most likely their craft rooms), full of inspiration and tasty treats.

And they all lived happily ever after.
The end.

(A huge thanks to the wonderful Nikki who took all these photos, since I was having to much fun I forgot to take my camera out of my bag until the day was nearly over! Oops! Nikki has more photos and her story about the day up on her blog.)

Want to know who the seven little sewing bloggers were? Here they are!

Back row (left to right):
Joy – A Charm of Magpies
Mrs C – Sent from my iRon
Jo – Making it Well

Front row (left to right):
Nikki – Nikki’s Stitches
Juliet – The Crazy Gypsy Chronicals
And me and baby Drake

Sadly Mel (The Curious Kiwi) had to run away just before the group photo, but you can spot her eyeing up the pink fabric above.

Thanks for the lovely day ladies – I had a blast! 🙂

Wellington bloggers meet up – Saturday 24 November

Hey there wonderful people! This one’s a post for those of you who live in Wellington (or near enough to Wellington to want to come here for a day).

Juliet, Nikki, Mrs C reckon it’s about time we all meet up and see who the “real” people are behind the blogs. So, we’ve organised a meet up for Saturday 24 November!

There’ll be tea and cake, browsing of sewing type stores, a fabric and patterns swap, and lots of awesome chats with other sewing/craft bloggers.

You know you want to be there! 😉

We’ll be meeting up at 1pm on Saturday 24 November, in a nice central Wellington location.

Want to join us? (Coz we’d love to meet you all!) Send me an email for more details: macska at gmail dot com